Evolutionary Psychology Ch 11 PDF

PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 310 in young women but found that this bias was entirely absent in a sample of women in their 50s (Cyrus et al., 2011). EMT ofers a fresh perspective on human mating problems, suggesting that some errors refect functional adaptations rather than actual faws in the psycholo...

PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 310 in young women but found that this bias was entirely absent in a sample of women in their 50s (Cyrus et al., 2011). EMT ofers a fresh perspective on human mating problems, suggesting that some errors refect functional adaptations rather than actual faws in the psychological machinery. It provides new insights into why men and women get into certain types of confict—for example, men’s sexual overperception bias leads to unwanted sexual come-ons or sexual harassment. Knowledge of these biases and the evolutionary logic by which they came about might help men and women to read each other’s mating minds more accurately and, ideally, reduce some forms of sexual confict. Sexual Withholding Men consistently complain about women’s sexual withholding, defned by such acts as being sexually teasing, saying no to intercourse, and leading a man on and then stopping him. Both sexes are bothered by sexual withholding, but men signifcantly more so than women. For women, sexual withholding fulflls several possible functions. One is to preserve their ability to choose men of high-quality who are willing to commit emotionally and invest materially. Women withhold sex from certain men and selectively allocate it to others. Moreover, by withholding sex, women increase its value. They render it a scarce resource. Scarcity increases the price that men are willing to pay for it. If the only way men can gain sexual access is by heavy investment, then they will make that investment. Under conditions of sexual scarcity, men who fail to invest fail to secure copulations. This creates another confict between a man and a woman: Her withholding interferes with his strategy of gaining sexual access sooner and with fewer emotional strings attached. Another function of sexual withholding is to manipulate men’s perception of a woman’s value as a mate. Because highly desirable women are more sexually inaccessible to the average man by defnition, women sometimes exploit men’s perceptions of their desirability by withholding sexual access (Buss, 2016b). A fnal possible function of sexual withholding, at least initially, is to encourage a man to evaluate a woman as a long-term rather than a short-term mate. Granting sexual access early can cause men to view a woman as a casual sex partner. They may perceive her as too promiscuous and too sexually available, characteristics that men avoid in committed mates. Sexual Aggression, Sexual Exploitation, and Women’s Co-Evolved Defenses This section examines sexual aggression by men and women’s evolved defenses designed to prevent it. We begin with sexual harassment. Then we explore the controversy around whether men have evolved rape adaptations. Finally, we explore hypotheses and evidence for the hypothesis that women have evolved anti-rape defenses. Sexual Harassment Disagreements over sexual access occur not just in the context of dating and marital relationships but also in the workplace, where people sometimes seek casual and long-term mates. Sexual harassment is defned as “unwanted and unsolicited sexual attention from other individuals in the workplace” (Terpstra & Cook, 1985). Sexual harassment can range from mild forms, such as unwanted staring and sexual comments, to physical violations, such as the unwanted touching of breasts, buttocks, or crotch. Sexual harassment produces obvious confict between the sexes and is the result of diferences between men’s and women’s evolved psychologies (Browne, 2002, 2010). 11 CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SEXES Sexual harassment is typically motivated by the possibility that a come-on might lead to a short-term sexual encounter, although this does not exclude the possibility that it is sometimes motivated by the desire to exercise power or to seek lasting romantic relationships. The view that sexual harassment is a product of the evolved sexual strategies of men and women is supported by the profles of typical victims, including elements such as gender, age, marital status, and physical attractiveness; people’s reactions to unwanted sexual advances; and the conditions under which harassment occurs. One study of 1,199 Norwegian high school students discovered that men who dispositionally pursue a short-term mating strategy are much more likely to perpetrate sexual harassment (Kennair & Bendixen, 2012). Indeed, unwanted sexual solicitations are better predicted by a short-term mating strategy than any other predictor in a subsequent Norwegian study—more predictive than porn consumption and measures of sexist attitudes (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017). Importantly, men high on the Dark Triad personality traits narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy tend to pursue a short-term mating strategy and are especially likely to engage in sexual harassment (Zeigler-Hill, Besser, Morag, & Campbell, 2016). Victims of sexual harassment are typically women. In one study of complaints fled with the Illinois Department of Human Rights over a 2-year period, women fled 76 complaints, whereas men fled only 5. Another study of 10,644 federal government employees found that 42 percent of the women but only 15 percent of the men had experienced sexual harassment at some point (Gutek, 1985). Of the sexual harassment complaints fled in one Canadian province, 93 cases were fled by women and only 2 by men. Women are generally the victims of sexual harassment and men are generally the perpetrators. Nonetheless, given the tendency of women to experience greater distress with regard to acts of sexual pushiness or aggressiveness, it is likely that women would be more upset than men by the same acts of sexual harassment (Buss, 2016b; Colarelli et al., 2001). Although any woman may be the target of sexual harassment, the victims are disproportionately concentrated among young, physically attractive, and single women. Women over age 43 are far less likely than younger women to experience sexual harassment (Studd & Gattiker, 1991). One study found that women between the ages of 20 and 35 fled 72 percent of the complaints of harassment, although they represented only 43 percent of the labor force at the time. Women over age 45, who represented 28 percent of the workforce, fled only 5 percent of the complaints. Moreover, women who tend to pursue a short-term mating strategy are more likely to become victims of sexual harassment (Kennair & Bendixen, 2012). Reactions to sexual harassment follow the logic predicted by strategic interference theory. When men and women were asked how they would feel if a coworker of the opposite sex asked them to have sex, 63 percent of the women said they would be insulted, whereas a minority, 17 percent of the women, said they would feel fattered. Men’s reactions were just the opposite: Only 15 percent said they would be insulted, whereas 67 percent said they would feel fattered. These results support strategic interference theory. The degree of distress that women experience after sexual advances, however, depends in part on the status of the harasser. In one study, 109 college women rated how upset they would be if a man they did not know, whose occupational status varied from low to high, persisted in asking them out on a date despite their repeated refusals (Buss, 2016b). On a seven-point scale, women would be most upset by persistent advances from construction workers (4.04), garbage collectors (4.32), cleaning men (4.19), and gas station attendants (4.13) and least upset by persistent advances by premedical students (2.65), graduate students (2.80), or successful rock stars (2.71). Status and power, however, interact: Women fnd acts of harassment most harassing from a lowstatus man who has power over them (Colarelli & Haaland, 2002). It is important to note that sexual harassment in the workplace puts victims in terribly awkward and difcult situations. Victims often are forced to navigate rejecting unwanted advances without jeopardizing their careers or risking retaliation from the perpetrator. One study found that perpetrators typically fail to realize the difculties their behavior inficts on targets (Bohns & DeVincent, 2018), a fnding that dovetails with the fnding that men underestimate how upsetting acts of sexual aggression are to women (Buss, 1989b). These fndings potentially have practical applications for educating men and women in workplace settings, ideally for reaching a better understanding of women’s and men’s minds and for reducing sexual harassment. 311 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 312 Sexual Exploitation and Cues to Sexual Exploitability One line of research has explored men’s strategies of sexual exploitation and women’s co-evolved defenses against it. A key premise behind this work is that men who pursue a strategy of sexual exploitation (e.g., using pressure or deception) have adaptations to identify observable cues in women that indicate ease of sexual exploitation and to fnd those cues sexually attractive. Researchers frst sought to identify cues to sexual exploitability—psychological cues (e.g., shyness, low cognitive ability, permissive sexual attitudes), incapacitation cues (e.g., intoxication, fatigue), and physical cues (e.g., small body size, shorter walking gait) (Goetz et al., 2012). A subsequent study revealed that men fnd a number of sexual exploitability cues—such as the woman being intoxicated, reckless, sleepy, having an open body posture, and wearing revealing clothing—to be attractive in a potential short-term mate but not at all attractive in a long-term mate (Goetz et al., 2012). Another study revealed that unmated men who are dispositionally inclined to pursue a shortterm mating strategy fnd women displaying these cues to be especially sexually exploitable— more so than men not pursuing a short-term mating strategy (Lewis, Easton, Goetz, & Buss, 2012). Men’s attraction to women displaying exploitability cues presumably motivates them to employ exploitative strategies toward women who are most sexually accessible. Women, of course, are not passive pawns or helpless victims. So another study supported the hypothesis that women who pursue short-term mating strategies actually turn the tables on men and intentionally display cues to sexual exploitability as a tactic in the pursuit of their mating goals (Goetz, Easton, & Meston, 2014). These mating goals could include attracting a highly desirable man for short-term mating or converting a short-term mating into a more long-term committed mateship—something that has been called the “bait-and-switch” strategy (Buss, 2016b). Although much more research remains to be conducted, these initial studies break ground on the co-evolution of men’s strategies of sexual exploitation and women’s co-evolved defenses to exploit men’s inclination of sexual exploitation for their own mating goals. Sexual Aggressiveness Sexual aggressiveness is one strategy men use to minimize their investment for sexual access, although this strategy carries costs in the form of retaliation and damage to reputation. Acts of sexual aggression are exemplifed by the man’s demanding or forcing sexual intimacy, failing to get mutual agreement for sex, and touching a woman’s body without her permission. In one study, college women were asked to evaluate 147 potentially upsetting actions that men could do to them on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all upsetting) to 7 (extremely upsetting) (Buss, 1989b). Women rated acts of sexual aggression on average to be 6.5. No other kinds of acts that men could perform, including verbal abuse and non-sexual physical abuse, were judged by women to be as upsetting as sexual aggression—a fnding independently verifed in a study of Dutch individuals (ter Laak, Olthof, & Aleva, 2003). Men, in sharp contrast, seem less bothered when a woman is sexually aggressive; they see it as relatively innocuous compared with other sources of distress. On the same seven-point scale, for example, men judged the group of sexually aggressive acts to be 3.02, or only slightly upsetting, when performed by a woman. Other sources of distress, such as a mate’s infdelity and verbal or physical abuse, were far more upsetting to the men—6.04 and 5.55, respectively—than sexual aggression by a woman. One disturbing diference between men and women is that men consistently underestimate how unacceptable sexual aggression is to women. When asked to judge its negative impact on women, men rate it only 5.8 on a seven-point scale, which is signifcantly lower than women’s 11 CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SEXES own rating of 6.5. This is an alarming source of confict between the sexes because it suggests that some men will be sexually aggressive because they fail to appreciate how distressing that is to women. Do Men Have Evolved Rape Adaptations? Rape may be defned as the use of force or the threat of force to obtain sexual intercourse. One of the most controversial issues in evolutionary psychology is whether men have evolved specialized adaptations to rape under certain circumstances or whether rape is a non-adaptive by-product of other evolved mechanisms. Among scorpionfies, there is evidence that males have a special anatomical clamp that functions solely in the context of raping a female (Thornhill, 1980). It is not used in other mating contexts, during which the male presents a nuptial gif as an inducement for the female to copulate. There is also evidence for specialized rape strategy in orangutans, although this might be the exception among primates, since bonobos and common chimpanzees appear to lack a distinctive rape strategy (Maggioncalda & Sapolsky, 2002). The rape-as-adaptation theory proposes that selection has favored ancestral males who raped in certain circumstances. Proponents of this theory advance the hypothesis that at least six specialized adaptations might have evolved in the male mind (Thornhill & Palmer, 2000): • Assessment of the vulnerability of potential rape victims (e.g., during warfare or in nonwarfare contexts in which a woman lacks the protection of husband or kin); • A context-sensitive “switch” that motivates rape in men who lack sexual access to consenting partners (e.g., “loser” males who cannot obtain mates through regular channels of courtship); • A preference for fertile rape victims; • An increase in sperm counts of rape ejaculates compared with those occurring in consensual sex; • Sexual arousal to the use of force or to female resistance to consensual sex; • Marital rape in circumstances in which sperm competition might exist (e.g., when there is evidence or suspicion of female infdelity). In contrast, the non-adaptive by-product theory proposes that rape is a non-designed and nonselected-for by-product of other evolved mechanisms, such as the male desire for sexual variety, a desire for sex without investment, a psychological sensitivity to sexual opportunities, and the general capacity to use physical aggression to achieve a variety of goals (Symons, 1979). Unfortunately, clear-cut evidence bearing on these competing theories is lacking. Rape is a common occurrence during war, but theft, looting, property damage, and cruelty to the defeated are also common. Are there specialized adaptations for each of these behaviors, or are they by-products of other mechanisms? Defnitive studies have not been conducted. Rapists tend to target young, reproductive-aged women disproportionately. Indeed, roughly 70 percent of rape victims fall between the ages of 16 and 35 (Thornhill & Thornhill, 1983). Another study of sexual assaults during robberies found that male robbers of all ages were most likely to rape women in the 15- to 29-year age range (Felson & Cundif, 2012). The fact that rapists tend to victimize young, fertile women, however, is not defnitive evidence for or against the competing theories of rape. This result could be due to men’s evolved preference for cues to fertile women in regular mating contexts (see Chapter 5), and hence rape-specifc adaptations are not needed to explain this fnding. Individual Diferences in Rape Proclivity Individual men apparently difer in their proclivity toward rape. In one study, men were asked to imagine that they had the possibility of forcing sex on a woman against 313 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 314 her will when there was no chance of being discovered. In the study, 35 percent indicated a nonzero likelihood of rape under these conditions, although in most cases, the likelihood was slight (Malamuth, 1981; Young & Thiessen, 1992). Although these fgures are alarmingly high, they do not ofer clear support for the rape-adaptation theory; in fact, if the results are taken at face value, they suggest that most men are not potential rapists, since 65 percent of the men indicated a zero likelihood of forcing sex, even if there were no chance of being caught for the crime. Sexual Coercion as Part of a Life-History Strategy of Some Men For a small subset of men, rape may be part of a life-history strategy marked by high levels of psychopathy, pursuit of a short-term rather than a long-term mating strategy, lack of empathy, and “hostile masculinity,” particularly hostility toward women (Figueredo, Gladden, & Beck, 2010; Gladden, Sisco, & Figueredo, 2008; Lalumiere, Harris, Quinsey, & Rice, 2005; Malamuth, Huppin, & Paul, 2005). Malamuth suggests that hostile masculinity might allow men to avoid feeling sympathy or empathy for the victim that might otherwise inhibit the use of sexual aggression. A majority of rapists show high levels of sexual arousal in the laboratory, as measured by penile tumescence, to stories and imagery depicting sexual violence, whereas far fewer non-rapists show such arousal (Lalumiere et al., 2005). Many rapists also have what appears to be a distinct life strategy—they have an early onset of sexual activity, have many varied sexual experiences, and tend to commit a variety of non-sexual crimes such as robbery and assault. All these fndings point to the possibility that some men are particularly prone to committing just rape and also to pursuing a life strategy of antisocial and criminal activity (Lalumiere et al., 2005). Recent research supports the view that men characterized by psychopathic personality traits, such as self-centered impulsiveness, fearless dominance, and coldheartedness, express more positive attitudes toward sexually predatory behavior than do men low on these traits (O’Connell & Marcus, 2016). The Mate Deprivation Hypothesis According to the mate deprivation hypothesis, men who have experienced deprivation of sexual access to women will be more likely to use sexually aggressive tactics (Lalumiere, Chalmers, Quinsey, & Seto, 1996; Quinsey & Lalumiere, 1995; Thornhill & Thornhill, 1983, 1992). Perhaps men have evolved a conditional mating strategy—when they cannot secure mates through the usual means of attraction and courtship, they experience deprivation, which prompts them to use sexually aggressive tactics to avoid being excluded entirely. This hypothesis was tested on a sample of 156 heterosexual males with a mean age of 20 (Lalumiere et al., 1996). The measures of sexual coercion included both nonphysical (e.g., “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with a woman even though she didn’t really want to because she felt pressured by your continual arguments?”) and physical coercion (e.g., “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with a woman when she didn’t want to because you used some degree of physical force?”). The measure of mating success was assessed by the self-perceived mating success scale, which included items such as “Members of the opposite sex that I like tend to like me back”; “I receive many compliments from members of the opposite sex”; “I receive sexual invitations from members of the opposite sex”; and “Members of the opposite sex are attracted to me.” 11 CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SEXES 315 Figure 11.3 Self-Perceived Mating Success and Sexual Aggression Source: Lalumiere, M. L., Chalmers, L. J., Quinsey, V. L., & Seto, M. C. (1996). A test of the mate deprivation hypothesis of sexual coercion. Ethology and Sociobiology, 17, 299–318. Copyright © 1996, with permission from Elsevier Science The fgure shows that men who score high on self-perceived mating success tend to score higher on sexual coercion, contrary to mate deprivation hypothesis. The results contradicted the predictions the authors derived from the mate deprivation hypothesis of sexual aggression. Men who scored high on self-perceived mating success also tended to score high on the measures of sexual aggression, as shown in Figure 11.3. Furthermore, men who evaluated their future earning potential as high tended to use more physical coercion than did men who perceived their future earning potential as low. Another study found a positive but not signifcant correlation between sexual coercive tactics and mating success (Camilleri, Quinsey, & Tapscott, 2009). And a third study found that men who commit sexual assault report a higher number of lifetime sex partners (Ellis, Widmayer, & Palmer, 2009). In summary, the results fail to support the mate deprivation hypothesis. Partner Rapists An estimated 10 to 26 percent of married women experience rape from their husbands (McKibbin, Shackelford, Goetz, & Starratt, 2008). According to one hypothesis, this form of rape represents an adaptation to sperm competition—men whose wives have been sexually unfaithful or who suspect their wives of infdelity force sex in order to combat the sperm from competing males (men presumably would not be consciously aware of this evolved function) (Goetz & Shackelford, 2009). Two empirical studies confrmed that men who knew or suspected their partners of infdelity indeed were more likely to use a variety of sexually coercive tactics, including physical force (Goetz & Shackelford, 2009). Another study also found that direct cues to a partner’s infdelity were linked with a higher proclivity to use sexual coercion (Camilleri & Quinsey, 2009a). Not all men who perceive that their partners are unfaithful, however, resort to sexual coercion. One study found that partner rapists tended to score high on psychopathy, supporting the lifehistory strategy theory of individual diferences in rape proclivity (Camilleri & Quinsey, 2009b; Figueredo et al., 2010). Another study found that only men who perceive themselves to be equal or higher in mate value than their partner and perceive partner infdelity resort to sexually coercive tactics (Starratt, Popp, & Shackelford, 2008). In contrast, among men who perceive themselves to be lower in mate value, there is no link between perceptions of partner infdelity and the use of sexually coercive tactics. In sum, although the sperm competition hypothesis of partner rape receives some empirical support, it must be qualifed by individual diferences in life-history strategy (psychopathy) and relative mate value. More than three decades ago, Donald Symons concluded, “I do not believe that available data are even close to sufcient to warrant the conclusion that rape itself is a facultative adaptation