CMV: The Empathizing-Systemizing theory explains why women here are so dismissive of empirical research on sex, dating, and relationships.

Steakman1 · 2022-11-05T04:21:17+00:00

I’ve noticed there’s people here that like to selectively pick out things in their sources that support whatever biases they have while completely ignoring information in the same source that counters it. I won’t say it’s most, all, or very few people that do this. But the point is that it happens and it probably isn’t a good idea to assume that any post citing research is being 100% honest. And reality is that most people, including the people citing the source, are either too lazy or not invested enough to really read into the source to look at how these conclusions were reached. I’ve seen people trying to claim their source is 100% facts and accurate to how society functions when the sample size was less than 100 people.

There’s going to be people here that will agree with you and not even read the article you cited. But since it claims women have a certain flaw, that’s good enough to confirm their own biases. On the other hand, there will be people here who see your post, not read the article, and then just dismiss you as being an incel. Then if someone were to make a post that paints TRP in a bad light, there will be RP’ers that will read the title, dismiss the OP as being blue pill, beta, LVM, or whatever and not care to read into it further. Then there will be people who despise TRP that will claim the post is facts when they didn’t even look at the sources in the post. A lot of people won’t objectively approach a post that confirms their biases and a lot of people will be cognitively dissonant towards any post that goes against their own biases. It’s how people are.

FDS posts plenty of sources that paint men in a bad light. And I’m sure plenty of men here would have a very similar reaction to sources that make their sex look bad as it’s being argued women do here: “Oh she’s just a FDS’er.” “Oh she just hates men.” “She’s just mad she keeps getting pump and dumped.”

MicrospathodonChrys · 2022-11-05T05:10:43+00:00

While i accept that there are general trends in make vs female cognition, as with most traits there’s surely substantial overlap between the male and female distributions. That being said, i don’t think that women’s inability or disinterest in systemizing is the primary factor in the types of responses to posts you’re describing.

For context, i am a researcher by trade (biology/ecology, not human behavior), i write peer reviewed research, and in most things probably tend towards “systemizing” thought.

First, a lot of the research presented on here is just easy to dismiss. Usually folks only cite 1-3 articles. Often they are news articles attempting to translate research for a broader audience (and i know firsthand how much can get lost in translation with these). Sometimes they are peer-reviewed, but from, like, the early 90s. That’s not inherently problematic but typically if you’re making an argument that something holds true in the present environment, you’d need to mix in recent sources as well. Like no more than 3 years old. Stuff changes fast. Also, people misrepresent study results on here pretty frequently. If i dislike the claim being made by a poster, it’s human nature to look for reasons to dismiss it. Further, researchers are literally trained to look for reasons to reject others’ research in peer review—if it’s not a watertight argument, back to revisions.

Second, when it comes to dealing with people, i don’t really have any incentive to systemize. My interactions with humans are more pleasant when i approach with empathy and treat everyone as individuals. I think a lot of women likely feel this way. However, i can see why men who are struggling to find fulfilling relationships (which i recognize as a real problem) would feel compelled to systemize human behavior, to attempt to make behavior more predictable and to improve their odds of getting social and other needs met.

_revelationary · 2022-11-05T12:17:11+00:00

I don’t see many women on here outright dismissing research. The main issues I see is people on here blatantly misinterpreting research, for example, by making sweeping statements about all women or human nature based on some findings that don’t say what they think they say. Research is valuable (I’m a researcher) for showing trends but human behavior is more complex than a single paper’s findings would suggest. That’s why there are such issues with replication in the social sciences.

Demasii · 2022-11-05T03:33:45+00:00

The S brain have one huge flaw according to the article.

You might misinterpret other people's actions and motives.

Dating is a social interaction. Biased men on PDD misinterprets women's actions and motives to match whatever theory they believe in.

I would like to see examples of women of PDD dismissing empirical research. It's probably not actual research they are dismissing but the interpretation of it.

_demidevil_ · 2022-11-05T07:41:17+00:00

Did you really just pull out some Simon Baron-Cohen research from 2003? Lol. Even if we were to roll with that, why value systemising over empathising? Baron-Cohen has put forward the controversial “Male Brain” theory of autism - how do you explain the extremely empathetic autistic women who are also capable of systemising yet still see major flaws in the Red Pill theories?

howdoiw0rkthisthing · 2022-11-05T13:46:12+00:00

First of all: this guy is Sacha Baron Cohen’s cousin. Nothing important about that, just wondered if they were related and sure enough they are.

Second of all: you linked to a 20-year-old article with no data, so I went and found the data. And what that data shows (surprise 🎉) is a little more nuanced.

The study of roughly 200 men and 200 women tested them and placed them into 5 categories: Extreme E, E, Balanced, S, and Extreme S.

About a third of the women tested fell into the ~~Extreme~~ E category, a third into the Balanced category, and a quarter into the S category, with equally small percentages into Extreme E and Extreme S.*

The distribution for men was more extreme, with about 10% in the E category, a quarter balanced, and two thirds S, again a very small percentage in Extreme S*, and basically 0 in extreme E.

It’s tempting to see these trends and then boil it down to

female human brains are more geared toward “empathizing” whereas male human brains are more geared toward “systemizing.”

But the reality is that E-S is basically a sliding scale along which makes and females have different but overlapping distributions, and if you were to pick a random representative of each sex at random they probably wouldn’t be as different from each other as you assume. As evidenced by the very small categorization into the “extremes,” very few people with E leaning brains have 0 systemizing ability and very few people with S leaning brains have 0 empathetic qualities, if any.

But hey this was a very novel way of saying “man logical woman emotional therefore man>woman therefore woman inherently wrong.”

My personal thoughts no one cares about: I’m always a little depressed when I read one of these articles about how males are superior at x, y, and z because I just add it to the list of reasons I’m kind of misogynist, but then I also read something like this:

The evidence for a female advantage in empathising comes from many different directions. For example, studies show that when children play together with a little movie player that has only one eye-piece, boys tend to get more of their fair share of looking down the eye piece. They just shoulder the girls out of the way. Less empathy, more self-centred. Or if you leave out a bunch of those big plastic cars that kids can ride on, what you see is that more little boys play the "ramming" game. They deliberately drive the vehicle into another child. The little girls ride around more carefully, avoiding the other children more often. This suggests the girls are being more sensitive to others.

…and my little streak of misandry bubbles up, because I think “wow they really are all just brutish bullies who will kick and scream to get their way aren’t they?” So basically I hate everything and everything and being alive to witness it lol.

*Baron Cohen’s theory of the “extreme male brain” being associated with autism has received much criticism, including the fact that similar numbers of women seem to have Extreme S brains but aren’t represented in the autism figures, and because people with autism aren’t over represented in STEM.

Ppdebatesomental · 2022-11-05T10:21:14+00:00

women on PPD misunderstand and/or dismiss empirical research on human sexual behavior, cognition, and preferences.

Do they? Don’t men routinely dismiss hard data on what women actually find physically attractive in terms of age?

Or which gender ends up financially worse off after divorce?

Or which gender seems to actually be the one who monkey branches more?

Or how many women are increasingly willing to marry men who don’t make more money than them?

How women are marrying men with less education?

How men benefit from affirmative action?

How men who visit prostitutes are more likely to exhibit a host of behavioral red flags?

Do I go on?

Ok_Razzmatazz_1751 · 2022-11-05T12:44:10+00:00

Do you talk to real life women in these terms ? How's that working for you in the dating market ?

Willow-girl · 2022-11-05T12:32:44+00:00

Simon Baron-Cohen

Not to be confused with Sacha Baron Cohen ...

Willow-girl · 2022-11-05T12:41:10+00:00

If women are aren't as good at or as interested in systemizing, then that would explain why so many women on PPD misunderstand and/or dismiss empirical research on human sexual behavior, cognition, and preferences.

Or if could be we're aware that a lot of social science research uses college students as research subjects, and thus those results may or may not be applicable across a wider pool of adults, including many with greater life experience.

Looking at sorority-girl Stacey's Friday night behavior may not tell you much about the motivations of a 40-year-old accountant from Des Moines.

SmilesLikeMardiGras · 2022-11-05T10:43:37+00:00

i am a high systematizer, low empathizer and i dismiss studies and data in the realm of dating advice because they literally do not matter for the individual man and his life

Willow-girl · 2022-11-05T12:33:55+00:00

This wasn't mentioned in the article, but I have also read research on sex differences in monkey toy preferences, which came to similar findings.

The research I saw suggested that the female monkeys played with the dolls and trucks equally, while the males would play only with the trucks.

CruelAngelGradThesis · 2022-11-05T14:19:04+00:00

Woman whose life is currently inundated in empirical research here and genuinely enjoys it.

What goes on on this sub is 90% of the time and is mistaken for "logic" or "systemizing" is a complete bastardization of both of those concepts.

Throwing out a few research articles (which are often woefully misinterpreted btw) as a supplement for what ultimately amounts to your personal feelings/biases about sex and dating is not a systems approach. It allows men who are driven by emotion but aren't comfortable admitting it convince themselves that they are in fact acting based on "science."

It would be one thing to present research while appropriately acknowledging its flaws and limitations. It's another to become fixated on said research to the point of flipping out if another person so much as challenges it. You all do realize that this is essentially what academics and researchers do all day right? Challenge one another and continue to refine and develop the literature? Accept feedback and criticism? Not "oh you disagree with my results? Have you considered that you might just be an illogical hack?"

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Any_Power7698 · 2022-11-05T16:13:36+00:00

Lol, then why doesn't the average man dissect and fight the patriarchy.

srqfla · 2022-11-05T18:28:05+00:00

This is an excellent explanation for why women reject empirical evidence. It just doesn't feel right to them so it must be wrong

PMmeareasontolive · 2022-11-05T18:53:16+00:00

I'm a guy and I'm dismissive of a lot of studies posted. Many times it's obvious the person posting hasn't read beyond the title or first few lines of an abstract. This applies especially to evolutionary psychology articles, where people here expound on it as incontrovertible fact while the actual author admits it is just theorizing. But it's not uncommon for someone to just google up a bunch or study titles that appear to back their argument and link them, obviously without having read them.

The other thing is sample size and bias. The old joke is that the psyche department is next to the theater building so all their studies reveal that society has become extroverted and polyamorous (because all the theater kids volunteer for the studies). But that is a critique of many studies; that their subjects are largely students, whose political affiliations can be largely cherry picked depending on which departments are targeted for the study (often other psych students).

Another thing is the eternal question: who benefits from this? I'm on OkCupid and I've seen how they manipulate data to try and curate the user experience. That's understandable business-wise, but makes one doubt that they would suddenly be transparent in the research they choose to share.

Superannuatedpunk · 2022-11-05T21:58:12+00:00

If women are aren't as good at or as interested in systemizing, then that would explain why so many women on PPD misunderstand and/or dismiss empirical research on human sexual behavior, cognition, and preferences.

You're taking an article (an old one at that) by a researcher specialising in autism, and using it to say "bitches be irrational".

That's a big ol' leap in logic there champ.

badgersonice · 2022-11-05T16:33:14+00:00

If women are aren't as good at or as interested in systemizing

Look, in spite of being a woman, honestly I’m really happy to systematize… when it’s appropriate. My favorite subjects in school were math and physics, and I pursued those topics for my degree and career.

That being said, treating humans like tules-based automatons is dumb. I’m not particularly brilliant at interpreting other people, but I do know that wrote prescriptions don’t work because you rarely have enough information to make a good systematic evaluation.

My rejection of the empirical research on sex and relationships comes more from my knowledge of science— I generally consider social sciences more science-like than true sciences. While non-reproducibility is an issue in all fields, it’s a massive, overwhelming problem in the social sciences. I don’t think it’s necessarily the fault of social scientists (although I do think the fields attract a lot more people who aren’t that great in math), but rather that the tools available for studying human behavior are just not up to the task. It’s fine for them to be studies, but I don’t think they’re particularly useful for predictions beyond the most basic things.

That goes for all the people “sciences”: economics, sociology, psychology, etc, not just studies on sex and relationships, and not just evo-psych, by the way. Like, how often do economists make accurate predictions of anything?

I think some sub-fields hit the mark (some in biological and evolutionary anthropology are legit sciences).

WilliamWyattD · 2022-11-05T04:13:56+00:00

I think this natural male/female difference contributes to the issue, but is by no means the whole story.

Women still comprehend language, and there are many cases on PPD when women are explicitly asked to systematize and basically dodge the question somehow. When the men are asked to individualize, they generally do it. Do they sometimes overly apply their general theories to a specific, individual context? Hell yeah. But they still understand the question that was being asked.

With a lot of women, there is some deeper factor behind a refusal to look at systems here on PPD, often dodging with 'everyone is different' when they know for sure that there are still strong generalized patterns and those are what is being discussed.

My tinfoil hat hypothesis is that women explicitly or implicitly do know most of the systematic details, but they want to avoid discussing them because they feel that confirming their existence will just encourage crazy men to them move on to prescriptive policy ideas that are bad for women. It's a tactic. Rather than fight over the prescriptions, it is even better to just big everyone down in the descriptive stage.

revente · 2022-11-05T11:01:04+00:00

But if they were any good at emphatizing they’d ephatize with the male struggle. But they don’t.

Frankly the few women who somehow understand the male issues do it because of the rational arguments and data, not because they epathised with anyone.

memyhim · 2022-11-05T11:48:53+00:00

If women are empathizers then why don't the empathize with men? Why are they vicious to other women?

I reject this categorization and instead offer that women are primarily concerned with personal safety and comfort. That explains everything better.

doggiedoc2004 · 2022-11-05T22:52:37+00:00

Some of us may also be better at reading and understanding the poor quality studies posted to this site. Here are some problems with some of the studies and how they are interpreted

1.) too small of sample size

2.) biased sample (ie - college students invited to participate in surveys/tests for credit or money) - not representative of the general population of women

3.) "studies" based on survey data, especially survey data collected from people on the internet

4.) studies not being truly randomized and stratified for age and socioeconomic status

5.) men on here extrapolating poor quality studies (like the 80/20 finding based on an app - not real life)

6.) many folks on here, women included, suffer from confirmation bias

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throwaway164_3 · 2022-11-05T12:45:18+00:00

Does he have any pop sci book where he goes into this in more detail? Curious to learn!

To me, all this seems to rule out the oft-repeated claim that these disparities are mostly due to socialization.

Totally agree, and to me this is the biggest problem with the bluepill. They stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that men and women are fundamentally wired differently and are sexually dimorphic. They persist with the delusion of an egalitarian “blank slate” ideology.

immalayhandsonya · 2022-11-05T17:07:39+00:00

It seems to me like this:

Men desire beautiful women. Nobody disputes that. But then, they do. Because empirically, you see that men seem to accept every type of woman. There is no woman who can't get a man should she want one.

Yet us men KNOW that we desire beautiful women. They are at the top of a value hierarchy and we want to get as close to the best looking woman we can. But, we are happy to settle because hey, most people just have to settle.

I think it's the same for women. Women desire the most attractive men (what makes a man attractive is the point of the red pill, to make it obvious what is the pinnacle of male attractiveness, just as the pinnacle of female attractiveness is easily understood.)

Yet, in reality, most women just have to settle for less. Empirically, you do indeed see women settling for far less than their ideal.

So I think that is where there is room for women to deny their attraction to the pinnacle of male attractiveness. Empirically, you can deny it because simple fact is most people end up with SOMEONE.

What men want to accuse women of, is refusing to settle like we do. We men settle for less than perfection and seemingly we are happy to do so.

We seem to be accusing women of not only refusing to settle, but when they do settle, they do so begrudgingly.

So while science does research and discovers what women want, revealing the top of the value hierarchy, it does not take into account real life where people are forced to settle in one way or another.

It seems to me that men are angry about what is at the top of women's value hierarchy. But men's is equally amoral.

Neither side's epitome of attraction is who the person really is. It's just a projection of society's or maybe biology's determined values. Either way, our values are determined by something outside of our control.

For women, it's easy and plain to see what men want. We want beautiful women. If a woman wants a man or many men or as close to the best she can get, she knows exactly how to get it. Become as beautiful as possible in order to obtain the desired man.

However for men, what women want seems to be a mystery. Sure we can entertain the red pill or whatever. But you see women denying left right and center, the truth which science has revealed, that women prefer men with resources and power and such like that.

Women know that is amoral. They reject it because it's not cool.

But hey, it's not really cool that us men value beauty so much. Both men and women should value a person's real character and real self.

But hey, you gotta be attracted and I guess that is an unavoidable biological drive. Evolution dictates that our sexuality should seek the best possible genes.

The best genes are not always the moral genes.

I think everyone needs to just admit our sexualities on both sides are amoral, and also, unavoidable. That equality and fairness does not exist in the world of sex love romance or whatever.

But see, women know what to do. Men do not. Men just want to truly understand women's amoral truth, so we can strive to achieve the attractiveness to women that they want. Just as they will do so to achieve what we want.

Us men either refuse to submit to the desires of women, or we are confused as to what those desires truly are (since women vehemently deny them).

And so we go on debating. Women denying what seems to be fact. Men scared to embrace it, yet also scared to reject it lest we fail to understand how to obtain good relationships and sex and all that.

At the end of the day, you have to develop the self esteem to want to achieve your own happiness.

It's just hard to be happy when you know the system is rigged against you. I'm sure women who are not beautiful feel pretty awful about it. At the same time they try their best.

Us men have to do the same. It's your life and it's not fair and it won't ever be fair and you have no choice to live this life or kill yourself I suppose.

So search for happiness and do your best to obtain those values which you desire the most to achieve the happiest life possible for you.

Title	CMV: The Empathizing-Systemizing theory explains why women here are so dismissive of empirical research on sex, dating, and relationships.
Author	w1se_old_tree
Upvotes	75
Comments	202
Date	November 5, 2022 2:35 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/ymhw4g/cmv_the_empathizingsystemizing_theory_explains/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/cmv-the-empathizing-systemizing-theory-explains.1138055 https://theredarchive.com/post/1138055

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