Discussion thread on the Meta-Review of Women's Sexual Strategies

Interversity · 2016-01-16T20:11:24+00:00

Just gonna pull some of the more relevant quotes out for those who can't be bothered to read actual current scientific literature that specifically relates to the topic of the subreddit. Emphasis mine

Edit: Pretty disappointed with the intellectual dishonesty going on here. If you can't be bothered to read the discussion material, you shouldn't be part of the discussion.

Our analysis is consistent with sexual strategies theory. The studies we have reviewed confirm that women, too, can gain benefits from short-term mating. However, our analysis also suggests two significant updates. First, the balance of the evidence would seem to now suggest that short-term mating in women evolved, at least in part, to solve the problem of gaining access to good genes. Second, rather than short-term mating per se, the evidence seems to point to the evolution of extrapair mating—the psychology that leads women to have short-term affairs may be activated when they already occupy long-term partnerships. Thus, in addition to a temporal distinction between strategies, theories should distinguish between strategies that involve one sexual partner and those involving cotemporal sex with more than one mate (also see Greiling & Buss, 2000). Our review suggests that the latter distinction may play a larger role in defining variation in the strategies women pursue (but see Belsky et al., 1991; Elhs et al., 2003)

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The sources of evidence for dual-mating adaptations include nontrivial rates of extrapair paternity around the globe and the specificity of women's desires. Women more strongly prefer purported indicators of good genes when they are most likely to conceive within the cycle, and when they are considering a man as a potential short-term sexual partner. Because men with these traits may be less likely to invest in offspring, women do not strongly prefer these traits in long-term partners. Women also experience greater sexual desire for men other than their primary partners during the ovulatory phase of the cycle and particularly if their partners lack cues to good genes. The specificity of these findings appears to support the dual-mating hypothesis and pose a challenge to some general theories of human mating strategies (see below).

Alpha fucks, beta bucks, with real scientific evidence to back it up. So far we've come.

The dual-mating account further predicts that these shifts should be strongest for women who would have experienced the greatest fitness gains through extrapair mating, that is, those women whose own partners do not show indicators of good genes. Three studies have confirmed this prediction. In one study, the strength of a woman's ovulatory increase in extrapair desires was predicted by her partner's asymmetry: Only women with relatively asymmetrical partners showed increases in extrapair desires at midcycle (Gangestad, Thornhill, & Garver-Apgar, 2005b). Moreover, in this study, women with relatively symmetrical partners actually showed an increase in attraction to their own longterm mates at midcycle (Gangestad et al., 2005b). Two other studies showed that women's assessments of their social partners' sexual attractiveness moderated shifts in extrapair desires, such that women who perceived their partners as least sexually attractive showed the greatest shifts in extrapair attraction (Haselton & Gangestad, 2006; Pillsworth & Haselton, 2006). In these studies, the women who rated their partners highest on sexual attractiveness showed no evidence of an increase in extrapair desires near ovulation. Women's assessments of their partner's long-term attractiveness (e.g., possession of resources; Pillsworth & Haselton, 2006) and their satisfaction in their relationships (Haselton & Gangestad, 2006; Pillsworth & Haselton, 2006) did not predict cyclic shifts in extrapair attraction, indicating that the predicted effects were specific to partner sexual attractiveness. In sum, shifts in desire are experienced by the women who, according to the good genes theory, would have the most to gain through extrapair sex.

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Similarly, Havlicek et al. (2005) found a greater ovulatory shift in women's preference for dominant male body odor in mated women than in single women. Third, women who are themselves more physically attractive may be able to demand more in mates, and hence they may not have to trade off good genes indicators for investment to the same extent as less attractive women. Evidence shows, as expected, that more attractive women prefer more masculine faces than less attractive women (Little, Burt, Penton-Voak, & Perrett, 2001; Penton-Voak et al., 2003). Lastly, a woman's ability to control resources may cue a strategy in which she does not need to seek resources through a long-term social mate, and thus she can elevate her preference for indicators of good genes. Recently, Moore and colleagues (Moore, Cassidy, Law Smith, & Perrett, 2006) showed precisely this pattern. Women's wealth and control of resources were associated with preferences for attractiveness over resources in mates (Moore et al., 2006).

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Consistent with the existing literature, men's perceived arrogance, confrontational behavior, muscularity, and physical attractiveness predicted their attractiveness as short-term mates better than their attractiveness as long-term mates, whereas their faithfulness, warmth, intelligence, potential to be a good father, and potential for financial success predicted men's attractiveness as long-term mates better than as short-term mates. And, as predicted by the dual-mating account, the traits preferred more by women in the fertile phase of their cycle were also those preferred more in short-term mates: arrogant, confrontational, muscular, and physically attractive, as well as socially respected. The only other trait that was differentially preferred by low- and high-fertility women was faithfulness, but high-fertility women actually preferred it less than low-fertility women.

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Evidence of male counteradaptation to female infidelity. In the ancestral environment, the fitness costs to a man who was cuckolded were large—including the loss of his own reproductive opportunity and the investment of his resources in the offspring of a rival male. Thus, researchers have hypothesized that men will be sexually jealous of their mates. Many studies have shown that men express more distress than do women in response to the thought of their partner engaging in sexual intercourse with another man (Buss, 2000; Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992; Buss et al., 1999), and real or suspected infidelity is a leading cause of domestic violence and spousal homicide around the world (Daly & Wilson, 1988; Daly, Wilson, & Weghorst, 1982; Figueredo & McCloskey, 1993; Peters, Shackelford, & Buss, 2002; Rude, 1999). Men also engage in greater mate retention efforts when the threats of infidelity are highest. In a study of mate guarding in a Trinidadian village, Flinn (1988) found that men spent more time in the presence of their wives and engaged in more agonistic interactions with unrelated men when their wives were in the most fertile years of their lifespan. Similarly, Buss and Shackelford (1997) found that American men's mate retention tactics—including expressions of jealousy, increased monitoring of their partners' behavior, and increased expressions of love and commitment—were positively correlated with two indicators of their partners' reproductive potential: age and attractiveness. Several other studies have found that men are more jealous and possessive, as well as more loving and attentive, when their partners are near ovulation in the menstrual cycle, the time at which men's paternity is most threatened (Gangestad, Thornhill, & Garver, 2002; Haselton & Gangestad, 2006; Pillsworth & Haselton, 2006). One would not expect the evolution of anticuckoldry adaptations in men if women were inclined to be perfectly faithful. Thus, male sexual jealousy and mate retention tactics suggest a history of female infidelity.

ProtoPill · 2016-01-16T17:13:56+00:00

Thank you for sharing this, mythrow. It was a fascinating read.

MorpheusGodOfDreams · 2016-01-16T21:29:16+00:00

It has been true for all of human history, and people whining that "we are more than our biology" are lying to themselves by propping up humans above other animals, much like religious people do.

TheSandbergPrinciple · 2016-01-16T20:58:18+00:00

TLDR: Don't trust women if you are a beta (aka 80% of men)

Interversity · 2016-01-16T23:01:59+00:00

I don't disagree that there are attractive dudes who are not father material and unattractive dudes who are good family men. If those were the only two options, sure a woman's best mating strategy would be getting the best of both worlds by cheating. But there are not just two categories of men. I reject RP's claim that there are so few attractive, marriage minded men around. Beta Fucks abound in my circles. But I am an upper-middle class urban jerk. The study doesn't really talk about the rates women were/are forced to use dual mating strategy. If we're talking single moms settling down with safer dudes, I'll grant that's pretty common. But married women cucking their husbands? I don't buy it.

diFFzee · 2016-01-16T17:34:57+00:00

Dude ... reading 43 page scientific essay in order to participate in a Reddit thread is a bit of a tall order. Perhaps add an abstract.

Beyond that, humans are somewhere in between a Tournament Species and Pair Bonding species.

A Tournament species comes with a specific sexual strategy: a female expects no nurture from the male, so she just selects on the basis of the best possible genes to pass on to her offspring. That means you get extremes, stuff like 5% of males being responsible for 95% of infants in any specific group, and the corresponding physical differences between male/female, male is substantially larger/stronger than female because size is an indicator of good genes, and competition eliminates smaller/weaker males from the genepool (they never get to procreate so their genes don't get passed on etc.)

A pair bonding species mates and the male contributes to nurturing the infant. In pair bonding species females select males with traits that more closely mirror their own. The end result is there is hardly any size/strength disparity between male/female.

And that's literally how you classify species. You find male remains that are physically substantially larger than the female remains, you got a tournament species. You find male remains that are roughly the same size as the female, you got a pair bonding species. Since humans fall somewhere in the middle both sexual strategies (or a combination of both) are possible.

If you remove any kind of sentiment from the equation and just think purely in terms of evolution, selfish genes that are just interested in providing the most copies of themselves possible, then yes the mathematically "optimal" strategy is for a female is to combine the two strategies. To act like a tournament species when selecting a mate that will provide the best set of genes possible for her offspring, then act like a pair bonding species when the offspring come.

Two problems though. On the one hand, in the real world, you can't remove sentiment. Second problem, whereas the Tournament definition says select size, in practice humans have evolved past the stage where size is the only indicator of a good gene pool, or the best indicator of survive-ability. So in some respect, evolution is fighting against itself.

hyperrreal · 2016-01-16T17:19:57+00:00

[permanently deleted]

mythrow21 · 2016-01-16T20:20:53+00:00

One interesting challenge would be to see if the evolutionary theory actually holds across the whole phylogenetic tree. Do all pair-bonding animals that are ancestors of humans display extra-pair mating? If not, it would be an indication that the observed effects are behaviorally acquired and culturally inherited rather than passed on via genes.

manyfs · 2016-01-16T18:23:34+00:00

I'm not going to read the paper. I'm skeptical of dual mating (cuckolding) as a popular sexual strategy. It seems to ignore the fact that the child's appearance often provides a clue to the child's father. Appearance is not a 100% giveaway in most cases, but if your kid doesn't look like you AND your wife has been going out alone a lot, chances of cuckoldry are pretty good. Men know that, and they've known it for thousands of years.

Furthermore, if dual mating were a popular strategy, it should result in many children born of infidelity. That's testable, and I don't think it matches reality.

InBaggingArea · 2016-01-16T19:04:15+00:00

We do not have to do what our nature commands.

Though this paper may accurately describe the way women are inclined by their nature to behave, it does not follow that all women behave this way.

This distinction between our deeper nature and our chosen behavior in civil society is often overlooked. Both men and women are free as individuals to choose the extent to which they indulge their deeper nature.

The very fact that we can read this UCLA paper and adjust our behavior accordingly is constitutive of this freedom to choose.

Peachykeengreat · 2016-01-16T23:16:57+00:00

108 college aged women are totally indicative of women as a whole amirite? http://imgur.com/UKIupsV

Title	Discussion thread on the Meta-Review of Women's Sexual Strategies
Author	mythrow21
Upvotes	17
Comments	119
Date	January 16, 2016 4:44 PM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/4194g6/discussion_thread_on_the_metareview_of_womens/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/discussion-thread-on-the-meta-review-of-womens.276902 https://theredarchive.com/post/276902

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