HC 8 Flashcards
Sexual Conflict
• conflict about sexual access
• conflict between freedom of mate choice and mate guarding
• male rape that conflicts with female choice
– Vladimir wants to have sex at the end of the first date, whereas his date, Mashenka, prefers to wait (conflict about sexual access)
– Sue wants to go to a party without her husband Marc to check out whether there might be a better mate for her, whereas Marc wants to keep Sue at home to prevent her from interacting with other men (conflict between freedom of mate choice and mate guarding)
– Silvio gets Maria drunk and forces her to have sex while she is incapacitated (male rape that conflicts with female choice)
Explain Sexual conflict
• When the genetic interests of a male and a female diverge, sexual conflict can ensue
– “a conflict between the evolutionary interests of individuals of the two sexes” (Parker, 2006, p. 235)
– “Evolutionary interests” =“genetic interests”
Strategic Interference Theory (3)
– Strategic interference occurs when a person employs a particular strategy to achieve a goal and another person blocks the successful enactment of that strategy
– Strategic interference is predicted to occur whenever members of one sex violate the desires of members of the opposite sex
– “Negative” emotions such as anger, rage, and distress represent evolved solutions to the problems of strategic interference
• Alert people to the sources of interference and prompt action designed to counteract it
Conflict over Sexual Access
• Inferences about Sexual Intent
Men sometimes infer sexual interest on the part of a woman when it does not exist
Conflict over Sexual Access
• Deception about Commitment
Men report intentionally deceiving women about emotional commitment
Conflict over Sexual Access
• Cognitive Biases in Sexual Mind Reading (2)
– Sexual overperception bias minimizes the costs of missed sexual opportunities
• M >F
– Commitment skepticism bias
• Women have evolved an inferential bias designed to underestimate men’s actual level of romantic commitment to her early in courtship
• F> M
Mating conflict in humans
• Error management theory
Fear incoherent to danger
Sexual content detector incoherent M vs F
Sexual Aggression and Evolved Defenses Against Sexual Aggression
• Sexual Harassment
“unwanted and unsolicited sexual attention from other individuals in the workplace” (Terpstra & Cook, 1985)
– Victims of sexual harassment are typically women
• Complaints filed with the Illinois Department of Human Rights over a two-year period
– women filed seventy-six complaints
– men filed five
Study of 10,644 federal government employees
– 42 percent of the women experienced sexual harassment
– 15 percent of the men experienced sexual harassment
Do Men Have Evolved Rape Adaptations?
• Rape-as-adaptation theory
– Proposes that selection has favored ancestral males who raped in certain circumstances
– Six specialized adaptations might have evolved in the male mind (Thornhill & Palmer, 2000)
Do Men Have Evolved Rape Adaptations? (6)
• Assessment of the vulnerability of potential rape victims (e.g., during warfare or in non-warfare contexts in which a woman lacks the protection of husband or kin)
> > > • A context-sensitive “switch” that motivates rape in men who lack sexual access to consenting partners (e.g., “loser” males who cannot obtain mates through regular channels of courtship)«<
• A preference for fertile rape victims
• An increase in sperm counts of rape ejaculates compared with those
occurring in consensual sex
• Sexual arousal to the use of force or to female resistance to consensual sex
• Marital rape in circumstances in which sperm competition might exist (e.g., when there is evidence or suspicion of female infidelity)
Do Men Have Evolved Rape Adaptations?
• Individual Differences in Rape Proclivity
Men differ in their proclivity toward rape
• Men asked to imagine that they had the possibility of forcing sex on a woman against her will when there was no chance of being discovered
– 35 percent indicated a likelihood of rape
Do Men Have Evolved Rape Adaptations?
• By-product theory of rape
Rape is a non-designed and non-selected-for by-
product of other evolved mechanisms
• Male desire for sexual variety
• Desire for sex without investment
• Psychological sensitivity to sexual opportunities
• General capacity to use physical aggression to achieve a variety of goals
Do Women Have Evolved Anti-rape Adaptations?
• If rape has been a recurrent hazard for women, what defenses might have evolved to lower the odds of becoming a victim? (2 hypothesis)
Several have been hypothesized:
• The formation of alliances with other males as “special friends” for protection (Smuts, 1992)
• Bodyguard hypothesis
Do Women Have Evolved Anti-rape Adaptations?
• “bodyguard hypothesis”
Mate selection based on qualities of men such as physical size and social dominance that deter other men from sexual aggression
Do Women Have Evolved Antirape Adaptations? (3)
- The cultivation of female–female coalitions for protection (Smuts, 1992)
- The development of specialized fears that motivate women to avoid situations in which they might be in danger of rape (Chavanne & Gallup, 1998)
- The avoidance of risky activities during ovulation to decrease the odds of sexual assault when they are most likely to conceive (Chavanne & Gallup, 1998)
Jealous Conflict
• Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that the cognitive/emotional complex of jealousy, and behavioral output of tactics of mate retention, have evolved to deal with…? (3)
– fending off mate poachers
– deterring a mate’s sexual infidelity
– retaining a mate for the long run
Contexts Influencing the Intensity of Mate-Retention Tactics
• Women vs Men
For men: • Young, Attractive Partner • Low Mate Value Self For women: • Income and Status Striving of the Husband
Evolutionary Theories of Dominance, Prestige, and Status
• An evolutionary theory of status must (3)
– Specify the adaptive problems that are solved by
ascending status hierarchies
– Explain why individuals accept subordinate positions within hierarchies
– Predict which tactics people will use to negotiate hierarchies
Evolved status psychology
• Psychological adaptations for: (4)
– Assessing social status
– Improving your status
– Managing social status
– Capitalizing status into reproductive opportunities
An Evolutionary Theory of Sex Differences in Status Striving
• Elevated dominance and status can give males greater sexual access along two paths:
- Dominant men might be preferred as mates by women
• High-status men can offer women greater protection and increased access to resources that can be used to help support them, and their children, and perhaps even access to better health care (Buss, 1994b; Hill & Hurtado, 1996) - – Dominant men gain increased access to women through intrasexual domination (Puts, 2010)
• Dominant men might simply take the mates of subordinate men, leaving these low- ranking men helpless to retaliate (Bathsheba syndrome)
An Evolutionary Theory of Sex Differences in Status Striving
• Woman in polygynous societies?
• Women in polygynous societies often prefer to share with other cowives a bounty of resources that a high- ranking man can provide, rather than have all of the smaller share of resources held by a lower-ranking man (Betzig, 1986)
Status and Sexual Opportunity
• Evidence shows? (2)
- Empirical evidence supports the evolutionary rationale for predicting a sex difference in the strength of the motivation to achieve high status
- All available evidence suggests that high status in men leads directly to increased sexual access to a larger number of women
Determinants of Dominance
• Verbal and Nonverbal Indicators of Dominance: dominant individuals tend to? (6)
Dominant individuals tend to • stand at full height, often facing the group, with hands on hips and an expanded chest • gaze a lot, looking at others while talking • do not smile much • touch others • speak in a loud and low-pitched voice • gesture by pointing to others
Determinants of Dominance
• Testosterone and Dominance
High T levels in men might lead to dominating behaviors that lead to high status in some subcultures, but reciprocally, elevations in status appear to lead to rises in T levels
Determinants of Dominance
– Submissive individuals tend to (7)
- stand bent rather than straight
- smile a lot
- speak softly
- listen while the other is speaking and give many deferential head nods
- speak less than those who are higher in status
- don’t interrupt others who are speaking
- address the high-status persons in the group, rather than the group as whole
Determinants of Dominance
• Self-Esteem as a Status-Tracking Mechanism
– Sociometer Theory?
Proposes that self-esteem functions as a subjective indicator or gauge of other people’s evaluations
– An increase in self-esteem signals an increase in the degree to which one is socially included and accepted by others
– A loss of self-esteem follows from a downward shift in the degree to which one is included and accepted by others
Evolutionary Theories of Dominance, Prestige, and Status
• Dominance vs Prestige?
• Dominance
– involves force or the threat of force
> Schoolyard bully or a mafia “made man” may attain status through an ability to inflict physical punishment on others
• Prestige
– “freely conferred deference”such as to leaders
Prestige Signaling, Reputation, and Leadership (3)
- Individuals acquire prestige by displaying high levels of competence on tasks that groups value
- Displaying generosity by giving more than taking
- Making personal sacrifices that signal commitment to the group
Evolutionary leadership theory (5)
• Leadership as an evolved mechanism to coordinate group members
• Leadership common across social species
• Leadership is human universal
• Fast and automatic judgments
• Underpinned by evolved psychological mechanisms (heuristics) to follow leaders:
– “Want to dominate, follow a physically strong individual”
