Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

[Dominus Atheos]

Psychology Today

Human nature is one of those things that everybody talks about but no one can define precisely. Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, get upset about the influx of immigrants into our country, or go to church, we are, in part, behaving as a human animal with our own unique evolved nature—human nature.

This means two things. First, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are produced not only by our individual experiences and environment in our own lifetime but also by what happened to our ancestors millions of years ago. Second, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are shared, to a large extent, by all men or women, despite seemingly large cultural differences.

Human behavior is a product both of our innate human nature and of our individual experience and environment. In this article, however, we emphasize biological influences on human behavior, because most social scientists explain human behavior as if evolution stops at the neck and as if our behavior is a product almost entirely of environment and socialization. In contrast, evolutionary psychologists see human nature as a collection of psychological adaptations that often operate beneath conscious thinking to solve problems of survival and reproduction by predisposing us to think or feel in certain ways. Our preference for sweets and fats is an evolved psychological mechanism. We do not consciously choose to like sweets and fats; they just taste good to us.

The implications of some of the ideas in this article may seem immoral, contrary to our ideals, or offensive. We state them because they are true, supported by documented scientific evidence. Like it or not, human nature is simply not politically correct.

Excerpted from Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa, to be published by Perigree in September 2007.

1. Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)
   
   Long before TV—in 15th- and 16th- century Italy, and possibly two millennia ago—women were dying their hair blond. A recent study shows that in Iran, where exposure to Western media and culture is limited, women are actually more concerned with their body image, and want to lose more weight, than their American counterparts. It is difficult to ascribe the preferences and desires of women in 15th-century Italy and 21st-century Iran to socialization by media.
   
   Women's desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist, large breasts, long blond hair, and blue eyes—is a direct, realistic, and sensible response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her. There is evolutionary logic behind each of these features.
   
   Men prefer young women in part because they tend to be healthier than older women. One accurate indicator of health is physical attractiveness; another is hair. Healthy women have lustrous, shiny hair, whereas the hair of sickly people loses its luster. Because hair grows slowly, shoulder-length hair reveals several years of a woman's health status.
   
   Men also have a universal preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio. They are healthier and more fertile than other women; they have an easier time conceiving a child and do so at earlier ages because they have larger amounts of essential reproductive hormones. Thus men are unconsciously seeking healthier and more fertile women when they seek women with small waists.
   
   Until very recently, it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, since the size of a woman's breasts has no relationship to her ability to lactate. But Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe contends that larger, and hence heavier, breasts sag more conspicuously with age than do smaller breasts. Thus they make it easier for men to judge a woman's age (and her reproductive value) by sight—suggesting why men find women with large breasts more attractive.
   
   Alternatively, men may prefer women with large breasts for the same reason they prefer women with small waists. A new study of Polish women shows that women with large breasts and tight waists have the greatest fecundity, indicated by their levels of two reproductive hormones (estradiol and progesterone).
   
   Blond hair is unique in that it changes dramatically with age. Typically, young girls with light blond hair become women with brown hair. Thus, men who prefer to mate with blond women are unconsciously attempting to mate with younger (and hence, on average, healthier and more fecund) women. It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.
   
   Women with blue eyes should not be any different from those with green or brown eyes. Yet preference for blue eyes seems both universal and undeniable—in males as well as females. One explanation is that the human pupil dilates when an individual is exposed to something that she likes. For instance, the pupils of women and infants (but not men) spontaneously dilate when they see babies. Pupil dilation is an honest indicator of interest and attraction. And the size of the pupil is easiest to determine in blue eyes. Blue-eyed people are considered attractive as potential mates because it is easiest to determine whether they are interested in us or not.
   
   The irony is that none of the above is true any longer. Through face-lifts, wigs, liposuction, surgical breast augmentation, hair dye, and color contact lenses, any woman, regardless of age, can have many of the key features that define ideal female beauty. And men fall for them. Men can cognitively understand that many blond women with firm, large breasts are not actually 15 years old, but they still find them attractive because their evolved psychological mechanisms are fooled by modern inventions that did not exist in the ancestral environment.
2. Humans are naturally polygamous
   
   The history of western civilization aside, humans are naturally polygamous. Polyandry (a marriage of one woman to many men) is very rare, but polygyny (the marriage of one man to many women) is widely practiced in human societies, even though Judeo-Christian traditions hold that monogamy is the only natural form of marriage. We know that humans have been polygynous throughout most of history because men are taller than women.
   
   Among primate and nonprimate species, the degree of polygyny highly correlates with the degree to which males of a species are larger than females. The more polygynous the species, the greater the size disparity between the sexes. Typically, human males are 10 percent taller and 20 percent heavier than females. This suggests that, throughout history, humans have been mildly polygynous.
   
   Relative to monogamy, polygyny creates greater fitness variance (the distance between the "winners" and the "losers" in the reproductive game) among males than among females because it allows a few males to monopolize all the females in the group. The greater fitness variance among males creates greater pressure for men to compete with each other for mates. Only big and tall males can win mating opportunities. Among pair-bonding species like humans, in which males and females stay together to raise their children, females also prefer to mate with big and tall males because they can provide better physical protection against predators and other males.
   
   In societies where rich men are much richer than poor men, women (and their children) are better off sharing the few wealthy men; one-half, one-quarter, or even one-tenth of a wealthy man is still better than an entire poor man. As George Bernard Shaw puts it, "The maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first-rate man to the exclusive possession of a third-rate one." Despite the fact that humans are naturally polygynous, most industrial societies are monogamous because men tend to be more or less equal in their resources compared with their ancestors in medieval times. (Inequality tends to increase as society advances in complexity from hunter-gatherer to advanced agrarian societies. Industrialization tends to decrease the level of inequality.)
3. Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy
   
   When there is resource inequality among men—the case in every human society—most women benefit from polygyny: women can share a wealthy man. Under monogamy, they are stuck with marrying a poorer man.
   
   The only exceptions are extremely desirable women. Under monogamy, they can monopolize the wealthiest men; under polygyny, they must share the men with other, less desirable women. However, the situation is exactly opposite for men. Monogamy guarantees that every man can find a wife. True, less desirable men can marry only less desirable women, but that's much better than not marrying anyone at all.
   
   Men in monogamous societies imagine they would be better off under polygyny. What they don't realize is that, for most men who are not extremely desirable, polygyny means no wife at all, or, if they are lucky, a wife who is much less desirable than one they could get under monogamy.
4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim
   
   Suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, but according to Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, when religion is involved, the attackers are always Muslim. Why? The surprising answer is that Muslim suicide bombing has nothing to do with Islam or the Quran (except for two lines). It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.
   
   What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.
   
   So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.
   
   However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings.
   
   The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.
   
   It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.
5. Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce
   
   Sociologists and demographers have discovered that couples who have at least one son face significantly less risk of divorce than couples who have only daughters. Why is this?
   
   Since a man's mate value is largely determined by his wealth, status, and power—whereas a woman's is largely determined by her youth and physical attractiveness—the father has to make sure that his son will inherit his wealth, status, and power, regardless of how much or how little of these resources he has. In contrast, there is relatively little that a father (or mother) can do to keep a daughter youthful or make her more physically attractive.
   
   The continued presence of (and investment by) the father is therefore important for the son, but not as crucial for the daughter. The presence of sons thus deters divorce and departure of the father from the family more than the presence of daughters, and this effect tends to be stronger among wealthy families.
6. Beautiful people have more daughters
   
   It is commonly believed that whether parents conceive a boy or a girl is up to random chance. Close, but not quite; it is largely up to chance. The normal sex ratio at birth is 105 boys for every 100 girls. But the sex ratio varies slightly in different circumstances and for different families. There are factors that subtly influence the sex of an offspring.
   
   One of the most celebrated principles in evolutionary biology, the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, states that wealthy parents of high status have more sons, while poor parents of low status have more daughters. This is because children generally inherit the wealth and social status of their parents. Throughout history, sons from wealthy families who would themselves become wealthy could expect to have a large number of wives, mistresses and concubines, and produce dozens or hundreds of children, whereas their equally wealthy sisters can have only so many children. So natural selection designs parents to have biased sex ratio at birth depending upon their economic circumstances—more boys if they are wealthy, more girls if they are poor. (The biological mechanism by which this occurs is not yet understood.)
   
   This hypothesis has been documented around the globe. American presidents, vice presidents, and cabinet secretaries have more sons than daughters. Poor Mukogodo herders in East Africa have more daughters than sons. Church parish records from the 17th and 18th centuries show that wealthy landowners in Leezen, Germany, had more sons than daughters, while farm laborers and tradesmen without property had more daughters than sons. In a survey of respondents from 46 nations, wealthy individuals are more likely to indicate a preference for sons if they could only have one child, whereas less wealthy individuals are more likely to indicate a preference for daughters.
   
   The generalized Trivers-Willard hypothesis goes beyond a family's wealth and status: If parents have any traits that they can pass on to their children and that are better for sons than for daughters, then they will have more boys. Conversely, if parents have any traits that they can pass on to their children and that are better for daughters, they will have more girls.
   
   Physical attractiveness, while a universally positive quality, contributes even more to women's reproductive success than to men's. The generalized hypothesis would therefore predict that physically attractive parents should have more daughters than sons. Once again, this is the case. Americans who are rated "very attractive" have a 56 percent chance of having a daughter for their first child, compared with 48 percent for everyone else.
7. What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals
   
   For nearly a quarter of a century, criminologists have known about the "age-crime curve." In every society at all historical times, the tendency to commit crimes and other risk-taking behavior rapidly increases in early adolescence, peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, rapidly decreases throughout the 20s and 30s, and levels off in middle age.
   
   This curve is not limited to crime. The same age profile characterizes every quantifiable human behavior that is public (i.e., perceived by many potential mates) and costly (i.e., not affordable by all sexual competitors). The relationship between age and productivity among male jazz musicians, male painters, male writers, and male scientists—which might be called the "age-genius curve"—is essentially the same as the age-crime curve. Their productivity—the expressions of their genius—quickly peaks in early adulthood, and then equally quickly declines throughout adulthood. The age-genius curve among their female counterparts is much less pronounced; it does not peak or vary as much as a function of age.
   
   Paul McCartney has not written a hit song in years, and now spends much of his time painting. Bill Gates is now a respectable businessman and philanthropist, and is no longer a computer whiz kid. J.D. Salinger now lives as a total recluse and has not published anything in more than three decades. Orson Welles was a mere 26 when he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane.
   
   A single theory can explain the productivity of both creative geniuses and criminals over the life course: Both crime and genius are expressions of young men's competitive desires, whose ultimate function in the ancestral environment would have been to increase reproductive success.
   
   In the physical competition for mates, those who are competitive may act violently toward their male rivals. Men who are less inclined toward crime and violence may express their competitiveness through their creative activities.
   
   The cost of competition, however, rises dramatically when a man has children, when his energies and resources are put to better use protecting and investing in them. The birth of the first child usually occurs several years after puberty because men need some time to accumulate sufficient resources and attain sufficient status to attract their first mate. There is therefore a gap of several years between the rapid rise in the benefits of competition and similarly rapid rise in its costs. Productivity rapidly declines in late adulthood as the costs of competition rise and cancel its benefits.
   
   These calculations have been performed by natural and sexual selection, so to speak, which then equips male brains with a psychological mechanism to incline them to be increasingly competitive immediately after puberty and make them less competitive right after the birth of their first child. Men simply do not feel like acting violently, stealing, or conducting additional scientific experiments, or they just want to settle down after the birth of their child but they do not know exactly why.
   
   The similarity between Bill Gates, Paul McCartney, and criminals—in fact, among all men throughout evolutionary history—points to an important concept in evolutionary biology: female choice.
   
   Women often say no to men. Men have had to conquer foreign lands, win battles and wars, compose symphonies, author books, write sonnets, paint cathedral ceilings, make scientific discoveries, play in rock bands, and write new computer software in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them. Men have built (and destroyed) civilization in order to impress women, so that they might say yes.
8. The midlife crisis is a myth—sort of
   
   Many believe that men go through a midlife crisis when they are in middle age. Not quite. Many middle-aged men do go through midlife crises, but it's not because they are middle-aged. It's because their wives are. From the evolutionary psychological perspective, a man's midlife crisis is precipitated by his wife's imminent menopause and end of her reproductive career, and thus his renewed need to attract younger women. Accordingly, a 50-year-old man married to a 25-year-old woman would not go through a midlife crisis, while a 25-year-old man married to a 50-year-old woman would, just like a more typical 50-year-old man married to a 50-year-old woman. It's not his midlife that matters; it's hers. When he buys a shiny-red sports car, he's not trying to regain his youth; he's trying to attract young women to replace his menopausal wife by trumpeting his flash and cash.
9. It's natural for politicians to risk everything for an affair (but only if they're male)
   
   On the morning of January 21, 1998, as Americans woke up to the stunning allegation that President Bill Clinton had had an affair with a 24-year-old White House intern, Darwinian historian Laura L. Betzig thought, "I told you so." Betzig points out that while powerful men throughout Western history have married monogamously (only one legal wife at a time), they have always mated polygynously (they had lovers, concubines, and female slaves). With their wives, they produced legitimate heirs; with the others, they produced bastards. Genes make no distinction between the two categories of children.
   
   As a result, powerful men of high status throughout human history attained very high reproductive success, leaving a large number of offspring (legitimate and otherwise), while countless poor men died mateless and childless. Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty, the last Sharifian emperor of Morocco, stands out quantitatively, having left more offspring—1,042—than anyone else on record, but he was by no means qualitatively different from other powerful men, like Bill Clinton.
   
   The question many asked in 1998—"Why on earth would the most powerful man in the world jeopardize his job for an affair with a young woman?"—is, from a Darwinian perspective, a silly one. Betzig's answer would be: "Why not?" Men strive to attain political power, consciously or unconsciously, in order to have reproductive access to a larger number of women. Reproductive access to women is the goal, political office but one means. To ask why the President of the United States would have a sexual encounter with a young woman is like asking why someone who worked very hard to earn a large sum of money would then spend it.
   
   What distinguishes Bill Clinton is not that he had extramarital affairs while in office—others have, more will; it would be a Darwinian puzzle if they did not—what distinguishes him is the fact that he got caught.
10. Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist
    
    An unfortunate consequence of the ever-growing number of women joining the labor force and working side by side with men is the increasing number of sexual harassment cases. Why must sexual harassment be a necessary consequence of the sexual integration of the workplace?
    
    Psychologist Kingsley R. Browne identifies two types of sexual harassment cases: the quid pro quo ("You must sleep with me if you want to keep your job or be promoted") and the "hostile environment" (the workplace is deemed too sexualized for workers to feel safe and comfortable). While feminists and social scientists tend to explain sexual harassment in terms of "patriarchy" and other ideologies, Browne locates the ultimate cause of both types of sexual harassment in sex differences in mating strategies.
    
    Studies demonstrate unequivocally that men are far more interested in short-term casual sex than women. In one now-classic study, 75 percent of undergraduate men approached by an attractive female stranger agreed to have sex with her; none of the women approached by an attractive male stranger did. Many men who would not date the stranger nonetheless agreed to have sex with her.
    
    The quid pro quo types of harassment are manifestations of men's greater desire for short-term casual sex and their willingness to use any available means to achieve that goal. Feminists often claim that sexual harassment is "not about sex but about power;" Browne contends it is both—men using power to get sex. "To say that it is only about power makes no more sense than saying that bank robbery is only about guns, not about money."
    
    Sexual harassment cases of the hostile-environment variety result from sex differences in what men and women perceive as "overly sexual" or "hostile" behavior. Many women legitimately complain that they have been subjected to abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment by their male coworkers. Browne points out that long before women entered the labor force, men subjected each other to such abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment.
    
    Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men's repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not treating women differently from men—the definition of discrimination, under which sexual harassment legally falls—but the opposite: Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women.

[Darth Wong]

Interesting article, although they should emphasize the variance in human behaviour a bit more. They make it seem as if these are rules rather than tendencies. And a lot of what they point out is stuff we already knew, but the connection between polygamy and violence is, while also well known, given a convincing rational explanation here which presents a powerful argument for the ethics of monogamy.

[Dooey Jo]

Long before TV—in 15th- and 16th- century Italy, and possibly two millennia ago—women were dying their hair blond. A recent study shows that in Iran, where exposure to Western media and culture is limited, women are actually more concerned with their body image, and want to lose more weight, than their American counterparts. It is difficult to ascribe the preferences and desires of women in 15th-century Italy and 21st-century Iran to socialization by media.

Yes, because if the western media doesn't cause it, it must be an inherent biological desire. Nevermind that fat and pale women with wigs were seen as very attractive in 17th century Europe, and the ability to store much fat could be argued to be a very favourable trait in times when food was scarce...

It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.

And that is why so many Inuit women are blonde, as well as other peoples that live in cold climates. No wait...

Women with blue eyes should not be any different from those with green or brown eyes. Yet preference for blue eyes seems both universal and undeniable—in males as well as females.

Who the fuck says? If anything, the fact that blue eyes are so rare should mean that it has very few if any evolutionary advantages.

Humans are naturally polygamous

It would be nice if evolutionary psychologists could give evidence instead of speculation where they ignore things that don't agree with their hypothesis ("The history of western civilisation aside"? It somehow doesn't count now? It's natural if it's part of an old culture, but not a relatively newer one, nor the even older hunter-gatherer style of living?)...

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.

Oh wow, so young and horny people are stupider and more easy to manipulate into blowing themselves up than experienced adults with families? Wow, who would have guessed... Though, AFAIK there are actually only very few polygamous marriages in the suicide-bomber dense areas, even though Islam does allow it, so...

Men strive to attain political power, consciously or unconsciously, in order to have reproductive access to a larger number of women. Reproductive access to women is the goal, political office but one means. To ask why the President of the United States would have a sexual encounter with a young woman is like asking why someone who worked very hard to earn a large sum of money would then spend it.

Where is the evidence for this? Or does it just sound reasonable? Maybe they instead do it because power and large sums of money could "come in handy sometime", the way squirrels store food for the winter. That is also reasonable.

What distinguishes Bill Clinton is not that he had extramarital affairs while in office—others have, more will; it would be a Darwinian puzzle if they did not—what distinguishes him is the fact that he got caught.

No it wouldn't be a Darwinian puzzle, only that this particular explanation would not work. In fact, this predicts that politicians should have more affairs than other people. I wonder if that is true, or if they based everything on just this one sample.


Do all evolutionary psychologists work only in the framework of sexual selection to explain everything? Because I'd be damned if that's not the only thing I ever see coming from them. Their prediction about Scandinavian women being blonde to advertise their youth (of course, I live here and have never seen a woman change hair colour like that naturally, except pre-teen girls who wouldn't be able to mate anyway, so it's not really effective I must say, unless they're saying men subconsciously want to mate with children), for instance, completely fails to account for (all) other populations in similar conditions... Obviously there are purely biological aspects to many human behaviours, but why should everything be explained that way, when it's equally obvious that human culture has played a huge role in human development and behaviour over the last 20 000 years or so?

[Mr. T]

Interesting article, although they should emphasize the variance in human behaviour a bit more. They make it seem as if these are rules rather than tendencies. And a lot of what they point out is stuff we already knew, but the connection between polygamy and violence is, while also well known, given a convincing rational explanation here which presents a powerful argument for the ethics of monogamy.

Yeah, a Political science professor (I know what you're all thinking, political science??? ) made the exact same argument backed up with some stats, I wonder if I still have those notes.

But I have to wonder if polygamy over their is really such a serious problem that it has such a serious effect on the number of eligible females to mate. I know that the oil sheiks and Princes are going to have 20 wives or so, but I have a hard time believing that theirs enough of the super-wealthy to actually make a measurable impact on the "female supply".

Maybe another issue is that the male:female ratio in general their is pretty skewed (though I don't think as much as China for example). Although in either case it leads to the same outcome; alot of hopelessly virginal men.

[Broomstick]

Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)

While it is true that with rare exception the average skin color of women in a given population tends to be lighter than that of the men, and while many civilizations have emphasized the difference (different skin color for men and women in Ancient Egyptian art, women painting their skin white in Asia and Japan, the ubiquitos parasol for ladies of social standing in 19th Century Europe and North America, etc.) this is going a little too far.

When white folks showed up in the New Guinea Highlands they were perceived as dead people - which were also quite sexually unattractive as well as terrifying no matter how blond their hair and how blue their eyes. That is just one extreme example, but there is too much cultural indication of men liking raven-haired beauties outside of Europe for it to be coincidence. It would make more sense to postulate a preference in people of European descent (perhaps white skin was a marker of something else that indicated fitness) than to apply it to all of humanity. Euro-whatevers being, whether they admit it or not, a distinct minority in the global population.

Long before TV—in 15th- and 16th- century Italy, and possibly two millennia ago—women were dying their hair blond.

And in Ancient Greece and Rome whores were required to wear blond wigs - not necessarialy for desirability but as sort of a work uniform. Yes, they were desirable in that they were available on short notice for a quick fuck but for the most part it was the brunettes the men were actually having children with, not the whores. Which means a man who spent all his time fucking "blondes" would leave fewer children than the man having children with his dark-haired wife(s), which means saying this is sexual selection doesn't make much sense.

Men also have a universal preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio. They are healthier and more fertile than other women; they have an easier time conceiving a child and do so at earlier ages because they have larger amounts of essential reproductive hormones. Thus men are unconsciously seeking healthier and more fertile women when they seek women with small waists.

Except in areas where famines are a repeating phenomena, in which case men seek out plump women because they'll be able to survive hunger longer than thin women.

These guys with their theories seem to forget it's NOT about how many infants you produce, it's about how many survive to reproduce, that is, how many adult children you wind up with. THAT's why human males like children, care about children, and are just as capable (outside of childbirth and lactation) of being parents as women - because those men who contributed to their children's upbringing had more surviving children then men who fathered dozens but took no interest in them.

Until very recently, it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, since the size of a woman's breasts has no relationship to her ability to lactate.

How about: because large breasts say HUMAN FEMALE in capital letters?

And men don't always like huge breasts - huge saggy breasts long enough for a woman to trip over while walking are not attractive to the vast majority of the human race.

Geez, it's like asking why some women like men with beards, since beards serve no purpose in hunting or gathering food or going to war. It's because a beard says THIS IS AN ADULT MALE - which is why beared women cause squickiness.

Of course, neither huge breasts or a thick beard are necessary for the genders to tell each other apart. Men and women are different heights. They have different fat/muscle ratios. They smell different. Some individuals have an exaggerated secondary sexual signal, such as unusually lush body hair in a man -- or realy big tits in a woman.

Blond hair is unique in that it changes dramatically with age. Typically, young girls with light blond hair become women with brown hair. Thus, men who prefer to mate with blond women are unconsciously attempting to mate with younger (and hence, on average, healthier and more fecund) women.

As someone pointed out, the age at which this transformation occurs is typically early puberty, which is far younger than most of today's societies permit reproduction. However, in the past, marriages of girls as young as 12 weren't uncommon, and yes, some of them were consummated. Even so, in the past most girls weren't fertile until their late teens so it's hard to see how this trait would get sexually selected.

It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.

Which totaly does NOT explain Inuits or Siberian folks. Or the original Tasmanians, who were pretty damn dark skinned and lived much further into the temperate zone than most folks north of the equator realize.

Also, there is no objective evidence that blond hair evolved in Sandanavia, or that those who are currently living there are representative of those who were there 5,000 year ago. Unless you prove that the current inhabitants of Sandanavia both evolved blond hair (rather than it diffusing into their population from another, such as the Norse Vikings bringing red hair to the British Isles), and have been in their present location since prior to that development the statement is speculation, not science, and is on the level of a "just-so" story.

Women with blue eyes should not be any different from those with green or brown eyes. Yet preference for blue eyes seems both universal and undeniable—in males as well as females.

Except, of course, in sub-saharan Africa, where blue eyes are associated with blindness (blue eyes there are seen in people with albinist tendencies, who frequently do have poor vision, and with cataracts, which can make dark eyes seem bluish). And other places where dark eyes are the norm and blue seen only in pathalogical cases. Again, this is generalizing European bias (and northern European at that) into a human universal, which it isn't.

Humans are naturally polygamous

Yes, but not very - most men in history have only had one mate at a time because that's all they could handle. In hunter-gather societies a particularly successful male might have two or three, but more than that had to wait for agricultural societies, which only have a 10,000 history.

Only big and tall males can win mating opportunities.

Not true. May be often true in some circumstances, but not always true.

Among pair-bonding species like humans, in which males and females stay together to raise their children, females also prefer to mate with big and tall males because they can provide better physical protection against predators and other males.

Unless, of course, she chooses a short but wealthy mate who can hire other men to defend his household. Or a smart but short mate who invents a bow or a gun to defeat both wild animals and other humans.

Yes, big and tall counts, but so does bringing home the bacon. Short successful hunters will tend to be more attractive to women over tall, unsuccessful hunters for the same reason that short rock stars with lots of blind are more attractive than tall men working the counter at McDonad's - more resources with which to raise children. Women will over look "flaws" like shortness and baldness if the man commands sufficient resources.

See, it's not, and never has been just about physical appearances in the human reproductive game. Yes, beauty is valuable but so are those other things. Even more so in the days of arranged marriages, when a daughter might be married off to an ugly butcher or blacksmith who would have a steadier income than a handsome laborer. And under the system of arranged marriages a less attractive, small breasted woman who was known to be strong and healthy was more likely to be married off well than a pretty but delicate and chronically ill waif, particularly among the lower socio-economic groups where a strong woman was essential to having a productive farm or keeping up with a nomadic tribe's travels.

Yes, all other things being equal the pretty people have an advantage but "all other things" are seldom, if ever, equal.

Despite the fact that humans are naturally polygynous, most industrial societies are monogamous because men tend to be more or less equal in their resources compared with their ancestors in medieval times.

It also has to do with fewer men dying young in wars and raids. Another trait of polygamous societies is warfare (as pointed out elsewhere) which can drop the man side of the gender ratio to the point where men must have multiple wives to ensure as many women of reproductive age as possible have as many children as possible.

Most suicide bombers are Muslim

Somehow, I don't think this is a genetically determined trait, as Islam is less than two thousand years old.

Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce....[snip],,,,the father has to make sure that his son will inherit his wealth, status, and power, regardless of how much or how little of these resources he has. In contrast, there is relatively little that a father (or mother) can do to keep a daughter youthful or make her more physically attractive.

Not true - women have long been sheltered from harm, in places where pale skin is attractive kept indoors/under cover, encouraged to eat or not eat depening on whether the ideal is fat or thin, and so on to encourage beauty, provided with foods thought beneficial for women, and so on. There is much that can be done, either without modern medicine, to encourage good appearance. Then there is the whole issue of dowries...

Beautiful people have more daughters

I have to mention something not brought up by this gentleman, and frequently ignored by others:

Infanticide.

Beauty and wealth often go together both because being physically attractive has advantages and because wealthier people eat better, live in better housing, and historically have had more access to medical care. You have better skin and shinier hair when you aren't malnourished. You have fewer scars and pockmarks when you aren't sick and can afford to hire people to do the hazardous work for you.

But there's the ugly little fact that, in times past, people haven't always been able to feed all their children, and sometimes had to choose which ones would survive. There are numerous of accounts of sons being fed preferentially - such as reserving meat for sons and not for daughters when supplies are short. Sometimes, medical care is reserved for boys and not girls. The result would be fewer daughters among the poor - not because of a difference in conception or birth rates but rather a difference in survival rates.

This dirty little secret can also explain why the very rich and powerful have more sons - again, not a matter of conception but rather survival. The wealthy and powerful are much more likely to get away with infant murder than are the poor. In ancient Rome it wasn't unsual that, at any given time, the ruling/wealthy families had multiple sons but only one daughter apiece. This defies biological realities without admitting that many of the girls born were either killed or sent into slavey or otherwise disposed of.

And I'm stopping there for awhile because I'm tired of typing.

[Tsyroc]

The paleness thing might work as a sign of health for northern Europeans because being pale would allow them to better manufacture vitamin D from the low sun exposure.


While people nearer the equator might be healthier because they are darker and less likely to burn or develope skin cancer from exposure to much more intense sunlight than people in the extreme north or south.


===

The blonde hair thing was interesting to me. I was born with very light blond hair and it has steadilly darkened as I got older. It was dishwater brown/blond when I was school aged. By the time I was in high school it was pretty much brown except for some blonde fuzz on my head that was usually hidden by the rest of my hair. By the time I was in my 20s my hair was just brown and now I'd say, except for the few grey hairs, it's really dark brown.

All along my hair would bleach out/lighten easily from exposure to sun and other things but now there is no way other than using serious chemicals get my hair as blond as it was when I was a baby.

Being male, I'm not sure how this all works for me in the context of the article. Probably just a side effect of all those hot blonde women getting so much action in the past.

I have known people with blond hair whose hair has just gone from blonde to white (instead of grey) when they got older. I wonder how that works into the hypothesis.

[Mr. T]

I have known people with blond hair whose hair has just gone from blonde to white (instead of grey) when they got older. I wonder how that works into the hypothesis.

It's because people who have "grey hair" actually don't have grey hair. They just have a mix of their natural dark hair and white hair and the result is hair that appears to be grey. Since blondes don't have any dark hair, their hair just appears white instead of going through the grey-phase.

[Tahlan]

A lot to think about and digest.

So now there is an evolutionary reason why I'm attracted to women who are popsicle sticks with boobs...boy, that's a relief.

[Rye]

I'm surprised they didn't bring up the race/sex IQ test things, those always cause controversy when they crop up.

[Lord of the Abyss]

But I have to wonder if polygamy over their is really such a serious problem that it has such a serious effect on the number of eligible females to mate. I know that the oil sheiks and Princes are going to have 20 wives or so, but I have a hard time believing that theirs enough of the super-wealthy to actually make a measurable impact on the "female supply".

But what about far more numerous moderately well off men who have two or three wives ? The negative effects of polygamy would depend on how widespread the practice is. A hundred thousand men with three wives apiece would make a much bigger dent in the supply of females than one prince wih a hundred. And the sexual repressiveness of the culture matters as well; if it's marriage or nothing, a lot more men are going to be getting nothing.

Beautiful people have more daughters

I have to mention something not brought up by this gentleman, and frequently ignored by others:

Infanticide.

Beauty and wealth often go together both because being physically attractive has advantages and because wealthier people eat better, live in better housing, and historically have had more access to medical care. You have better skin and shinier hair when you aren't malnourished. You have fewer scars and pockmarks when you aren't sick and can afford to hire people to do the hazardous work for you.

But there's the ugly little fact that, in times past, people haven't always been able to feed all their children, and sometimes had to choose which ones would survive. There are numerous of accounts of sons being fed preferentially - such as reserving meat for sons and not for daughters when supplies are short. Sometimes, medical care is reserved for boys and not girls. The result would be fewer daughters among the poor - not because of a difference in conception or birth rates but rather a difference in survival rates.

This dirty little secret can also explain why the very rich and powerful have more sons - again, not a matter of conception but rather survival. The wealthy and powerful are much more likely to get away with infant murder than are the poor. In ancient Rome it wasn't unsual that, at any given time, the ruling/wealthy families had multiple sons but only one daughter apiece. This defies biological realities without admitting that many of the girls born were either killed or sent into slavey or otherwise disposed of.

That doesn't explain why modern high status people still have more sons. And as far as infanticide goes, as I understand it historically the rich killed girls, and the poor killed boys; the kill girls only bit is apparently recent. The past practice made sense in a ruthless sort of way; poor girls have a better chance of attracting a better off suitor, and possibly gaining the family more wealth or influence. Rich girls, on the other hand, are burdens, especially thanks to the dowry system.

[General Zod]

That doesn't explain why modern high status people still have more sons. >snip<

I assume you actually have some numbers to back this up?

[Tasoth]

What depresses me is the fact that I'm going to lose my creativity soon apparently. I know that prior sentence was extreme, and there are many examples of authors writing great works in their later years, but damn, college is going to take away my genus apparently.

[Darth Wong]

It would make more sense to postulate a preference in people of European descent (perhaps white skin was a marker of something else that indicated fitness) than to apply it to all of humanity. Euro-whatevers being, whether they admit it or not, a distinct minority in the global population.

That's a fair comment. Let's face it, most articles written for the American market basically ignore the majority of the world's population (ie- all the regions not dominated by white people), unless they're trying to paint them as ravening hordes pounding at the gates of civilization.

Except in areas where famines are a repeating phenomena, in which case men seek out plump women because they'll be able to survive hunger longer than thin women.

Does that really disprove the rule? That's obviously a special case, and it doesn't even necessarily disprove the instinctive drive that they are talking about, because it is a logical choice in that context. Logical choices do not necessarily disprove instinctive mating preferences any more than they disprove the survival instinct when someone chooses to sacrifice himself for a cause or social custom.

Question: do you believe that ritual suicide, for example, actually disproves the survival instinct? When researchers attempt to determine what our instinctive preferences are, they are in no way dismissing the ability of society to override those preferences, given enough pressure.

[Elaro]

What depresses me is the fact that I'm going to lose my creativity soon apparently. I know that prior sentence was extreme, and there are many examples of authors writing great works in their later years, but damn, college is going to take away my genus apparently.

I wouldn't worry aout your creativity. As long as you don't have kids, you'll be fine. RTA, man.

On another note: Number 1 unPC rule? Doesn't apply to me. I don't find blondes attractive at all. And big-breasted women don't turn me on either.

Although, big breasts are probably a sign of, like someone posted earlier, a good capacity to survive famines. Breasts are ~mostly fat, right?

[Darth Wong]

It's interesting that men seem to have an instinctive preference for appearance traits in women which virtually ensure that she won't age well. That is precisely the hypothesis of the article; we gravitate toward traits that do not age well because those are good indicators of age, and we prefer young women.

Mind you, there's always conscious thought to serve as a counterbalance for instinct, for whatever that's worth. I suspect that in some people, it's worth almost nothing at all.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Mind you, there's always conscious thought to serve as a counterbalance for instinct, for whatever that's worth. I suspect that in some people, it's worth almost nothing at all.

Conscious thought requires effort. The default condition is not engage in it, and defaults are the easiest thing--and humans are naturally, biologically, lazy, because it's efficient to conserve energy when you have all your basic needs met.

[Honorable Mention]

So, what about gay people? Are they typically attracted to the same qualities (ex. lesbians liking busty blondes) for the same "reproductive" reasons?

[Srynerson]

[*]Most suicide bombers are Muslim

Suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, but according to Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, when religion is involved, the attackers are always Muslim. Why? The surprising answer is that Muslim suicide bombing has nothing to do with Islam or the Quran (except for two lines). It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

The headline to this one is misleading. Until very recently the leading user of suicide bombers were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, who are not Muslim (they are primarily Hindu). Gambetta filters this inconvenient piece of information out by artificially distinguishing "politically" motivated bombings from "religiously" motivated bombings.

[Hillary]

[*]Most suicide bombers are Muslim

Suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, but according to Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, when religion is involved, the attackers are always Muslim. Why? The surprising answer is that Muslim suicide bombing has nothing to do with Islam or the Quran (except for two lines). It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

The headline to this one is misleading. Until very recently the leading user of suicide bombers were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, who are not Muslim (they are primarily Hindu). Gambetta filters this inconvenient piece of information out by artificially distinguishing "politically" motivated bombings from "religiously" motivated bombings.

There is also the claim that suicide bombers are almost always permavirgins and that this is what drives them to it. Utter bunkum, surely - at least one of the 7/7 bomers was married FFS.

The writer of this article may be surprised to know that factors other than sexual reporduction have a bearing on people's actions.

[Spoonist]

I for one is still waiting for those 10 truths...

This was just badly researched opinions.

[SCRawl]

I think that a lot of the posters here are missing the point: these are supposed to be indications of human nature, not universal human absolute truths. Just because we have biological instincts, as DW points out in his second post, doesn't mean that every action we take is necessarily ruled by this instinct.

I'm not trying to say that everything in the OP is the gospel -- I'm far too ignorant of the subject matter to make such a statement -- but saying that these "truths" are disproved because you don't like blondes, for example, tells me that the point has sailed over your head.

[Dooey Jo]

I think that a lot of the posters here are missing the point: these are supposed to be indications of human nature, not universal human absolute truths. Just because we have biological instincts, as DW points out in his second post, doesn't mean that every action we take is necessarily ruled by this instinct.

Mike is right, but he did not write the article, which clearly tries to paint these "truths" as some sort of rules rather than tendencies among certain populations.

I'm not trying to say that everything in the OP is the gospel -- I'm far too ignorant of the subject matter to make such a statement -- but saying that these "truths" are disproved because you don't like blondes, for example, tells me that the point has sailed over your head.

But what point exactly? Blonde hair is one of the rarest hair colours in the world; why would that be if it is so attractive? Have they done some sort of world-wide study that showed that all men everywhere prefer blondes? They don't reference any such thing, so to me it only looks like the usual pseudo-scientific speculation about the possible origins of a fact that doesn't exist.

[SCRawl]

I'm not trying to say that everything in the OP is the gospel -- I'm far too ignorant of the subject matter to make such a statement -- but saying that these "truths" are disproved because you don't like blondes, for example, tells me that the point has sailed over your head.

But what point exactly? Blonde hair is one of the rarest hair colours in the world; why would that be if it is so attractive?

Maybe because, like blue eyes, it's caused by a recessive gene. There might be other reasons, but I'm hardly the one to say.

Have they done some sort of world-wide study that showed that all men everywhere prefer blondes? They don't reference any such thing, so to me it only looks like the usual pseudo-scientific speculation about the possible origins of a fact that doesn't exist.

Like I said, I'm not trying to prove or disprove the theories espoused by those who wrote the original article. I am, however, willing to accept them as reasonable hypotheses. What I'm seeing here is a lot of people who are giving knee-jerk responses, disagreeing with these hypotheses without really understanding that what are being described are the basest of default tendencies. Which may or may not be correct, sure, but to say that "aw, they're full of shit because of x" is just being silly.

(I could probably word that better, but I have to get back to my real job -- watching a toddler and a baby.)

[Akhlut]

Humans are naturally polygamous

It would be nice if evolutionary psychologists could give evidence instead of speculation where they ignore things that don't agree with their hypothesis ("The history of western civilisation aside"? It somehow doesn't count now? It's natural if it's part of an old culture, but not a relatively newer one, nor the even older hunter-gatherer style of living?)...

The fact that human males are so much larger and stronger than human females contributes to the hypothesis that humans are naturally (or were originally) polygamous animals. Further, our closest relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees, exhibit polygamous tendencies as well. And just because something is natural doesn't necessarily mean that humans won't go against it. No one's going to argue that humans don't naturally shy away from pain, yet piercing and tattoos are extraordinarily popular around the globe. Does this mean that humans don't care about pain? No, it means are brains are big enough to modify natural preferences toward things when it best suits our needs. We're one of the few animals (if not the only one) that has a really good ability to actually plan ahead (not just store food for the future) and make contingency plans and do things now to prevent bad things from happening later. If Judeo-Christian values and beliefs said bad things were going to happen far in the future for having more than one wife, then the brain can start shutting down functions that tell a guy to have sex with more than one woman. It's not like human cultures exist independently of human biology and evolved psychology. They all take advantage of some part of them, including our ability to modify behaviors that usually come naturally.

Oh wow, so young and horny people are stupider and more easy to manipulate into blowing themselves up than experienced adults with families? Wow, who would have guessed... Though, AFAIK there are actually only very few polygamous marriages in the suicide-bomber dense areas, even though Islam does allow it, so...

It's not like they have a good chance of having sex anytime soon though. They have to get married before they can really have sex, and marriage requires dowry money, if I'm not mistaken. Which poor as hell 18 year olds can't afford.

[Akhlut]

But what point exactly? Blonde hair is one of the rarest hair colours in the world; why would that be if it is so attractive? Have they done some sort of world-wide study that showed that all men everywhere prefer blondes? They don't reference any such thing, so to me it only looks like the usual pseudo-scientific speculation about the possible origins of a fact that doesn't exist.

Because even though blonde hair in women is preferable, most men won't reject a woman solely because she has the 'wrong' hair color, if I had to guess. Hair color is not a life or death decision maker and merely helps a woman look younger for a few more years and requires a body that is already not producing a lot of pigments. So, because of that, it'd be relegated mostly to white people, already, which are a relatively small portion of people alive on earth.