Whether you like it or not, human nature is simply not politically correct,” wrote psychologist Alan S. Miller in an article where he put his finger on the sore and reviewed some uncomfortable “realities”, such as the fact that, for example, almost no one recognizes himself as a racist, although it is evident that racism continues to exist. So where does this contradiction come from between what we want to see and what we see? According to Miller, this occurs because our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are not only ours, they have not been built only with our education and experiences, but are also the result of what happened to our ancestors., thousands or even millions of years ago. Because of this, it turns out that our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are, to a large extent, universal.
Psychologists and evolutionary biologists study this biological , intangible but pervasive influence on human behavior. Not as a dictation that determines our actions, but as an influx that predisposes us to think, feel and react in certain ways , such as, naturally, we like to eat fats and sugars. We can learn and decide to follow a more or less strict diet, but initially, these foods are tastier than others that are lighter. The reason is that our ancestors benefited from it. Now, however, we have such easy access to them that this old predisposition can harm us.
The way to deal with sex
Sex, that activity so full of taboos, cliches and social conventions, is not far from this biological influx. As the professor of social psychology David Buss wrote , in the end each and every one of us is the result of an unbroken chain of ancestors who have successfully solved a number of reproductive problems. Therefore, as descendants of them that we are, modern men and women have inherited the sexual contact strategies that they used.
Sperm and egg during fertilization. The different size of both and the different investment of men and women in their children means that the sexual strategy of both is not the same – Public domain
Unlike what happens with other animals, human sexual behavior is not so easy to study because, along with this biological influence, there is a powerful cultural influence. But, thanks to the internet and, specifically, to the multiple pages and applications that exist to search for a partner (whatever the type), evolutionary biologists and psychologists can now access an enormous amount of data with which to try to trace that influence. Biologically, ancestral and politically incorrect, yes, also marked by the “tics” of the internet.
To this end, a study recently published in the journal Science Advances has used the data provided by “a popular dating website.” The information is the result of the use made of it by 200,000 users, heterosexual men and women of various ethnicities , all inhabitants of four large cities in the United States (New York, Boston, Chicago and Seattle). The research, led by Elizabeth, E. Bruch, a sociologist from the University of Michigan (USA), has analyzed how desirable users are , understanding that the most desirable are those who receive many messages to establish contact, and has contrasted with demographicsthereof. Thus, they have confirmed, with statistical firmness, several clear trends.
Young women, the most attractive
One of the most interesting is a verification of what has already been concluded in many previous studies: «The degree of” desirability “(how attractive each one is) of men and women varies with age, but changes more strongly in women, and its effects go in opposite directions: older women are less desirable, while older men are more desirable, ”the study authors write. Specifically, according to the data collected by these authors, women reach their peak of attractiveness at 18 and, since then, it declines. In the case of men, attractiveness increases with age until it reaches its maximum at 50, at which time it also begins to decline.
“The average 30-year-old man spends as much time texting teenage girls as women his age”
This coincides, for example, with data published by the OkCupid website in 2010 and according to which men from 22 to 30 years old focus almost exclusively on women who are younger than themselves. “The average 30-year-old man spends as much time texting adolescent girls as women her age,” representatives of the company wrote. Furthermore, they reported that, as a man ages, he increasingly seeks younger women, while his upper age limit remains just above his.
According to this study, female youth is an attractive trait. Does that influence the use of cosmetics? – Archive
“This is not surprising if you consider that it only reflects the initial preferences when it comes to finding a partner,” Michelle Drouin , a psychologist at Purdue University in Indiana (USA) specializing in the interaction between technology and relationships. “People who search for relationships on the internet usually send messages based on photographs or, at best, a brief description, without other clues that could lead to building a long relationship. Therefore, people tend to reflect basic attractions . ”
“Men are inclined to seek women at the height of their fertility and women are attracted to men with more resources”
According to Drouin, these are the ones used by evolutionary psychologists: «these relate age to reproductive factors: men are inclined to seek women at the height of their fertility and women are attracted to men with more resources, who must be better prepared to care for offspring ».
Naturally, according to these evolutionary biologists this is not a rule strictly followed by each individual, but a trend observed in the population.
The importance of parental investment
Why would this happen? The cause goes back to the concept of « sexual selection , introduced by Charles Darwin to explain the reproductive advantages that some individuals possess over others, of the same sex and species, and that allow them to leave more descendants. As biologist Robert Trivers postulated in 1972 , sexual selection has different implications for gender. This scientist establishes that the parental investment, the energy expenditure and the time dedicated to the children, at the expense of continuing to reproduce, are not the same in men and women, and that, therefore, each sex will choose a different strategy of reproduction in accordance with the cost it generates.
According to evolutionary psychology, thousands or millions of years of evolution, in which males and females have not invested the same in offspring, generate behavioral differences today – EFE
“The father’s investment is limited to the male gamete, while the women contribute at least the female gamete, the pregnancy and lactation of the infant, which, in most societies, lasts for years,” they write in an article published in Mental Health Leonor E. Hernández-López and Ana Lila Cerda-Molina . This greater feminine implication implies that « there are more men available for reproduction than women . Consequently, women are considered a limited resource and, therefore, male intrasexual competition is generated and selectivity in the choice of partners by women is sharpened, “Hernández-López and Cerda-Molina continue.
However, unlike what happens in most mammals, man extends his investment in the progeny, to ensure the survival of his children. This generates, according to these evolutionary theories, a female intrasexual competition. “Thus, women compete for those men who have the possibility of generating greater resources and for prolonged periods, for the benefit of both them and their progeny.” And since all men do not have these qualities, ” those who have them also become a limited resource .”
As Hernández-López and Cerda-Molina explain, these biological trends create behaviors that have no adaptive value in the present . This may explain for example the use of cosmetics or even cosmetic surgery by mature women to maintain a youthful appearance, “although it is clear to them that they are no longer young or reproductively fit. However, they continue to try to prolong that appearance. The counterpart is that men also consciously know that these women are no longer young or fertile and, despite this, they continue to find them attractive because they meet the characteristics that have been evolutionarily selected as suitable for reproduction.
In any case, other works also highlight something evident: men are not the only ones who value physical attractiveness. This is also important for women : they generally prefer tall, athletic men with a hip-to-hip ratio of 0.9 and a symmetrical body. Her face should have slightly large eyes, prominent jaws, and facial symmetry.
The attractiveness of the level of studies
This biological influence has more politically incorrect consequences, which can be intuited in the study by Elizabeth E. Bruch. And it is that, according to the conclusions obtained in this research, the level of studies also influences how attractive the users of the dating website analyzed are.
« In men, a higher educational level is always more desirable . In women, a bachelor’s degree is most desirable, while postgraduate studies are associated with a reduction in their “desirability.” How can this be explained? According to Drouin, “it is possible that women with high educational levels perceive themselves as more involved in work and less in family or relationships.”
Couples in the same league
Apart from this, the main conclusions of the study by Elizabeth E. Bruch are those that refer to how dating web users face the problem of making contact with attractive couples. They observed that the most common is that women and men contact potential partners who share their range of “desirability” , measured as the number of messages and interest that person receives. However, those who do not behave as typical tend to send messages to people with 25 percent “desirability”.
The analyzes also revealed other differences between men and women. They tend to receive more responses and, according to word analysis algorithms, they tend to use more positive words in these messages. They, on the contrary, use fewer positive words and, in fact, when they use them, they get fewer responses.
However, both of them resort to the same strategy: when they approach people more “desirable” than them, they lengthen the length of their messages, indicating that they opt for quality over quantity. Finally, very attractive users tend not to send messages to those who are less attractive.
Greater competition for couples on the internet
The authors of the study highlight an implication that is essential to interpret the data obtained. According to them, the search for a partner on the internet is very different from that of the real world , “because due to the high volume of potential partners and the ease of sending a message, the competition for the attention of couples is much fiercer in the network that was outside it ». For this reason, they consider that the hierarchy of “desirability” is more present in the Internet environment. For this reason, people’s inclination to respond to less desirable partners decreases. “When there are many fish in the sea, you can afford to discard a few,” writes Elizabeth E. Bruch in the study.
