These evolutionary psychologists think men are attracted to young
pretty women and women are attracted towards skill and status of men.
They also think women are better at language skills, note further down
in the past. Could the higher pitch be associated with neoteny?
Neoteny is the retention by adults of traits previously seen only in
juveniles of that species (pedomorphosis/paedomorphosis), and is a
subject studied in the field of developmental biology.
In neoteny, the physiological
(or somatic) development of an
animal or organism is
slowed or delayed.
Ultimately this process results
in the retention, in the adults
of a species, of juvenile physical
characteristics well into maturity.
Specific individual traits that differ in descendant organisms, when
compared to ancestors, are sometimes called neotenies; humans, for
example, appear to have several neotenies in comparison to
chimpanzees.
Humans exhibit a number of prominent neotenies compared to the other
great apes. Adulthood begins in chimps at about 2-3 years; in humans
this occurs between the 14th and 17th year.
Neoteny is not the only contributing factor affecting maturation in
species that may have undergone neotenous changes over the course of
their evolution, and its actual involvement in the following examples
is not well understood:
1. flightless birds—physical proportions resemble those of the chicks
of flighted birds;
2. humans—with traits such as sparse body hair and enlarged heads
reminiscent of baby primates.
3. dogs—which share many physical features with the immature wolf;
these same traits were found during the development of the tame silver
fox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny
The Science of Romance - by Nigel Barber
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573929700/
THE DOUBLE STANDARD OF AGING
Men's physical attractiveness to women declines with age, but the
decline is generally less steep than that of women to men. In what
might be called the second cardinal rule of dating, men want partners
who are a year or two younger than they are, while women, in general,
want to date older men. As men age, they want women who are
increasingly younger than they are. A man of forty, for example, is
likely to want a partner who is ten years younger. Why?
The most fundamental reason relates to limitation of women's ability
to conceive children with advancing years. Fertility reaches a high
point in the early twenties and stays on a plateau until the age of
thirty-five, after which it declines sharply. Natural selection would
have caused men to select fertile women as wives since those who were
attracted to women over fifty would have left no offspring to carry on
their unusual taste. However, men see women as more attractive at
twenty than at forty. This is right at the beginning of their most
fertile phase in the life span.
Men are thus most attracted to women who are at the beginning of their
reproductive career. If a man marries a woman of this age, then he has
the potential of giving her all of her children and thereby hitting
the reproductive jackpot. Natural selection has thus favored men who
are attracted to younger fertile women rather than older fertile
women. For this reason, the perception of youthfulness is critical to
the physical attractiveness of women. This helps explain the success
of the cosmetics industry, as women attempt to conceal signs of aging
and try to appear younger and more attractive.
Men reach the peak of their physical attractiveness to women in the
late teens or early twenties. However, as they grow older, they
acquire social status and wealth, which enhances the value of the
overall package as far as a marriage partner is concerned. Although
men deteriorate with age, their physical appearance is less critical
to their overall attractiveness. One important cue to feminine
youthfulness that plays an important role in women's physical
attractiveness is their bodily shape.
SELXUAL SELECTION AND THE HOURGLASS FIGURE
The body shapes of men and women are sexually selected traits,
analogous to the plumage of the peacock. Strange as it might seem,
this conclusion is supported by much compelling evidence. To begin
with, feminine curves emerge around puberty, just like the colorful
train of the peacock (see fig. 2). They are produced by the same
mechanism, a surge in production of sex hormones. A surge of the sex
hormone estrogen stimulates the filling of fat cells located away from
the waist. The "loudness" of the signal (i.e., the size of the sex
difference) diminishes with age. In the same way, the greater height
of men, their broader shoulders, their deeper voices, and their
greater upper-body musculature are due to the growth spurt produced by
a surge in testosterone production at puberty.
Both sexes agree that women with "hourglass figures" are sexy and
attractive (see fig. 3). This contrasts with the attractive male body.
In sexy men, there is little difference between the hip and waist
dimensions, the torso is moderately muscled, and the shoulders are
broad. The attractiveness of an hourglass figure for women is a
constant across cultures and across time, although the amount of
curvature considered desirable varies greatly in different countries
and at different times within a society.
Scientists assess the curvaceousness of the human body using a
statistic known as the waist/hip ratio. A small waist/hip ratio is
equivalent to a highly curvaceous body. Highly attractive women, such
as Miss Americas, have a waist/hip ratio of about 0.67 (the ratio
produced by a waist of 24" and hips of 36", for example). The normal
range for women is 0.67-0.80, whereas the normal range for men is
0.85-0.95. Lack of an overlap between the male and the female range
means that body shape is a highly predictable sex difference.
The intensity of the signal (i.e., the size of the sex difference)
declines with age due to a change in hormone production. If you are on
the beach and spot a couple strolling away from you in the distance,
distinguishing the silhouette of the man from the woman will be very
easy if the couple is in their twenties, but much more difficult if
they are in their fifties.
One distinguishing characteristic of the peacock's tail is that it
interferes with movement. Similarly, storage of fat away from the
waist is not mechanically efficient. It makes more sense to store fat
close to the center of gravity, in the abdomen. Highly curvaceous
women are at a distinct disadvantage in sports and rarely win Olympic
medals-for example, in events requiring agility and speed, such as
basketball and running. This is not to claim that curvaceous women
cannot be very athletic. Some are, but when they compete at the
highest level, they experience a mechanical disadvantage because
weight stored away from the center of gravity introduces turning
forces that use up energy.
Just as peahens are attracted to an extremely colorful mate, so
extremely attractive women are at an extreme of the range for
curvaceousness. Beauty contest winners cluster at the curvaceous
extreme of 0.67 compared to the normal range for women of 0.67-0.80.
Perhaps the most important and compelling point of similarity is that
curvaceous women, like showy peacocks, have superior immune systems.
According to recent research ot'Devendra Singh, an evolutionary
psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, college-aged women
and men agree that curvaceous women (whether of normal weight,
underweight, or overweight) are more attractive, healthier, and more
capable of producing children than less curvaceous women. What makes
these findings really interesting is that they are borne out by
medical data. Women with low waist/hip ratio (i.e., with a curvaceous
build) not only have less difficulty becoming pregnant, they are also
healthier in terms of a lower incidence of many illnesses. Women with
relatively noncurvaceous bodies are at a higher risk for gall bladder
disease, some cancers, diseases of the heart and circulatory system,
and for diabetes. (It is important to realize that a curvaceous body
is different from an obese one: curvaceous women store fat away from
the abdomen whereas obese women usually have thick fat deposits around
their middle which pose major health risks.) Noncurvaceous women are
also more prone to behavioral disorders such as anxiety and drug
abuse. (It is true that some drug addictions can cause people to lose
weight, which might make them less curvaceous, but the finding applies
equally for alcoholism, which can have the opposite effect.) Less
curvaceous women are more likely to be admitted to psychiatric
hospitals for depression and other psychopathologies. They also have
higher mortality rates. The health consequences of body shape in men
have received less attention because the waist/hip ratio is not
routinely measured for medical records and is thus unavailable to
researchers. Women are at their most curvaceous in early maturity, and
one reason that men are attracted to women with sexy bodies is that
this is a cue to youthfulness. Exceptionally attractive women have
youthful facial dimensions that make them seem more attractive than
they really are.
EXAGGERATING YOUTH
Men are very sensitive to age cues, since a woman's age places
limitations on her ability to produce children. It is true that men
may be motivated by opportunities for sexual intercourse rather than
opportunities for reproducing, but natural selection has designed them
to want sex with fertile women. The sex difference in the importance
of youthfulness to physical attractiveness explains why women are much
more interested in using makeup to make them seem young and healthy
than men are.
Highly attractive women, such as film actresses, often preserve their
good looks into old age. The impression of youthfulness is so
powerfully conveyed by the design of their faces that seeing them as
old is difficult. When you see Candice Bergen, now well into her
fifties, for example, your response is likely to be, "What a
stunningly beautiful woman!" rather than "Candice seems to be well
into her fifties."
Highly attractive women's faces mimic some facial proportions normally
found only in young girls. This is not just true of our own culture
with its exaltation of all things youthful, but in Japan and other
countries. The extent of this phenomenon can be grasped from the fact
that attractive male faces tend to have large chins, a feature
associated with age and maturity, whereas attractive female faces have
reasonably small chins and therefore resemble the faces of children.
Similarly, small noses contribute to the attractiveness of women's
faces, but the size of the nose is unrelated to attractiveness of
men.
Other youthful traits that people see as attractive in women (but not
men) in different cultures include dainty hands and small feet. These
are not just smaller in women because they have shorter stature, but
they are proportionately smaller. Small feet were such a critical
feature of attractiveness in China that parents kept their daughters'
artificially small through the hideous practice of foot binding. From
a biological perspective, small chins, feet, and hands are
attributable to low levels of testosterone, which promotes bone
growth. Since testosterone reduces female fertility, they are thus an
outward sign of a hormonal profile conducive to high fertility in
women.
Victor Johnson, an evolutionary psychologist working at the University
of New Mexico at Las Cruces, has collected other evidence that shows
the extensive effects of sexual selection on the female face. Johnson
and his associate used a computer program that allowed people to
"evolve" their perfect faces over many "generations." One striking
aspect of the perfect faces was that many dimensions were typical of
much younger faces. Although people estimated the age of the perfect
faces as close to twenty-five years, on average, the proportions of
the lips (their fullness) was characteristic of fourteen-year-old
faces, while the length of the face, from eyes to chin, was shortened
to that typical of an eleven-year-old.
Just as male peacocks have competed with each other to be very
colorful, so women have competed to exaggerate the impression of
youthfulness and health conveyed by their faces, as already noted. The
reproductive significance of youthfulness for women helps to explain
why they are prepared to spend a lot of money on cosmetics that create
an impression of youth and health. Expensive creams promise to remove
wrinkles, those telltale signs of aging, and to restore the healthy
glow of youthful skin. Lipstick exaggerates the hue and enhances the
fullness of the lips, making them seem younger. Shampooing and
brushing make the hair seem more luxuriant and healthy (see fig. 4).
Women use a whole range of products to enhance the apparent size and
brightness of their eyes in an attempt to recreate the breathless and
starry-eyed innocence of youth. What women do individually with makeup
is analogous to what natural selection has been doing for hundreds of
generations.
Humans are unusual in that both sexes evolved physically attractive
traits through sexual selection. Human beards, for example, advertise
biological quality in the same way that the gaudy plumage of the
peacock does. This implies that both men and women compete among
themselves for desirable mates. Handsome men and beautiful women are
healthier and more fertile than their romantic competitors and
transmit these qualities to children. Advertisement of biological
quality through evolved bodily signals is not the only form that
reproductive competition takes. People compete for marriage partners
by being friendly and kind, and thereby advertising the qualities that
are desirable in a long-term partnership. Men enhance their sexual
attractiveness by competing for social status. This competition can
take the form of reckless aggression, particularly in young men.
Chapter Three Loves Labors Dating Competition and Aggression
During the breeding season, male robins experience a rise in testos-
terone production that makes them more aggressive. They are highly
territorial and defend their home turf by mounting a vigorous physical
assault on intruding male robins. The song of the male serves as a
warning to rivals that this space is taken and thereby inhibits
intruders.
Singing, like fighting, is controlled by testosterone. This phenomenon
has been demonstrated by injecting female songbirds with testosterone.
Female songbirds normally do not sing, but they will do so after they
have been treated with the male hormone.
The increased aggression of males during the breeding season is an
adaptation that helps them succeed in the struggle for access to
reproductive females. Their testosterone surge primes them to defend a
territory by singing and fighting. The territory is of critical
importance for reproductive success. Males that cannot defend a
breeding territory do not acquire mates.
Human males do not have a breeding season, of course, but they compete
most vigorously for mates when they are young, and when their
testosterone levels are highest. Young men do not have breeding
territories either, but they fight over something that plays the same
role, namely, high social status among peers. Young men who have low
social status-who are not "cool"-become the butt of jokes and are
often viewed by girls as undesirable dating part- ners. Concern over
"face," or status, is at the root of much appar- ently senseless
violence between young men.
The Science of Romance - by Nigel Barber
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573929700/
- When asked to spell a word, men use the left hemisphere. Women use
both sides of the brain.
- Women recover language function better after left-hemisphere damage
than men do.
WOMEN'S SOCIAL SKILLS
Grammar's study of modern courtship showed that women are socially
more astute than men. They orchestrate social interactions so
skillfully that they can control their date, even when the man
believes he is running the show. The view that women arc more verbal
than men is more than a stereotype. Women score higher on verbal
tests, speak more words in a day, are quicker to verbal aggression,
are more articulate, get verbal responses out rapidly, have more
friends, and spend longer amounts of time speaking to them on the
telephone. Moreover, when women talk, they reveal more intimate and
meaningful information about themselves. Women are better listeners.
They tend not to let their attention wander in the middle of a long
story. They are more willing to offer comfort to another person a sex
difference in empathy that is present even in young children.
Women are more skilled in reading and using body language. countless
laboratory experiments have showed that they are more skilled at
reading facial expressions and detecting nonverbal signs of lying, for
example. This research backs up the findings of field studie on
courtship interactions.
Psychologists often point to different childhood influences in order
to explain why women have better interpersonal skills. They argue that
giving a doll to a little girl and giving a tool set to a little boy
conveys important messages about the kind of skills each needs to
develop. While this may be true, it is also true that boys and girls
differ in their inclinations regardless of how they are treated, a
point already made for the development of aggression in boys. Parents
who strive to inculcate nonviolence in their sons by keeping them away
from violent toys and violent TV are often alarmed to discover that
the boys imaginatively turn common objects into weapons of
destruction. Sticks are guns or spears. Pine cones are hand grenades.
Sex differences in aggression are largely due to biology, as already
pointed out, but upbringing does accen- tuate them, as happens in
warlike societies. Sex differences in social skills may also reflect
evolved differences.
Thus, women's abilities to entice and manipulate men in a dating
context would have helped to ensure male support for their children.
In the past, they may not have had much personal interest in striving
for political power and social status, but they were attracted to men
who had these qualities and therefore acquired them by association. In
other words, a woman who succeeded in marrying a high-ranking man
acquired high social status for herself. Even today, when women's
earning power immediately after college is almost equivalent to that
of men, they still express the same emotional needs that helped them
to obtain paternal in vestment in the evolutionary past.
The Science of Romance - by Nigel Barber
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573929700/
