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Intro + Evolutionary Psych + Mating Strats - Coggle Diagram
Intro +
Evolutionary Psych +
Mating Strats
Intro
few domains of human activity generate as many laws, traditions and rituals as sex, love, and attraction.
when thinking about sex, love, and attraction (or anything for that matter), we often think of our own experiences, however, our memories aren't always as accurate as we think they are.
flashbulb memories.
our personal experiences may not be the same as someone else's experience > due to culture, age, and/or sex differences.
we need to look at empirical evidence from scientific studies.
data from large numbers of people, though the "average" experience/feeling/belief may be quite different to our own.
Evolutionary
Psychology
evolutionary ideas have played an important role in psychology > humans are animals.
survival of the fittest:
natural selection > selecting traits or characteristics that help animals deal with the various struggles of life, like finding food and not becoming food.
just because an animal has survived, it doesn't mean that they have successfully evolved > more about leaving descendants > genes surviving into the next generation.
sexual selection:
the evolution of adaptations that don't increase the animal's survival, but rather their mating success.
may actually decrease the likelihood of the animal surviving for a long time, but increases the ability for the animal's genes carry on.
continuity of species:
animals face the same problems (food, predators, reproducing). maybe the solution for one species also works for another.
darwin focused on anatomical similarities across species.
birds and bats are different species, but both have wings > both evolved wings to solve the same problems
also present in embryos.
also involved in memory.
all animals need to learn about their world, and when they learn information, they need to form memories about it.
memory requires structural/functional changes to the brain.
from the evolutionary psychology perspective, there are at least some continuities across species for features related to sex, love, and attraction.
types of features that are "attractive" might be common across many species.
strategies that increase reproductive success might be similar across species.
Weird Sex
weird:
of strange or extraordinary character; bizarre
female praying mantises:
bite the male's head off (not always successful) > the male without a head gains several advantages compared to ones that don't get their heads bitten off > more sperm produced > more eggs fertilosed.
female eats the head for extra nutrition > further increases number of eggs fertilised > increases the health of the fertilised eggs.
the offspring of the headless father are more likely to engage in the same headless behaviour.
males with heads don't really have the advantage of surviving and spreading genes > praying mantises are sparsely distributed, making it rare for a male to meet a female in his life, let alone more than one.
the strat isn't always the best solution, for the male, to maximise reproductive success.
bush cricket:
male cums a lot- way more than necessary for offspring (5% of his body weight). female eats the excess. provides around 10% of the females lifetime food consumption.
female has more food, produces more eggs, healthier offspring
orangutans:
have sex hanging upside down in a tree
humans are the most unusual:
having sex in private.
having sex for fun
large breasts outside of lactation > large breasts in other animals are a turn-off > if the female is lactating it means she won't ger pregnant, so there's no point
roles of males > males contribute more to the taking care of offspring.
female menopause > females remain fertile until death.
long-term sex partners
female chimps:
have sex up to 84 times with different males in her troop during heat.
communal orb-weaving spiders:
males undertake a split-second catapult action immediately after mating, thereby fleeing their partner.
zhang et al (2022):
observed 155 instances of mating in these spiders, and in the vast majority of cases the males performed the catapulting behaviour after mating. those who did not, were captured, killed, and consumed by the female
angler fish:
illuminated lure on the top of their head.
all large anglerfish are female, the males are much smaller.
when a male finds a female he bites into her and never lets go. the female eventually grows skin around them, her nervous system starts to control them and her digestive system starts to feed them, she controls when they cum. they look like growths or tumours.
males are smaller and less "bright" or ornamented.
occurs because the species is also sparsely distributed (bottom of the ocean) so the males are lucky if they ever find a female.
Mating
Strategies
parental investment
in most species, sex happens primarily for reproductive purposes > not humans tho
too risky > takes time and energy, also predators (can't fight if you're fuckin)
parental care is beneficial to the offspring but costs the parents a lot.
in any sexually reproducing species, sexual decision of a mate is very important, especially for the individual who is investing the most resources into the offspring (almost always the female).
amphibians
cane toad:
no parental care at all > female lays a very large number of eggs (35,000- up to 70,000 a year), they're also poisonous to protect from predators.
estimated that less than 1% survive into adulthood.
eggs are always laid in a wet area > if the area dries out, they die.
once they're grown up a little, the predators start eating them.
run over by vehicles.
mammals
engage in some degree of prenatal care, sometimes a lot, sometimes less.
rats
> feeding, protecting from predators, mother needs to lick the baby around the genitals to help them urinate (consumes the urine too > important source of sodium).
prenatal care is largely provided by the female.
monogamy or polygamy
monogamy
: one partner
only 16% of 853 cultures recorded actually prescribe monogamy
polygamy
: may partners
polygyny:
one male, more than one female
polyandry:
one female, more than one male.
galapagos hawk > up to 8 males with one female.
accepted to some degree when the number of males in a species outnumbers the number of females
males would generally be related.
evolutionarily, this makes a lot of sense > sometimes, both brothers may not be able to attract a mate if there's a small female population. the brothers will share some genes in common, so it increases the odds of their genes being passed on.
theories of human mating strategies
what do we look for in a mate?
freud: we look for a partner that is like our different-sex parent
we look for partners that "complement" us.
we look for partners that are similar to us.
evidence for and against all three:
these three approaches fail to allow for any sexual dimorphism (differences).
males and females may take different approaches/strats when looking for a mate.