Two recent studies on hypergamy from Archives of Sexual Behavior, a top journal in sociology

[deleted] · 2013-11-18T18:16:58+00:00

The word hypergamy is annoying but it's a real thing IMO. Flaming liberal right here too, solidly purple. I don't think either side is 100% right, but I believe that MOST LIKELY men and women are this way. There are always exceptions but this is why we look at the world through probability and not absolutes. Statistically I believe the majority of men and women do this.

Bonig · 2013-11-18T18:00:16+00:00

I don't have access from this computer. Would you mind to post the numbers and the methods? Like, which percentage of men preferred younger women and how was it investigated?

Also, I don't see how this proves anything or rather, which message you want to convey with your (nonetheless informative) post.

lokidemon731 · 2013-11-18T18:45:04+00:00

I always understood hypergamy to be an alternative to monogamy, as in women cannot be faithful to one man because she is always looking for a man with higher social status. If that is proof of hypergamy, is it also proof that men cannot remain faithful to one women because they will always be looking for a more attractive woman?

JuCee · 2013-11-18T22:59:39+00:00

Look, it's not controversial that heterosexual men tend to evaluate partners based on attractiveness, and heterosexual women tend to evaluate partners based on status.

The problem is that TRP takes this to extraordinary lengths, namely that

these differences are innate, biological, and unchangeable.
hypergamy means that women will always leave their partner when a better one is available.

Neither of the above are supported by science in any sense, not even by the papers you've cited. A feminist/gender theoretical discussion of this situation asks,

what are the societal conditions that cause these differences?
are these differences rooted in a harmful view of gender?
do these differences result in inequality? (where "equality" can take a number of definitions)
if so, how can this be changed?

The existence of the phenomenon is not the primary source of dispute, it's the speculation of its causes and what is best to do about it.

MissCherryPi · 2013-11-18T20:46:11+00:00

These papers provide support for the idea that women act in a hypergamous way. But there's no evidence as to why they do this. Nothing here suggests that these preferences are intrinsic to having two X chromosomes or being born with ovaries and a vagina.

LeaneGenova · 2013-11-18T18:33:57+00:00

I don't really have a stake in this right now since I'm in the middle of a giant brief, but I have access to both of the sources. If you want me to send you a link to the full versions, just comment and I can PM you the links.

vegetableorange · 2013-11-19T00:14:10+00:00

I don't know what the sample sizes are in your studies but here is a study from Portugal with a sample of 66 598 which shows that

The results demonstrate a strong educational homogamy in this national Portuguese sample. However, men tend to marry women who are slightly more educated than themselves.

Archipelagi · 2013-11-18T18:13:38+00:00

Putting up paywalled articles for discussion doesn't do much good. Abstracts typically proclaim a lot more than the data supports, and there's no much discussion to be had on abstracts alone.

The first article would be extremely problematic for proving your point. First, it doesn't appear to use TRP's definition of "hypergamy," second, using a study based on male behavior to draw conclusions about female behavior is obviously problematic, and third, the article seems to have conclude that a biological basis for "age hypergamy" was not adequately supported, and that it appears instead to be a culturally perpetrated trend.

The second article also appears to contradict TRP thought:

Overall, homosexual men and women have similar mate preferences to heterosexual men and women by showing more dating desire for attractive and high social status persons.

nicethingyoucanthave · 2013-11-18T18:05:41+00:00

[removed]

mrsamsa · 2013-11-18T21:04:39+00:00

This suggests that this gender dichotomy may not be a social construct, but an innate preference for traits that are encompassed by the groups 'feminine' and 'masculine'. The author cites papers detailing evolutionary causes that may be attributed to this innate hypergamy, but argues (while acknowledging no proof) that this is an extension of social construct.

I'm not sure how you can conclude this. The entire paper was set up to test a specific prediction of the innate explanation for hypergamy and they found that, through the use of a homosexual comparison group, the results were incompatible with the prediction from the innate explanation. What they did find was that the prediction from the sociocultural explanation was further supported by these new findings, lending more evidence to the suggestion that it's primarily (if not exclusively) a cultural phenomenon.

But whatever the reason, age-related hypergamy is shown to exist according to conventional belief.

Certainly true, but the problem remains that it's not innate. More problematically is the fact that age homogamy is increasing in many parts of the world. This obviously confirms the classic finding (which continues to be confirmed over and over again) that assortative mating in terms of age results in couples marrying people their own age.

So I don't think anybody denies that generally women prefer older guys and guys prefer younger women, but this is a trend that is fading as people move away from traditional values and really hasn't ever impacted marriage rates at all.

This paper on social hypergamy comes from a medical university in the Netherlands, a notably feminist country. Data was taken 2009-2010, and the study was published in 2011.

I don't think the results are overly surprising there. Men and women rank attractiveness as the most important factor when assessing a mate, and women slightly value status more than men do (note that men still rank status as an important factor). This slight difference in preference for status is consistent with the author's explanation of socialisation effects, as well as previous research on the topic which shows that status preferences tend to equalise as treatment of women in that society become more equal.

Basically, nobody denies that some of these differences exist. There are two controversial parts to it:

that these differences are innate, and
that these differences result in women always trying to "trade up".

The first is only problematic because it's not currently supported and red pillers tend to make grandiose claims that speak well beyond the data. But if evidence supported it, it's not a big deal (as obviously biological doesn't exclusively determine behavior anyway and we can't derive 'oughts' from 'is').

The second is more problematic as there is simply no evidence or reasoning to suggest that this is true. There is no possible way to get form "women find X attractive" to "women are always trying to trade up to obtain X". The bigger problem of course is that hypergamy is obviously present in both men AND women, so any attempt to accuse women of being sluts for such behavior (if it existed) would equally have to apply to men.

Interesting discussion though. I'm glad that red pillers are finally starting to link to some evidence and articles so that it's actually possible to debate something.

EDIT: Fixed article tagging.

Title	Two recent studies on hypergamy from Archives of Sexual Behavior, a top journal in sociology
Author	PizzaOnEarth
Upvotes	12
Comments	140
Date	November 18, 2013 5:41 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1qwppv/two_recent_studies_on_hypergamy_from_archives_of/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/two-recent-studies-on-hypergamy-from-archives-of.286594 https://theredarchive.com/post/286594

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