Test 2 Flashcards
Charles Darwin
“The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to sex”
- applies theoretical principles to human evolution
- patriarchy: Darwin argued for male superiority over women
Core principles of evolutionary theory (2)
Natural selection: survival to facilitate reproduction
Sexual selection: reproduction, even at expense of survival
Key sexual selection processes (evo)
Parental investment: leads to different mating dynamics and occupation of different roles
Intersexual selection: because reproduction is costly, women get to be the one’s who choose who to have sex with
Intrasexual competition: Arms race for non-human animals
I: Generalized Theory Phase (evo)
David Buss: introduced evolutionary approach to studying sexuality
Randy Thornhill: American biologist/evolutionary psychologist, “Natural History of Rape”
II: Localized theory phase (evo)
- advancements in theory development; researchers developed psychology-specific theories of how evolutionary processes shaped sexuality
- advances in measurement; individual-difference variables
- ecologically valid/captivating studies
Sexual strategies theory
men and women have evolved both short-term and long-term sexual strategies in order to solve unique adaptive problems
Women’s short-term mating strategies
resource extraction
mate-switching
evaluating long-term potential
Women’s LT mating strategies
willing/able to invest
physical protection
commitment
Mens ST mating strategies
sexually available
minimizing investment
fertility
Mens LT mating strategies
paternity
reproductive value
commitment
Sociosexual orientation
To what extent does a person desire sexual contact outside a committed relationship context
- ranges from very restrictive (exclusive relationships only) to unrestrictive
- Schmitt found that on average men were found to be less restrictive or more permissive than women
- small but detectable differences between countries
Clark & Hatfield - Just ask
- how you respond to a date solicitation vs a casual sex solicitation
- in terms of responding to a date, men and women were pretty comparable in their favourability (50 vs 55% said yes)
- for casual sex, 75% of men said yes vs 0% women
III: Modernized theory phase
- moving away from self-report measures
- social cognitive revolution; want people’s immediate gut response
- moving towards ‘multivariate analyses’
Strengths of evolutionary perspective
- explicitly theory-driven
- often very clear predictions
- historically, methodologically innovative
Limitations of evo perspective
- continues to have a falsifiability/competitor theory problem
- has resorted to specious and hypocritical counter-argument
- struggling to not become a caricature of its own principles
- patriarchal, sexist, etc
Gender similarities hypothesis
Dr. Janet Shirley Hyde
- in most psychological respects, we should be expecting no differences between men and women
- in some cases, there will be small differences
- most psychological variables are in 96% overlap
- can have lots of diversity within groups
Cognitive social learning theory
- gender differences may be a product of learned/modelled behaviour
- effect sizes may change over time - online porn consumption changing by their increasing popularity
- differences in gender should decrease across time, as society becomes more sexually liberal
- evidence: decreased for some variables, but increased for others
Social structural role theory
gender differences may be a product of gendered division of labor and disparities in social power
- evidence: smaller gender differences in nations with less gender inequality, and smaller gender differences in particular racial groups
- seems to be something about patriarchal context that exacerbates gender differences
Eagly and Wood reply to Schmitt (2005)
- representation in government was one of the best predictors of size and gender differences
- better than some evolutionary perspective-inspired predictors
- good reason to think results would have been different if more egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies included
Dr. Terri Conley
Women’s studies researcher, best known for research on consensual non-monogamous relationships and critically evaluating gender differences in sexuality
Problem with Clark & Hatfield (1989)
- focus too much on receiver; not really some deeply preferred preferences for mating in the receiver
- finds that women are less likely to accept casual sex from spontaneous offers because they are concerned for their safety as well as they thought the man would be sexually incompetent
- if safety and sexual competence were controlled, can knock out gender differences