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Sexual Conflict in Human Mating

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    ♪ [digitized music] ♪
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    ♪ ♪
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    >[DAVID BUSS]
    So I'd like you to imagine
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    someone of the opposite sex
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    walking up to you
    on the street and say,
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    “Hi, I've been noticing you around lately.
    I find you very attractive.”
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    And they ask you one of three questions:
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    “Would you go out on a date with me?”
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    “Would you come back
    to my apartment with me?”
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    [audience laughs lightly]
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    >“Would you have sex with me?”
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    [audience laughs]
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    >So these are actual empirical studies.
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    The first one was done
    in the state of Florida,
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    and these are the results of that study.
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    Of the women approached
    by the male confederate –
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    that's what we call the people
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    who are members of the
    experimental team: “confederates.”
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    It doesn't mean someone
    from the south of the United States.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >Of the women approached,
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    56% agreed to go out
    on the date with the guy,
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    6% agreed to go back to his apartment,
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    0% agreed to have sex with him.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >Women in the sex condition, in fact,
    thought it was a rather peculiar question.
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    Most women need
    a little bit more information…
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    [audience laughs]
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    >…before they agree to the sex.
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    Of the men approached by the
    female of the experimental team,
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    about 50% agreed to go
    out on a date with her.
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    69% agreed to go back to her apartment...
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    [audience laughs]
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    >...and 75% agreed to have sex with her.
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    [audience laughs and applauds]
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    >Of the 25% of the men who declined,
    several were apologetic about it,
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    citing a girlfriend, a fiancée,
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    asking for a phone number
    and a rain check.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >Very different responses.
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    Now this talk is about
    conflict between the sexes,
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    and I'm going to talk about six regions
    in which men and women get into conflict,
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    and the first one is
    desire for sexual variety.
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    Now, let's imagine that
    I am king of the universe
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    and I will give you your magic wish.
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    How many sex partners would you
    like to have over the next month,
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    over the next 10 years,
    or in your lifetime?
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    Just get a number in mind.
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    How many would you like
    to have in your lifetime?
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    Okay, do you have the numbers in mind?
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    Okay, well, here's what we found.
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    Ideal number of sex partners,
    women said, on average,
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    they would like to have seven-tenths
    of a sex partner over the next month,
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    gradually escalating to a full
    sex partner at six months,
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    and leveling off at about
    four to five in the lifespan.
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    Men thought two in the next
    month would be about right,
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    eight in the next couple of years,
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    and 18 in the lifespan.
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    This was after eliminating three men in our
    sample who said they would like 1,000.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >As we'll see, this desire for
    sexual variety on men's part
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    is one of the sources, one of the key
    sources of conflict between the sexes.
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    A second is what we call
    the sexual over-perception bias.
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    And the classic example, and this is highly
    replicated in my lab and other labs is,
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    you show a videotape or photographs
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    or just have people observe
    a man and a woman interacting.
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    And after a few minutes,
    the woman smiles at the man.
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    Stop the videotape and ask,
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    “Why did the woman smile?
    What was her intention?
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    What was she trying to signal?”
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    Men are more likely than women to say,
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    “Oh, she was sending sexual signals.
    She wants his body. It's obvious.”
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    Women seeing exactly the same film, say,
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    “No, she was just being friendly.
    She was being polite.”
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    So men have this sexual over-perception bias,
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    and it's interesting that in our
    laboratory studies where we had --
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    it's basically a speed-dating paradigm
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    where men and women
    interact with each other briefly
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    and then evaluate how interested
    the other person is in them
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    and how interested they
    are in the other person,
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    that the sexual over-perception bias
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    is most likely to occur with women
    who are physically attractive.
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    And what's interesting about that is,
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    because attractive women
    are hit on more often,
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    they are least likely to
    reciprocate that sexual attraction.
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    It's also the case, we found,
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    that men who are high on narcissism
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    are especially prone to
    the sexual over-perception bias.
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    They think they're hot, but they're not.
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    [audience laughs and applauds]
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    >Moving to sexual conflict
    number 3: deception.
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    I hate to break it to you,
    but men sometimes lie.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >But they lie in very specific ways.
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    And we've done studies of lying
    on Internet dating sites,
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    which are very common nowadays.
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    Something like 38% of all couples
    have met on an Internet dating site,
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    but men lie in very predictable ways.
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    So, for example, they lie about their height.
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    So they tend to-- If they're 5’8”,
    they tend to say they're 6 feet tall.
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    They kind of round up
    by about 2 inches on average.
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    They lie about their income,
    they lie about their status.
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    Now, women also deceive in Internet dating.
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    They tend to shave about
    15 pounds off of their weight,
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    and both sexes post photographs
    that are not truly representative
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    of what they actually look like.
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    That's why you have to
    meet someone in person
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    to see whether there's actually
    true sexual chemistry.
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    But when you do, men continue to lie,
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    and one of the things they lie about
    is the depths of their feelings,
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    the depths of their emotions
    in order to have sex.
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    So this is bad…
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    [audience laughs]
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    >…but it's especially upsetting to a woman.
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    So if you want to upset a woman,
    declare that you love her.
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    “I really love you. I have
    deep feelings for you.
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    Now let's have sex.”
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    [audience laughs]
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    >And you have sex.
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    And then after the sex,
    after he has an orgasm,
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    he says, “Actually, I was just kidding.
    I don't love you at all. Goodbye.”
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    [audience laughs]
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    >Well, women in our studies,
    extremely upset by that.
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    On a 7-point scale, they max out.
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    Men who are deceived
    in that by a woman,
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    not too bothered.
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    “So she doesn't love me.
    I can live with that.”
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    Now, some people interpret these findings
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    to mean that, “Well, women are
    just more emotional than men,
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    so of course they're going
    to get upset about everything.”
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    But it's not true.
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    That stereotype is inaccurate because
    men get upset about other sorts of things.
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    It's domain specific, for example:
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    Misled him about her
    willingness to have sex
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    or led to believe that sex is forthcoming
    and said “no” at the last minute:
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    Men more upset about that than women.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >Sexual conflict number 4:
    mate value discrepancies.
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    Mate value, you have to distinguish
    between short-term mate value
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    and long-term mate value.
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    Long-term mate value consists
    of a large number of qualities.
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    So it's not just physical attractiveness.
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    It's also the esteem in which other people
    hold you, your status, your reputation,
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    your personality, your level of intelligence,
    your health, and even your sense of humor.
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    Humor turns out to be
    a very important quality,
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    although not everybody believes it.
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    The comedian Jimi McFarland said,
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    “One of the things women claim is
    important in a man is a sense of humor.
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    In my years as a comedian,
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    I've learned that they're usually
    referring to the humor of guys
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    like Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise,
    and Russell Crowe…
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    [audience laughs and applauds]
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    …Apparently, those guys are hilarious.”
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    But humor is important.
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    Humor actually does convey a wealth of
    information about someone's verbal skills,
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    their level of intelligence, their social skills;
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    and even perspective taking
    requires a certain level
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    of mind reading to get people to laugh.
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    Now, back to the mate value discrepancies:
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    How do mate value discrepancies
    cause conflict?
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    Well, it's illustrated by a female colleague
    of mine who was complaining to me one day.
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    She said, “David, why is it that all
    the guys that I'm interested in
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    don't seem to show any interest in me,
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    yet I'm pursued by all these guys
    who are trying to chat me up,
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    and I have no interest in them?”
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    And what I told her is,
    I said -- I was brutally honest --
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    I said, “On the mating market, you are an 8,
    seeking 10s, and being lusted after by 6s.”
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    And she said that this single piece of
    information when she thought about it
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    was more important to,
    or was more helpful to her,
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    than three years of psychotherapy
    to figure out what the problem was.
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    She was going for guys
    who were too high in mate value.
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    Now the problem with going for people
    who are too high in mate value --
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    this applies to both men and women –
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    is, even if you succeed, if you're an 8
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    and you succeed in attracting a 9
    or 10 into a long-term relationship,
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    they are more likely to leave you when
    someone better comes along, statistically;
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    and also, they're more likely to be sexually
    unfaithful to you, statistically speaking,
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    which brings us to sexual
    conflict number 5: infidelity.
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    Now, from a male's perspective,
    from an evolutionary perspective,
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    it's fairly straightforward why men
    would be tempted to have affairs.
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    How many people have affairs?
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    [chuckling] I won't ask you
    to raise your hands on this one.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >But studies point to about 40
    to 50% of married men have an affair
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    at some point during
    the course of their marriage,
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    and it's about 20 to 30% of women.
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    Women are actually catching up with men.
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    So not everybody has affairs,
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    but a substantial number
    of people, substantial minority do.
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    And it's fairly clear why men do.
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    Studies of motivations for infidelity
    for men involve, they say, sexual variety.
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    “The woman was there.”
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    “The opportunity presented itself.”
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    “I wanted to have sex.”
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    [audience laughs]
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    >Women, it's more complicated.
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    For women, my evolutionary colleagues,
    other scientists who study this,
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    have advanced what's called
    the dual mating strategy hypothesis
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    or the good genes hypothesis,
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    where they basically propose that
    women can get the best of both worlds
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    by getting investment and resources
    from one man and good genes
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    (like genes for good health) from another man.
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    I think there's reason
    to be skeptical about this.
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    One of the reasons is that we know
    from DNA fingerprinting technology
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    that only 2% to 3% of offspring
    are actually fathered by men
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    who are other than the person
    believed to be the father
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    (the husband or the regular mate).
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    So what that means is that most women
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    are getting genes and investment
    from the same guy.
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    So that raises the puzzle:
    Why do women have affairs?
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    And this is something
    that my lab has studied,
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    and I think there are some important clues.
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    One is that women who have affairs
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    tend to be sexually and emotionally
    unhappy with their regular relationship.
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    And you may be thinking, as I would be,
    “Well, that's totally obvious.” Okay?
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    “Women who are unhappy
    with their relationship
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    are going to be more likely to have affairs.”
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    But it turns out, it's not true for men.
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    If you compare men who have affairs
    with men who don't have affairs,
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    there is no difference
    in their marital happiness,
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    but there is a huge difference for women.
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    Clue number 2: 70% of women
    become emotionally involved
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    with their affair partners or fall
    in love with their affair partners.
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    Now, if you're just trying
    to get good genes,
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    this seems like a very bad strategy.
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    Why get emotionally
    involved or fall in love?
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    And the third clue is that the qualities
    desired in an affair partner
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    turn out to be more or less identical to
    the qualities desired in a long-term mate.
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    And so what I think this does,
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    this set of clues combined
    with other evidence
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    points to the mate switching hypothesis,
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    which I think is a more compelling
    hypothesis about why women have affairs.
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    So in our lab, we've also documented
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    that women tend to cultivate
    what we call backup mates.
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    One woman told me, she said,
    “Men are like soup;
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    you always want to have
    some on the back burner…
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    [audience laughs]
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    …in case something goes
    wrong with your relationship.”
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    Of course, some of this information might
    be disturbing to the males in the audience.
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    It might be disturbing to realize
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    that your partner is cultivating
    surreptitiously backup mates,
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    that they have fantasies, sexual fantasies
    about people other than you,
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    and that maybe perhaps
    someone who's just a friend.
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    “Oh, he's just a friend.”
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    Or that maybe you're more
    replaceable than you realize.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >Which brings us to the last
    sexual conflict: breaking up.
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    Now, Reke asked you if you've ever
    experienced a romantic breakup.
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    Studies show that about
    85% of all people
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    have experienced at least
    one romantic breakup.
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    It's a very, very common thing.
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    It is rare to meet the one and only
    when you're 18 years old
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    and then live in happily-ever-after,
    monogamous bliss for the next 50 years.
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    It happens sometimes, but it's rare.
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    People engage in what I call serial mating,
    mating with one person--
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    (I don't mean Cheerios
    or Wheaties or anything.)
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    Mating with one person, breaking up,
    mating with another person for a while,
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    and some people get better at it with time.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >Now, breaking up involves a lot of conflict,
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    and it's one of the most heart wrenching
    phenomena that people go through.
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    I mean, people get depressed,
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    they start drinking,
    they start abusing drugs,
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    they go into depressions, et cetera.
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    It's a very intense,
    emotionally laden thing,
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    even if you're doing the dumping, okay?
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    It's worse if you get dumped,
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    but it's even bad for
    the person doing the dumping.
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    It results in conflicts over sexual access.
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    Does sexual access-- Does sex
    Continue after the breakup?
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    And sometimes it does for a period.
    There's some oscillation.
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    Conflict over division of pooled resources.
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    So couples often pool their resources.
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    I know one couple that got into
    a bitter, bitter, bitter divorce
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    over who would get the dog.
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    And of course, there are financial resources,
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    and there's sometimes
    conflict over re-mating.
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    And this is one of the darker
    aspects of work from my lab.
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    I've studied victims of stalking,
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    that is, we've looked at about
    2,500 victims of stalking,
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    and it turns out it's a fairly
    common strategy post-breakup.
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    Often starts as the relationship
    is starting to fall apart.
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    People cyberstalk their partners.
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    They hack into their cellphones,
    they trace them on Facebook, etc.,
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    and sometimes physically follow them.
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    And men, of course, are more likely to stalk.
    so about 80% of the stalkers are men.
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    Men who are high on what we call the dark
    triad are especially prone to stalking.
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    That is, men who are highly narcissistic,
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    they feel a sense of entitlement,
    men who are Machiavellian
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    (that is, using interpersonally
    exploitative, manipulative strategy
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    in their social interactions),
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    and men who are high on
    what's called psychopathy,
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    which basically involves-- one of
    the hallmarks is a lack of empathy.
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    So you basically get a cold, calculating,
    narcissistic, self-entitled guy
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    statistically more likely to stalk.
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    Disturbingly, stalking sometimes works.
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    In our study, 15% of the victims of stalking
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    ended up getting back
    together with their ex,
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    either temporarily for sexual
    interactions or more permanently.
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    One woman told us that her ex-boyfriend
    would threaten any guy who came around.
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    And after six months, she said
    she went back to her ex-boyfriend
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    because there were no other guys around.
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    [audience laughs]
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    >So I think that there are
    three pieces of information
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    that I hope might be useful
    for you in your own mating lives.
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    One has to do with if
    you're ever a victim of stalking.
  • 17:00 - 17:07
    If you're ever a victim of stalking,
    do not be friendly to your stalker,
  • 17:07 - 17:09
    and especially don't smile at your stalker,
  • 17:09 - 17:13
    because that triggers the
    sexual over-perception bias
  • 17:13 - 17:16
    and reinforces the stalking behavior, okay?
  • 17:16 - 17:23
    Number 2, is that sexual over-perception bias.
  • 17:23 - 17:26
    Men need to realize
    that the inferences that they make
  • 17:26 - 17:28
    about the intentions of women,
  • 17:28 - 17:32
    when they smile or even when they
    give an incidental touch on the arm.
  • 17:32 - 17:33
    That's another one.
  • 17:33 - 17:35
    Incidental touch on the arm.
  • 17:35 - 17:37
    And a man thinks, “Oh, boy, that's a signal.”
  • 17:37 - 17:39
    [audience laughs]
  • 17:39 - 17:43
    >Men need to realize that sometimes
    they are over-inferring sexual interest
  • 17:43 - 17:44
    when it's not there.
  • 17:44 - 17:46
    It could be politeness, friendliness,
  • 17:46 - 17:49
    or could even be anxiety
    because the guy's a creep.
  • 17:49 - 17:51
    [audience laughs]
  • 17:51 - 17:56
    >And the third thing is to realize that
    we have a very complex mating psychology,
  • 17:56 - 18:01
    a complex sexual psychology
    that involves, at a minimum,
  • 18:01 - 18:03
    a system designed for sexual attraction
  • 18:03 - 18:06
    and a system designed
    for long-term pair bonding,
  • 18:06 - 18:09
    involving attachment
    and the emotion of love,
  • 18:09 - 18:11
    which turns out to be universal.
  • 18:11 - 18:15
    And I know one man told me that
    when he understood the logic of this,
  • 18:15 - 18:17
    that there are these two evolved systems,
  • 18:17 - 18:20
    it helped him to stay more faithful
    to his wife because he realized
  • 18:20 - 18:25
    that when he was attracted to women
    who were other than his wife, he realized,
  • 18:25 - 18:28
    “Oh, that's just my evolved
    desire for sexual variety.
  • 18:28 - 18:31
    It doesn't mean I don't love my wife.”
  • 18:31 - 18:34
    So that enabled him to remain
    more faithful to her,
  • 18:34 - 18:37
    and, I think, lived happily ever after.
  • 18:37 - 18:43
    So, in conclusion, I would just like
    to wish all of you the best of success
  • 18:43 - 18:45
    in your own mating lives,
  • 18:45 - 18:50
    and I hope some of this information helps
    you to reduce conflict between the sexes.
  • 18:50 - 18:51
    Thank you very much.
  • 18:51 - 18:52
    [audience applauds]
  • 18:52 - 18:55
    >Thank you. Thank you.
Title:
Sexual Conflict in Human Mating
Video Language:
English
Duration:
18:59

English subtitles

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