Evolutionary Psychologist Shares How Women Select Men — Transcript

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1. 0:00maybe maybe we could we could start our
2. 0:02discussion of sexual differences in
3. 0:04mating strategy with that so first of
4. 0:06all what's the evidence that suggests
5. 0:08that women are in fact choosier when it
6. 0:10comes to sexual partners than men and
7. 0:12how much choosier are they okay okay
8. 0:15great question well so maybe first we
9. 0:17could def just Define for listeners what
10. 0:20sexual selection theory is uh because
11. 0:22most people when they think about
12. 0:23Evolution they think of survival of the
13. 0:25fittest and that sort of nature ring
14. 0:28tooth and clock and kind of romness too
15. 0:31which you know that that's kind of
16. 0:32implicit in the natural selection Theory
17. 0:34whereas sexual selection is anything but
18. 0:36random yeah absolutely so so sexual
19. 0:39selection so if if if natural selection
20. 0:42this is oversimplified but is um the
21. 0:45evolution of adaptations due to their
22. 0:47survival advantage or the survival
23. 0:49advantage that accred to the possessors
24. 0:52uh so things like fear of snakes fear of
25. 0:55heights spiders Darkness strangers and
26. 0:57so forth food preferences things that
27. 0:59led the better survival sexual selection
28. 1:01deals with the evolution of qualities
29. 1:03that lead to mating success and Darwin
30. 1:07identified two causal processes by which
31. 1:09mating success could uh occur one is
32. 1:12same-sex competition or intrasexual
33. 1:14competition and the logic there is that
34. 1:17whatever uh he he thought about it in
35. 1:20terms of contest competition where there
36. 1:22was a physical battle like two Stags
37. 1:24locking horns in combat uh with the
38. 1:27Victor gaining sexual access to the
39. 1:28female loser are ambling off with a
40. 1:31broken antler dejected with low
41. 1:33self-esteem and probably needing some
42. 1:36Psychotherapy uh but the logic was
43. 1:38whatever qualities led to success in
44. 1:40these same seex battles whether it be
45. 1:44athleticism uh strength agility cunning
46. 1:47or whatever those qualities get got
47. 1:49passed on in greater numbers due to the
48. 1:51sexual access that the victors acred uh
49. 1:54qualities associated with losing
50. 1:56basically bit The evolutionary dust uh
51. 1:58the second component so intersexual
52. 2:00competition which actually the logic is
53. 2:02more General than Darwin and vision so
54. 2:05like in our species as we were alluding
55. 2:08to we often compete for position and
56. 2:10Status hierarchies uh and so we we can
57. 2:15engage in in seexual competition without
58. 2:17engaging in this physical battle or
59. 2:20contest competition although I think
60. 2:21that the contest competition was also
61. 2:24part of human evolutionary history with
62. 2:27with males the other component process
63. 2:30is uh basically what Darwin called
64. 2:32female choice and the logic there is
65. 2:35that whatever qualities if there's some
66. 2:37consensus about the qualities that are
67. 2:39desired that men possessing the desired
68. 2:42qualities have a mating Advantage they
69. 2:44get preferentially chosen those lacking
70. 2:47the desired qualities basically become
71. 2:49incels or involuntarily celibate they
72. 2:51get shunned banished or ignored uh now
73. 2:55the The Twist on that and so I think
74. 2:58sexual selection is is by far a a more
75. 3:01interesting process and definitely has
76. 3:04occurred with respect to humans but the
77. 3:06twist there is that we have mutual mate
78. 3:09choice at least when it comes to
79. 3:11long-term mating especially I should say
80. 3:13especially when it comes to long-term
81. 3:14mating uh and and that gets to the issue
82. 3:17of uh trier's theory of Parental
83. 3:19investment where he said he asked the
84. 3:21question well which sex does the
85. 3:23choosing which sex does the competing uh
86. 3:27and he his answer was the sex that
87. 3:29invests more uh in Offspring tends to be
88. 3:32cheesier sex that invests less tends to
89. 3:34be more competitive for access to those
90. 3:37desirable uh members of the opposite sex
91. 3:39but in long-term mating uh now we know
92. 3:42from our reproductive biology that women
93. 3:44have that nine-month pregnancy which is
94. 3:47obligatory so women can't say look I'm
95. 3:50I'm really busy with my career I really
96. 3:52only want to put in three months it's
97. 3:53it's just part of our reproductive
98. 3:55biology H to produce one child and men
99. 3:59can that same child through one act of
100. 4:01sex and so uh so women are at least in
101. 4:05when it comes to sex the choosier sex
102. 4:08the higher investing sex in part because
103. 4:12the costs of making a bad mating
104. 4:14decision are much more severe for women
105. 4:17than for men man and woman hook up have
106. 4:20sex for one night in the morning they
107. 4:22both realize oh this is a mistake I
108. 4:24shouldn't have done that well if the
109. 4:26woman gets pregnant then she might be
110. 4:28pregnant with a guy who is not going to
111. 4:30invest in her Offspring a guy perhaps is
112. 4:34someone that uh has poor genetic
113. 4:37material uh it does not have a robust
114. 4:39immune system Etc so so anyway so that's
115. 4:43that's a long-winded answer to your
116. 4:44question about sexual
117. 4:48selection go ahead please go ahead oh I
118. 4:50was just going to say that the you asked
119. 4:52about the
120. 4:53evidence uh for females being choser and
121. 4:57they are choser primarily in the context
122. 5:01of casual sex or short-term sex so
123. 5:03that's where you find the big sex
124. 5:05differences and so one of the classic uh
125. 5:08and there there's a ton of evidence for
126. 5:10this this is a a a sex difference that
127. 5:13that I capture in the book under the
128. 5:14category of desire for sexual variety uh
129. 5:18so men have a much greater desire for
130. 5:20meaning a variety of sex partners uh
131. 5:24than than women do and so the choosing
132. 5:27comes in on I'll just give you one
133. 5:29experiment this is a classic study done
134. 5:31by um Elaine hfield and Russell Clark
135. 5:35where they had male and female
136. 5:37Confederates which uh for listeners are
137. 5:40members of the experimental team it
138. 5:41doesn't mean people from the South
139. 5:43United States uh there uh but they had
140. 5:46male and female Confederates simply walk
141. 5:48up to members of the opposite sex on a
142. 5:51college campus and say hi I've been
143. 5:53noticing you around campus lately I find
144. 5:56you very attractive would you and they
145. 5:58asked them one of three questions would
146. 6:00you go on a date with me tonight would
147. 6:01you come back to my apartment with me
148. 6:04would you have sex with me and it was a
149. 6:06between groups design so they simply
150. 6:07recorded the percentage of individuals
151. 6:09who agreed to these three different
152. 6:11requests and of the women about half
153. 6:14about a little over 50% agreed to go out
154. 6:16on a date with the guy uh 6% agreed to
155. 6:19go back to his apartment 0% agreed to
156. 6:22have sex with him most women need a
157. 6:24little more
158. 6:25information uh about the guy before
159. 6:28they're willing to have sex of the men
160. 6:30approach also about 50 by the female
161. 6:32Confederate about 50% agreed to go out
162. 6:34on the date 69% agreed to go back to her
163. 6:37apartment and 75% agreed to have sex
164. 6:40with her and so if you talk about
165. 6:43choosiness um uh are you willing to have
166. 6:45sex with a total stranger who you've met
167. 6:48for 30 seconds uh
168. 6:50women unwilling to and in general uh men
169. 6:55very willing to and this is a study
170. 6:56that's been replicated now in several
171. 6:58European studies very difficult to do
172. 7:00this as you might imagine to get this by
173. 7:02the irbs or ethics committees in in the
174. 7:04United States anyway um I assume it's
175. 7:07similar in Canada worse or worse so but
176. 7:11yeah yeah the kinds of studies we really
177. 7:13want to do are are more difficult to do
178. 7:15nowadays but it it's been replicated in
179. 7:18in U several Western EUR European
180. 7:21countries and you can get women off of
181. 7:24the 0% you can get a few percent of the
182. 7:26women saying yes if the guys really
183. 7:29really Charming you know if he's a Brad
184. 7:33Pit or or I don't know what the modern
185. 7:34equivalent was Ryan Gosling or one of
186. 7:36the uh you know or or perhaps a famous
187. 7:39rock star uh so um so but that's one
188. 7:43illustration of uh the answer to your
189. 7:45question about what is the evidence for
190. 7:47female choosiness now the interesting
191. 7:50thing here's I'll give you one more so
192. 7:52there are studies that ask what is the
193. 7:54minimum
194. 7:55percentile of intelligence that you
195. 7:58would accept in a potential partner so
196. 8:01and you and you know we explain
197. 8:04percentiles to people so they understand
198. 8:0699th percentile first percentile 50th
199. 8:08and so forth and um and basically for
200. 8:12things like a marriage partner uh men
201. 8:15and women are roughly equal they both
202. 8:17are very exact they say what they want
203. 8:18like say 65th 70th percentile
204. 8:22intelligence uh where the sex difference
205. 8:24comes up is just a sex partner a pure
206. 8:27sex partner with no investment uh women
207. 8:30still maintain they still want let's say
208. 8:3360th or 60 plus percentile in
209. 8:36intelligence whereas men drop you know
210. 8:38to embarrassing levels that doesn't
211. 8:40really it becomes irrelevant if 30th
212. 8:4240th percentile men go you know if she
213. 8:45can Mumble a little bit that's fine or
214. 8:47or even not so um that's another
215. 8:50indication of female choosiness that
216. 8:53that is they maintain greater
217. 8:55choosiness when it comes to short-term
218. 8:58sex and um and are simply less
219. 9:02comfortable with having sex with total
220. 9:04strangers or casual sex and uh here's
221. 9:07I'll give you one more now that I'm
222. 9:08rambling on and then I'll get to some
223. 9:11other uh interesting issues is uh this
224. 9:14is an item on the
225. 9:15sociosexuality inventory that colleagues
226. 9:19Steve gangestad and Jeff Simpson
227. 9:20developed a long time ago but one of the
228. 9:23items is it's an attitude item and it
229. 9:25says sex without love is okay do you
230. 9:29agree age with that or disagree with
231. 9:31that and there you get a large sex
232. 9:33difference so in the seven-point scale
233. 9:34where four is the midpoint uh men
234. 9:37average about 5.5 so they say yeah sex
235. 9:40without love yeah yeah that's okay women
236. 9:44are about 3.5 okay they're below the uh
237. 9:47that midpoint it's another indication um
238. 9:50of this sex difference in choosing do
239. 9:52you know if that's modulated by Big Five
240. 9:55trait
241. 9:57agreeableness oh that's a great question
242. 9:59I I haven't seen any studies that link
243. 10:02that okay big five to to that item or
244. 10:06the sociosexuality inventory in general
245. 10:09yeah well you'd wonder why if compassion
246. 10:12and empathy might be one of the things
247. 10:13driving that and the value that's placed
248. 10:15on that as a consequence of being higher
249. 10:17low in agreeableness and that would fit
250. 10:19in to some degree with the dark Triad
251. 10:20work that because the primary difference
252. 10:23there is we'll talk about the dark Triad
253. 10:24in a minute is that the dark Triad types
254. 10:27are low and agreeable essentially it's
255. 10:28not the only only thing but that's
256. 10:30Central yes so and that's where there's
257. 10:32a big there's a big sex difference