http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinio...ral&src=me
Interesting info on male/female dating/mating patterns.
Interesting info on male/female dating/mating patterns.
Quote: (01-13-2013 03:40 PM)Ensam Wrote:
Evo. psych is the string theory of sociology. It's a useful model that can be used to break the traditional paradigms we use to evaluate social interactions but it's hardly a science. Until you can identify the mechanism that passes on social traits it's all just conjecture. Take it all with a huge grain of salt.
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Recently, a third pillar appeared to fall. To back up the assumption that an enormous gap exists between men’s and women’s attitudes toward casual sex, evolutionary psychologists typically cite a classic study published in 1989. Men and women on a college campus were approached in public and propositioned with offers of casual sex by “confederates” who worked for the study. The confederate would say: “I have been noticing you around campus and I find you to be very attractive.” The confederate would then ask one of three questions: (1) “Would you go out with me tonight?” (2) “Would you come over to my apartment tonight?” or (3) “Would you go to bed with me tonight?”
Roughly equal numbers of men and women agreed to the date. But women were much less likely to agree to go to the confederate’s apartment. As for going to bed with the confederate, zero women said yes, while about 70 percent of males agreed.
Those results seemed definitive — until a few years ago, when Terri D. Conley, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, set out to re-examine what she calls “one of the largest documented sexuality gender differences,” that men have a greater interest in casual sex than women.
Ms. Conley found the methodology of the 1989 paper to be less than ideal. “No one really comes up to you in the middle of the quad and asks, ‘Will you have sex with me?’ ” she told me recently. “So there needs to be a context for it. If you ask people what they would do in a specific situation, that’s a far more accurate way of getting responses.” In her study, when men and women considered offers of casual sex from famous people, or offers from close friends whom they were told were good in bed, the gender differences in acceptance of casual-sex proposals evaporated nearly to zero.
Quote: (01-13-2013 07:58 PM)Ensam Wrote:
I'm not dismissing it, there are some great ideas. But they're just ideas at this point.
Quote: (01-13-2013 07:58 PM)Ensam Wrote:
The only valid conclusion you can get using an evolutionary psych theory is "People who do <x> behavior have more offspring who survive to reproductive age and repeat <x> behavior than those who don't." Even that statement is incredibly tough to state with any kind of confidence. The strongest form is when they can say <xx> gene causes more of a certain hormone to be expressed which leads to behavior that increases the likelihood of reproduction and survival of offspring to reproductive age.