#biology #evolution #psychology # [[Epistemic status]] #shower-thought #to-digest # Related # TODO > [!TODO] TODO # Evolutionary psychology >The breakthrough in applying sexual selection to humans came in the late 1970s and 1980s, in the form of theoretical advances initiated by my colleagues and myself in the fields of psychology and anthropology.We tried to identify underlying psychological mechanisms that were the products of evolution— adaptations that would help to explain both the extraordinary flexibility of human behavior and the active mating strategies women and men pursue. This new discipline is called evolutionary psychology >~ [[David M. Buss]] ## Mating commitment >A woman who preferred to mate with a reliable man, one willing to commit to her over the long run, was more likely to have children who survived and thrived. Over thousands of generations, a preference for men who showed signs of being willing and able to commit to them evolved in women, just as preferences for mates with adequate nests evolved in weaverbirds. This preference solved key reproductive problems, just as food preferences solved key survival problems. >~ [[David M. Buss]] ## Love is proportional to the wallet's size >Finally, women face the problem of integrating their knowledge about a prospective mate. Suppose that one man is generous but emotionally unstable. Another man is emotionally stable but stingy. Which man should a woman choose? Choosing a mate calls upon psychological mechanisms that make it possible to evaluate the relevant attributes and give each its appropriate weight in the whole. There are trade-offs. A masculine man might possess good genes but may be more likely to cheat. Some attributes are granted more weight than others in the final decision about whether to choose or reject a particular man. One of these heavily weighted components is the man’s resources. >~ [[David M. Buss]] >Wherever females show a mate preference, the male’s resources are often, although not always, the key criterion. >~ [[David M. Buss]] >In an attempt to replicate the studies from earlier decades, I surveyed 1,491 Americans in the mid-1980s using the same questionnaire. Women and men from Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, and California rated eighteen personal characteristics for their value in a marriage partner. As in the previous decades, women still valued good financial prospects in a mate roughly twice as much as men did. Nor did these gender differences diminish in the 1990s or the 2000s, or in published studies through the year 2015. >There were some cultural variations. Women from Nigeria, Zambia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Taiwan, Colombia, and Venezuela valued good financial prospects a bit more than women from South Africa’s Zulu communities, the Netherlands, and Finland. In Japan, for example, women valued good financial prospects roughly 150 percent more than men did, whereas women from the Netherlands deemed financial prospects only 36 percent more important than their male counterparts did—less than women from any other country. Nonetheless, the sex difference remained invariant—women worldwide desired financial resources in a marriage partner more than men. ## What's your place in hierarchy ? >Women desire men who command a high position in society because social status is a universal cue to the control of resources. Along with status come better food, more abundant territory, and superior health care. Greater social status bestows on children social opportunities missed by the children of lower-ranked males. Male children in families of higher social status worldwide typically have access to more mates and better-quality mates. >American women also place great value on education and professional degrees in mates—characteristics that are strongly linked with social status. Women rate lack of education as highly undesirable in a potential husband. The cliché that women prefer to marry doctors, lawyers, professors, successful entrepreneurs, and other professionals seems to correspond with reality. Women shun men who are easily dominated by other men or who fail to command the respect of the group. >~ [[David M. Buss]] # External links <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sndW9hzX-wA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HXzTbCEqCJc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> Similar topic links: [[Evolutionary psychology]] [[Feminism]] [[Biology/Sex]] [[David M. Buss - The Evolution of Desire Strategies of Human Mating]] [[Gender]]