Evolutionary Psychology Ch 11-18 PDF

PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 316 in the human male” (Symons, 1979, p. 284). The state of the evidence today suggests that this conclusion might still be apt. Nonetheless, there is good evidence for individual diferences among men in rape proclivity. Psychopaths, who tend to pursue an exploitative life...

PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 316 in the human male” (Symons, 1979, p. 284). The state of the evidence today suggests that this conclusion might still be apt. Nonetheless, there is good evidence for individual diferences among men in rape proclivity. Psychopaths, who tend to pursue an exploitative life-history strategy, seem especially prone to use sexual coercion, both with non-partners and with partners whom they suspect might be sexually unfaithful. Do Women Have Evolved Anti-Rape Adaptations? Although the controversy over explanations of rape has centered on the motivations of men, it is critical to examine rape victims. There is one point about victim psychology that all theoretical camps agree on: Rape is abhorrent and ofen inficts heavy costs on the victim. We do not need a formal theory for this insight, but it is important to examine why rape is experienced as extremely traumatic by victims. From an evolutionary perspective, the costs of rape begin with the interference with women’s mate choice, an essential part of women’s sexual strategies (see Chapter 4). A raped woman risks an unwanted and untimely pregnancy with a man she has not chosen. Furthermore, victims of rape risk being blamed or punished, resulting in damage to their reputations and their future desirability on the mating market. If they are already mated, they risk being abandoned by their regular mates. Raped women ofen sufer psychologically: Humiliation, anxiety, fear, rage, and depression are common in the afermath. Given all these large costs, if rape has occurred throughout human evolutionary history, it would be astonishing if selection had not favored in women the evolution of defenses to prevent becoming a victim. Note that this is a separate issue from that of whether men have evolved adaptations to rape. In principle, women could have evolved anti-rape defenses even if rape has been entirely a non-adaptive by-product in men. Although we cannot go back in time to determine with absolute certainty, historical records and anthropological ethnographies suggest strongly that rape has occurred across cultures and over time (Buss, 2003; Lalumiere et al., 2005). From the Semai of central Malaysia to the !Kung San of Botswana, there are many recorded instances of rape. Indeed, the Amazonian groups studied by Thomas Gregor have specifc words for both rape (antapai) and gang rape (aintyawakakinapai) (Gregor, 1985). Evolutionary anthropologist Barbara Smuts summarizes this evidence: “Although the prevalence of male violence against women varies from place to place, cross-cultural surveys indicate that societies in which men rarely attack or rape women are the exception, not the norm” (Smuts, 1992, p. 1). So if rape has been a recurrent hazard for women, what defenses might have evolved to lower the odds of becoming a victim? Several have been hypothesized: • The formation of alliances with other males as “special friends” for protection (Smuts, 1992); • Mate selection based on qualities of men such as physical size and social dominance that deter other men from sexual aggression—the “bodyguard hypothesis” (Wilson & Mesnick, 1997); • The cultivation of female–female coalitions for protection (Smuts, 1992); • The development of specialized fears that motivate women to avoid situations in which they might be in danger of rape (Chavanne & Gallup, 1998); • The avoidance of risky activities during ovulation to decrease the odds of sexual assault when they are most likely to conceive (Chavanne & Gallup, 1998); 11 CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SEXES • Psychological pain from rape that motivates women to avoid rape in the future (Thornhill & Palmer, 2000). • A threat management system that motivates women to avoid out-group males, on the assumption that intergroup confict would have put women in danger of sexual coercion from outgroup men (McDonald et al., 2005). Although research into these hypothesized defenses has barely begun, it shows promise. Women who are not taking oral contraceptives tend to avoid risky activities, such as going to a bar alone or walking in a dimly lit area, more when they are ovulating than at other times in the cycle (Bröder & Hohmann, 2003; Chavanne & Gallup, 1998). Greater fear of rape among women who perceived themselves as vulnerable to sexual coercion increases behavioral precautions, such as avoiding being alone with men they do not know well, avoiding out-group men, and avoiding men who come on strong sexually (McDonald, Donnellan, Cesario, & Navarrete, 2015). Young women experience more fear of rape than do older women, who are more likely to fear being robbed or burgled, suggesting that fear might be tracking the risks of rape (Pawson & Banks, 1993). A study of 844 women in Slovakia found that virgin women tend to engage in more rape avoidance than nonvirgin women (Prokop, 2013). Although direct tests of the “bodyguard hypothesis” have not yet been conducted, married women report lower rates of rape than do single women (Wilson & Mesnick, 1997). McKibbin, Shackelford, Goetz, Bates, and Starrett (2009) have discovered four common strategies women use to avoid rape: (1) avoiding strange or dangerous men (e.g., avoiding men with a reputation of forcing themselves on women); (2) avoiding appearing sexually receptive (e.g., not wearing revealing clothing); (3) avoiding being alone (e.g., staying in close proximity to others when going out), and (4) being prepared and showing awareness of surroundings (e.g., looking around before exiting the car). Women who rate themselves high on physical attractiveness are signifcantly more likely to avoid being alone and show heightened preparedness and awareness of their surroundings (McKibbin et al., 2010). Another predictor was relationship status: Women in committed long-term relationships also avoided being alone and were more likely than single women to avoid appearing sexually receptive. In sum, the modest empirical work so far suggests much promise for uncovering women’s anti-rape defenses. Given the alarming rates of rape in modern environments, research is urgently needed on women’s anti-rape strategies and their relative efectiveness, whether or not such strategies ultimately turn out to be specialized evolved adaptations or by-products of more general cognitive and emotional mechanisms. Jealous Confict Mates gained must be retained in order to fulfll the reproductive potential inherent in the initial mate selection. Threats to mate retention come from several sources. The frst is the presence of mate poachers, rivals who attempt to lure someone else’s mate away either for a sexual encounter or for a long-term relationship (Schmitt & Buss, 2001). Mate poaching has been documented to be a widespread mating strategy across cultures (Schmitt et al., 2004). The second (related) threat comes from a mate’s infdelity, which could be in the form of a short-term sexual infdelity or a longer-term departure from the relationship. Because both threats have been recurrent adaptive problems, selection has favored the evolution of defenses to fend of mate poachers, to deter a mate’s sexual infdelity, and to retain a mate for the long run. Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that the emotion of jealousy and behavioral tactics of mate retention have evolved to deal with these adaptive problems—problems that difer in certain respects for men and women (Buss, 2013; Daly et al., 1982; Symons, 1979). 317 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 318 The adaptive problem of cuckoldry is magnifed in men because of the tremendous investment they often channel toward their children. If a man is cuckolded, he risks investing all of his resources in a rival man’s child. Not only does he lose his own investment, but he also stands to lose the investment of his partner, who would now be investing her eforts in another man’s child. Ancestral men who failed to solve this adaptive problem not only risked sufering direct reproductive losses but also risked losing status and reputation, which could have seriously impaired their ability to attract other mates. Consider the reaction in Greek culture to cuckoldry: The wife’s infdelity . . . brings disgrace to the husband who is then a Keratas—the worst insult for a Greek man—a shameful epithet with connotations of weakness and inadequacy. . . . While for the wife it is socially acceptable to tolerate her unfaithful husband, it is not socially acceptable for a man to tolerate his unfaithful wife and if he does so, he is ridiculed as behaving in an unmanly manner. (Saflios-Rothschild, 1969, pp. 78–79) Jealousy might help to solve this adaptive problem in several ways. First, it might sensitize a man to circumstances in which his partner might be unfaithful, promoting vigilance. Second, it might prompt actions designed to curtail his partner’s contact with other men. Third, it might cause him to increase his own eforts to fulfll his partner’s desires so that she would have less incentive to stray. And fourth, jealousy might prompt a man to threaten or otherwise fend of rivals who show sexual interest in his partner. One clear evolutionary prediction is that a man’s jealousy should focus heavily on the potential sexual contact that his partner might have with another man, since such sexual contact jeopardizes his paternity of ofspring. Women also face a profound adaptive problem because of a partner’s infdelity, but it is not defned by a compromise in a woman’s certainty that she is the mother of her children. Rather, because men tend to channel investments and resources to women with whom they have sex, a husband might devote time, attention, energy, and resources to another woman and her children rather than to his wife and children. For these reasons, evolutionary psychologists have predicted that women’s jealousy would be more likely to focus on cues to the long-term diversion of a man’s commitments, such as his becoming emotionally involved with another woman (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992). Sex Diferences in Jealousy Prior to studies by evolutionary psychologists, dozens of empirical studies explored the psychology of jealousy. The most common fnding was that men and women do not difer in either the frequency or the magnitude of the jealousy they experience. All these studies, although informative about the equality of the sexes in experiencing jealousy, had posed the question too globally. An evolutionary analysis leads to the prediction that although both sexes will experience jealousy, they will difer in the weight they give to the cues that trigger jealousy. Men are predicted to give relatively more weight to cues to sexual infdelity, whereas women are predicted to give relatively more weight to cues to a long-term diversion of investment, such as emotional involvement with another person (Buss et al., 1992). In a test of the hypothesized sex diferences, 511 college students were asked to compare two distressing events: (a) their partner having sexual intercourse with someone else and (b) their partner becoming emotionally involved with someone else (Buss et al., 1992). Fully 83 percent of the women found their partner’s emotional infdelity more upsetting, whereas only 40 percent of the men did. In contrast, 60 percent of the men experienced their partner’s sexual infdelity as more distressing, whereas only 17 percent of the women did. This constitutes a 43 percent diference between the sexes in their responses, large by any standard in the social sciences. 11 CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SEXES To explore the generality of the fndings across diferent scientifc methods, 30 men and 30 women were brought into a psycho-physiological laboratory (Buss et al., 1992). To evaluate physiological distress from imagining the two types of infdelity, the experimenters placed electrodes on the corrugator muscle on the brow of the forehead, which contracts when people frown; on the frst and third fngers of the right hand to measure electrodermal response, or sweating; and on the thumb to measure pulse or heart rate. Participants were asked to imagine either a sexual infdelity (“imagining your partner having sex with someone else . . . get the feelings and images clearly in mind”) or an emotional infdelity (“imagining your partner falling in love with someone else . . . get the feelings and images clearly in mind”). Participants pressed a button when they had the feelings and images clearly in mind, which activated the physiological recording devices for 20 seconds. The men became more physiologically distressed by the sexual infdelity. Their heart rates accelerated by nearly fve beats per minute, which is roughly the equivalent of drinking three cups of strong cofee at one time. Their skin conductance increased 1.5 units with the thought of sexual infdelity but showed almost no change from baseline in response to the thought of emotional infdelity. And their corrugator frowning increased, showing 7.75 microvolt units of contraction in response to sexual infdelity, compared with only 1.16 units in response to emotional infdelity. Women tended to show the opposite patterns. They exhibited greater physiological distress at the thought of emotional infdelity. Women’s frowning, for example, increased to 8.12 microvolt units of contraction in response to emotional infdelity, compared with only 3.03 units of contraction in response to sexual infdelity. The convergence of psychological reactions of distress with physiological patterns of distress in men and women strongly supports the hypothesis that humans have evolved mechanisms that are specifc to the sex-linked adaptive problems they have recurrently faced over evolutionary history. The evolutionary interpretation of this sex diference in jealousy has been challenged (DeSteno & Salovey, 1996). These psychologists have proposed that sexual infdelity and emotional infdelity are often correlated. People tend to get emotionally involved with those with whom they have sex and, conversely, tend to become sexually involved with those with whom they are emotionally close. But men and women might difer in their beliefs about the correlation. Perhaps women get more upset about a partner’s emotional involvement because they think it implies that their partner will also become sexually involved. Women might believe that men can have sex, in contrast, without getting emotionally involved, and so imagining a partner’s sexual involvement is less upsetting. Men’s beliefs might difer. Perhaps men get more upset about a partner’s sexual involvement because they think that a partner is likely to have sex only if she is also emotionally involved, whereas they think that a woman can easily become emotionally involved without having sex with a man. Four empirical studies were conducted in three diferent cultures to test predictions from the competing hypotheses (Buss et al., 1999). The frst study involved 1,122 undergraduates at a liberal arts college in the southeastern United States. The original infdelity scenarios (Buss et al., 1992) were altered to render the two types of infdelity mutually exclusive. Participants reported their relative distress in response to a partner’s sexual infdelity with no emotional involvement and emotional involvement with no sexual infdelity. As shown in Figure 11.4, a large gender diference emerged, as predicted by the evolutionary model. If the belief hypothesis were correct, then the sex diference should have disappeared. It did not. A second study provided four additional tests of the predictions from the two models using three strategies and U.S. undergraduates. One strategy employed three diferent versions of rendering the two types of infdelity mutually exclusive. A second strategy involved positing that both types of infdelity had occurred and requested that participants indicate which aspect they found more upsetting. A third strategy used a statistical procedure to test the independent predictive value of sex and beliefs in accounting for which form of infdelity would be more distressing. The results were conclusive: Large gender diferences were discovered, precisely as predicted by the evolutionary model (see Figure 11.4). No matter how the questions were worded, no matter which methodological strategy was employed, and no matter how stringently the conditional probabilities were controlled, the sex diferences remained. 319 320 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING Figure 11.4 Four Critical Tests of Competing Hypotheses About Sex Diferences in Jealousy Source: Buss, D. M., Shackelford, T. K., Kirkpatrick, L. A., Choe, J., Hasegawa, M., Hasegawa, T., & Bennett, K. (1999). Jealousy and the nature of beliefs about infdelity: Tests of competing hypotheses about sex diferences in the United States, Korea, and Japan. Personal Relationships, 6, 125–150. Reprinted with permission of the author. The fgure shows that sex diferences in response to sexual versus emotional infdelity remain strong, even when subjects are requested to indicate which aspect of the infdelity was more distressing when both had occurred and when the infdelity types are rendered mutually exclusive. A third study replicated the six infdelity dilemmas in a non-Western sample of native Koreans. The original sex diferences were replicated. With two strategies to control for conditional probabilities, the gender diferences again remained robust. The evolutionary hypothesis survived this empirical hurdle. A fourth study tested the predictions about jealousy and about the nature of beliefs in a non-Western Japanese sample. The results again provided support for the evolutionary hypothesis (Buss et al., 1999). A ffth study of a small-scale population, the Himba of Namibia, also found that men more than women were more distressed by the sexual aspect of the infdelity when both forms of infdelity occurred (Scelza, 2014). A sixth study of jealous interrogations following the discovery of an actual infdelity found that men more than women wanted to know “Did you have sex with him?” whereas women more than men wanted to know “Do you love her?” (Kuhle, 2011). Despite the fact that the sex diferences in the weighting given to the triggers of jealousy have been well documented, these fndings continue to be challenged (e.g., DeSteno, Barlett, Braverman, & Salovey, 2002; Harris, 2000, 2005). Some argue that real sex diferences do not exist and that domain-general social-cognitive mechanisms—the precise nature of which have not been specifed—that are identical in men and women ofer a better explanation of sexual and romantic jealousy than the evolutionary hypothesis (Harris, 2005). Others, such as the original authors of the double-shot hypothesis, appear to have abandoned the doubleshot hypothesis entirely (DeSteno et al., 2002). Instead, they argue that the sex diferences in jealousy are not real but rather are methodological artifacts and disappear entirely when participants respond to the jealousy scenarios under high “cognitive load,” such as having participants count backward by sevens while responding to which form of infdelity would be more distressing. These eforts to dismiss the fndings of sex diferences or provide alternative explanations of them, however, have not been successful (Barrett, Frederick, & Haselton, 2006; Buss & Haselton, 2005; Sagarin, 2005; Sesardic, 2003; Ward & Voracek, 2004). First, the domaingeneral social-cognitive theories are founded on the premise that there are no sex-diferentiated design features in the underlying psychology of jealousy—a premise that is clearly false based on more than 100 empirical studies (Buss, 2013). Second, the cognitive load studies are based 11 CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SEXES 321 on a fundamental misunderstanding of the logic of the evolutionary hypothesis. Nothing in the evolutionary hypothesis requires that jealousy be invariantly activated regardless of circumstances. Consider as an example a hungry woman searching for food and then suddenly imposing the “cognitive load” of a hissing poisonous snake in her path. The discovery that this woman no longer experienced hunger when faced with the “cognitive load” of being confronted by a snake would certainly not constitute evidence that humans lacked a “hunger adaptation.” Similarly, showing that participants’ responses change when subjected to taxing laboratory conditions does not shed light on the issue of sex diferences in jealousy. As other scientists have shown, manipulations of cognitive load “cannot rule out the operation of evolved mechanisms” (Barrett et al., 2006). As an interesting historical footnote to this debate, a reanalysis of the original cognitive load study revealed that “a signifcant sex diference in jealousy remains among participants [even] under cognitive constraint” (Sagarin, 2005, p. 68; see also Schützwohl, 2008, for further refutation of the cognitive load experiment). Perhaps more important than the details of any one study is evaluation by the key scientifc criterion—the weight of the evidence (Buss, 2013; Sagarin et al., 2012). The sex diferences in the design features of jealousy have now been discovered using an astonishingly wide array of diverse methods (see Table 11.1). The sex diferences in jealousy, using the forced-choice method, are robust across cultures such as Brazil, England, Romania, Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, suggesting universality (see Table 11.1). The largest study ever conducted tested 63,894 individuals (Frederick & Fales, 2016). Among heterosexual individuals, 54 percent of men but only 35 percent of women expressed more upset about the sexual infdelity. In contrast, 65 percent of women but only 46 percent of men expressed greater upset about a partner’s emotional infdelity. Interestingly, these gender diferences only held for heterosexual individuals. There was no gender diference Table 11.1 Studies Testing for the Sex Diferences in Jealousy Study Sex Diference Source Sexual v. emotional: Brazil Sexual v. emotional: England Sexual v. emotional: Romania Sexual v. emotional: Korea Sexual v. emotional: Japan Sexual v. emotional: Netherlands Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Sexual v. emotional: Sweden, Norway Yes Sexual v. emotional: older sample Sexual v. emotional: Spain Yes Yes Sexual v. emotional: Chile Yes Sexual v. emotional: Ireland Internet infdelity: sexual v. emotional Yes Yes Cognitive attention: sexual v. emotional Jealousy-induced interrogations: sexual v. emotional Continuous measures of upset about sexual and emotional infdelity Yes de Souza, Verderane, Taira, and Otta (2006) Brase, Caprar, and Voracek (2004) Brase et al. (2004) Buss et al. (1999) Buss et al. (1999) Buunk, Angleitner, Oubaid, and Buss (1996) Wiederman and Kendall (1999); Bendixen, Kennair, and Buss (2015) Shackelford et al. (2004) Fernandez, Vera-Villarroel, Sierra, and Zubeidat (2007) Fernandez, Sierra, Zubeidat, and VeraVillarroel (2006) Whitty and Quigley (2008) Groothof, Dijkstra, and Barelds (2009); Guadagno and Sagarin (2010). Thomson, Patel, Platek, and Shackelford (2007) Kuhle (2011); Kuhle, Smedley, and Schmitt (2009) Edlund and Sagarin (2009) Yes Yes (Continued)