The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating

The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating

Language: English

Pages: 368

ISBN: 046500802X

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


With two new chapters by the author.If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question, says noted psychologist David Buss, we must look into our evolutionary past. Based on the most massive study of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than ten thousand people of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide, The Evolution of Desire is the first book to present a unified theory of human mating behavior. Now in a revised and updated edition, Buss's classic presents the latest research in the field, including startling new discoveries about the evolutionary advantages of infidelity, orgasm, and physical attractiveness.

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

Childbirth Across Cultures: Ideas and Practices of Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Postpartum (Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science, Volume 5)

An Unnatural History of Emerging Infections

Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour

Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment

Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States, and the Global System

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to one of these views, "natural" humans are at one with nature, peacefully coexisting with plants, animals, and each other. War, aggression, and competition are seen as corruptions of this essentially peaceful human nature by current conditions, such as patriarchy or capitalism. Despite the evidence, people cling to these illusions. When the anthropolOgist Napoleon Chagnon documented that 25 percent of all Yanomamo Indian men die violent deaths at the hands of other Yanomamo men, his

contexts in which this occurred, however, were highly circumscribed in that all the "men" were already wealthy, came from a high-status family, and had secure expectations through inheritance. 23 Apparently the preference for slightly older men can be overridden when the man possesses other powerful cues to status and resources and when his resource expectations are guaranteed. Other exceptions occur when women mate with substantially younger men. Many of these cases occur not because of strong

to that state over seeking casual sex partners. One solution to the puzzle comes from the ground rules set by women. Since it is clear that many ancestral women required reliable signs of male commitment before consenting to sex, men who failed to commit would have suffered selectively on the mating market. Men who failed to fulfill women's standards typically would have failed to attract the most desirable women and perhaps even failed to attract any women at all. Women's requirements for

dislike by others, excessive drinking, ignorance, lack of education, possessiveness, promiscuity, selfishness, lack of humor, and lack of sensuality. In contrast, men rate only four negative characteristics as significantly more undesirable than women do: a low sex drive, physical unattractiveness, need for commitment, and hairiness. Men clearly relax their standards more than women do for brief sexual encounters. Relaxed standards, however, are still standards. Indeed, men's standards for sexual

wanted to get rid of her husband, she never had refused his sexual advances. Her friend suggested that she try it. A week later, she reported that her husband had become enraged at her sexual refusal and, after two days, had packed his bags and left. They were divorced shortly thereafter. If women give sex to get love and men give love to get sex, then depriving a man of sex may be a reliable way to stop his love and encourage his departure. Lack of Economic Support A man's ability and

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