It seems contradictory that men with more sexual experiences and higher mate value seem to utilize more aggressive tactics. This kind of goes against the theory I've read about that women use fewer retention tactics with higher mate value partners due to a possible understanding that high mate value men are entitled to more mates. If high mate value men are entitled to more mates, and higher mate value men have more successes, why do they also need to use aggressive tactics? Is it because they can't deal with rejection? Also in thinking about the study where men and women watched the video, I feel like a possible explanation for the findings is a combination of fundamental attribution bias and solidarity. Do you think that the reason women would not read into the girl's actions is because they as women relate to her and as a result are less likely to think "she's doing these things because she's interested", due to the negative social context of student-teacher relationships? The Fundamental Attribution Bias says that when people observe a situation, such as a stranger kicking a dog, people are more likely to assume that the act is indicative of his personality rather than the context. What I'm asking is, do women observe this video and make a decision to give the benefit of the doubt to the girl in the video more than the guy?
How do you define infidelity? What behaviors constitute emotional infidelity? Physical infidelity? Does sex play a role in defining behaviors as acts of infidelity? For example, if a woman engages in sexual activity with another woman while she has a boyfriend, is it cheating? What if a man engages in sexual activity with another man while he has a girlfriend? Is that cheating? If the answers for those two questions are different, why?
In a study by Colarelli and Haaland (2002), they found that women find acts of sexual harassment most upsetting when they come from a low-status man compared to when they come from a high-status man. Sexual harassment from low-status men resulted in the woman showing avoidance and/or disgust towards that man. Could this averse reaction be an evolutionary mechanism which prompts women to avoid men who have fewer resources and therefore would not be able to support a family?
Why don't men try using emotions more in their interactions with women? Since women certainly seem to use emotional displays more in their interactions with us (sometimes to the point of faking emotions to get what they want), it seems like they might be more receptive to emotional displays on our part. Yet the idea that men shouldn't display emotions seems to persist. Have we found that showing emotions backfires, or is the idea of "being a man" so ingrained in us that we don't even try?
The chapter discusses mate retention tactics, including violence toward partners. Men commit acts of violence toward their partners as an attempt to keep them from leaving, although if you're murdering your wife, that would mean that she is, in fact, gone. So is murdering a spouse really a form of mate retention? Or is some other mechanism at play here, such as spite or dominance (the woman has wronged you, and in order to regain your dominance/status, you must kill her?).
And what about women who commit violence towards men - is this also a form of mate retention, or does it stem from other mechanisms (perhaps, protecting offspring, or discouraging cheating)?
To answer Laurel's question about killing wives, I believe violence in this degree might be best framed in the mindset of "if I can't have her no one can." To me that mind set has aspects of the man wanting to retain the woman for himself and spitefulness that he was unsuccessful in keeping her to himself.
I also find it interesting that people haven't been talking about the possibility of rape as an evolutionary rape mechanism, so I'm going to bring it up. While morally reprehensible, it seems to make sense that there might be an adaptive mechanism for rape. Certainly there is evidence in the animal kingdom of specifically adapted genitalia that suggest that rape has been adapted for by males of the species and prevention of rape has been adapted for by females of the species. In that way I don't think that it is too far of a stretch to theorize that humans have found the same answer to the reproductive question of the conflict between the sexes. However, some of the support for why rape might be adapted for I feel is a little unsupported. The fact that men choose more fertile women to rape seems like such a silly piece of evidence to cite. Men who are having consensual sex prefer fertile females as well. Evolution has designed men to go after fertile females and I don't see why the condition of the type of sex being had should have an effect on that preference. Evidence like the higher production of semen during rape is a much more convincing argument for me.
I also found it interesting that the book talked about a theoretical personality type conditioned by life-history that might make men more likely to use sexual coercion. How would the life events that trigger that modern day tendency line up with the available set of life events available in the EEA? Do they overlap enough to make this theory for adapted rape plausible?
We talked about earlier in the class how women withhold sex from a man when they see potential in him as a long term mate. This allows a woman to evaluate if the man really is interested in her and to evaluate his potential, is there a similar phenomena in men? Do men employ sexual withholding for the same ends as for women or different, or is this not really an oft phenomena?
I think the data on sex differences in jealousy is interesting. It makes sense that men would be bothered more by sexual infidelity than emotional because there is greater paternity uncertainty. Overall, the sex difference makes sense, but what I was wondering about is what type of infidelity each sex is more likely to engage in. I feel like women would be more likely to engage in emotional infidelity before engaging in sexual infidelity and men would be more likely to do the opposite. Could the sex difference be related to the type of infidelity that sex is more likely to engage in or is that just a byproduct?
Is it possible that men employ emotional withholding in the same way that women employ sexual withholding? It seems to be widely known and accepted that women value emotion more than men do, and may have developed mechanisms to detect mates who "fake" emotion. Have men developed mechanisms in response to that?
This chapter presents data about conflict over mating, but what happens when alcohol becomes involved? Do strategic interferences then decrease or increase? Do acts of sexual aggression increase or decrease? What about prevalence of errors in sexual interference versus sexual reality? Sexual interests? Rape? Essentially, how does alcohol influence the empirical findings about the conflict between the sexes?
I like Wyatt's question about why high status males act more aggressively. Maybe high status males rely less on the community, so they can act more aggressivly without fearing retaliation?
In class we discussed how for men, it is more costly to miss a woman's cue for sexual interest than to falsely interpret a woman cueing sex. However, is there a point at which the latter becomes more costly (damage to reputation)? And what mechanisms are used to prevent the latter?
