Evolution and human behavior

Evolution and Mate Selection

Men and Beauty

Women and Status

Evolution and Determinism

The Structure of the Nervous System

Central & Peripheral

Three Major Divisions of the Brain

Hindbrain, Midbrain, Forebrain

 

When it comes to romantic partners:

men seem to focus on physical beauty

women seem to focus on status

What they did:

Show heterosexual men and women either opposite sex nudes or abstract art.

Then have everyone rate their satisfaction with their current romantic partner.

What they found:

Women were unaffected by the manipulation.

Men were more dissatisfied with their current partner after looking at nudes.

Conclusion:

Men are more affected by physical beauty than are females

 

 

 

What he did:

Set up a "dating game." Manipulated physical attractiveness and status of prospective dates.

What he found:

Men were attuned to physical attractiveness, but not status. Women were attuned to status, but not physical attractiveness.

What Buss did:

Asked men and women to imagine that their romantic partner was engaged in either a physical or emotional relationship with someone else.

Then asked them to indicate how "upset" they would be.

What he found:

Women were more upset imagining emotional relationship.

Men were more upset imagining physical relationship.

Low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is correlated with early onset of puberty, lower risks of diabetes, lower risk of ovarian and breast cancer, lower risk of heart disease and mortality. (In the popular press this is often called the "pear shape" vs. the "apple shape").

In comparison to WHR, body weight is a poor predictor of reproductive status and health.

In the first, Singh examined the ideal weight and WHR of Miss America winners and Playboy centerfolds.

In the second, Singh asked men to rate attractiveness of various women and systematically varied their ideal weight and WHRs.

Singh found that WHR had a greater impact on preferences than did ideal body weight. Subjects consistently rated low WHR models more attractive, independent of body weight.

Should we conclude that men's focus on physical beauty (especially WHR) and women's focus on status are natural, and therefore, good things?

No, to do so would be to commit the naturalistic fallacy--the assumption that because something exists naturally, it is good

No, to do so is to commit the deterministic fallacy

No, consider the physiological toll associated with everyday anger and stress