Sexual Conflict in Human Mating

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>[DAVID BUSS]
So I'd like you to imagine

someone of the opposite sex

walking up to you
on the street and say,

“Hi, I've been noticing you around lately.
I find you very attractive.”

And they ask you one of three questions:

“Would you go out on a date with me?”

“Would you come back
to my apartment with me?”

[audience laughs lightly]

>“Would you have sex with me?”

[audience laughs]

>So these are actual empirical studies.

The first one was done
in the state of Florida,

and these are the results of that study.

Of the women approached
by the male confederate –

that's what we call the people

who are members of the
experimental team: “confederates.”

It doesn't mean someone
from the south of the United States.

[audience laughs]

>Of the women approached,

56% agreed to go out
on the date with the guy,

6% agreed to go back to his apartment,

0% agreed to have sex with him.

[audience laughs]

>Women in the sex condition, in fact,
thought it was a rather peculiar question.

Most women need
a little bit more information…

[audience laughs]

>…before they agree to the sex.

Of the men approached by the
female of the experimental team,

about 50% agreed to go
out on a date with her.

69% agreed to go back to her apartment...

[audience laughs]

>...and 75% agreed to have sex with her.

[audience laughs and applauds]

>Of the 25% of the men who declined,
several were apologetic about it,

citing a girlfriend, a fiancée,

asking for a phone number
and a rain check.

[audience laughs]

>Very different responses.

Now this talk is about
conflict between the sexes,

and I'm going to talk about six regions
in which men and women get into conflict,

and the first one is
desire for sexual variety.

Now, let's imagine that
I am king of the universe

and I will give you your magic wish.

How many sex partners would you
like to have over the next month,

over the next 10 years,
or in your lifetime?

Just get a number in mind.

How many would you like
to have in your lifetime?

Okay, do you have the numbers in mind?

Okay, well, here's what we found.

Ideal number of sex partners,
women said, on average,

they would like to have seven-tenths
of a sex partner over the next month,

gradually escalating to a full
sex partner at six months,

and leveling off at about
four to five in the lifespan.

Men thought two in the next
month would be about right,

eight in the next couple of years,

and 18 in the lifespan.

This was after eliminating three men in our
sample who said they would like 1,000.

[audience laughs]

>As we'll see, this desire for
sexual variety on men's part

is one of the sources, one of the key
sources of conflict between the sexes.

A second is what we call
the sexual over-perception bias.

And the classic example, and this is highly
replicated in my lab and other labs is,

you show a videotape or photographs

or just have people observe
a man and a woman interacting.

And after a few minutes,
the woman smiles at the man.

Stop the videotape and ask,

“Why did the woman smile?
What was her intention?

What was she trying to signal?”

Men are more likely than women to say,

“Oh, she was sending sexual signals.
She wants his body. It's obvious.”

Women seeing exactly the same film, say,

“No, she was just being friendly.
She was being polite.”

So men have this sexual over-perception bias,

and it's interesting that in our
laboratory studies where we had --

it's basically a speed-dating paradigm

where men and women
interact with each other briefly

and then evaluate how interested
the other person is in them

and how interested they
are in the other person,

that the sexual over-perception bias

is most likely to occur with women
who are physically attractive.

And what's interesting about that is,

because attractive women
are hit on more often,

they are least likely to
reciprocate that sexual attraction.

It's also the case, we found,

that men who are high on narcissism

are especially prone to
the sexual over-perception bias.

They think they're hot, but they're not.

[audience laughs and applauds]

>Moving to sexual conflict
number 3: deception.

I hate to break it to you,
but men sometimes lie.

[audience laughs]

>But they lie in very specific ways.

And we've done studies of lying
on Internet dating sites,

which are very common nowadays.

Something like 38% of all couples
have met on an Internet dating site,

but men lie in very predictable ways.

So, for example, they lie about their height.

So they tend to-- If they're 5’8”,
they tend to say they're 6 feet tall.

They kind of round up
by about 2 inches on average.

They lie about their income,
they lie about their status.

Now, women also deceive in Internet dating.

They tend to shave about
15 pounds off of their weight,

and both sexes post photographs
that are not truly representative

of what they actually look like.

That's why you have to
meet someone in person

to see whether there's actually
true sexual chemistry.

But when you do, men continue to lie,

and one of the things they lie about
is the depths of their feelings,

the depths of their emotions
in order to have sex.

So this is bad…

[audience laughs]

>…but it's especially upsetting to a woman.

So if you want to upset a woman,
declare that you love her.

“I really love you. I have
deep feelings for you.

Now let's have sex.”

[audience laughs]

>And you have sex.

And then after the sex,
after he has an orgasm,

he says, “Actually, I was just kidding.
I don't love you at all. Goodbye.”

[audience laughs]

>Well, women in our studies,
extremely upset by that.

On a 7-point scale, they max out.

Men who are deceived
in that by a woman,

not too bothered.

“So she doesn't love me.
I can live with that.”

Now, some people interpret these findings

to mean that, “Well, women are
just more emotional than men,

so of course they're going
to get upset about everything.”

But it's not true.

That stereotype is inaccurate because
men get upset about other sorts of things.

It's domain specific, for example:

Misled him about her
willingness to have sex

or led to believe that sex is forthcoming
and said “no” at the last minute:

Men more upset about that than women.

[audience laughs]

>Sexual conflict number 4:
mate value discrepancies.

Mate value, you have to distinguish
between short-term mate value

and long-term mate value.

Long-term mate value consists
of a large number of qualities.

So it's not just physical attractiveness.

It's also the esteem in which other people
hold you, your status, your reputation,

your personality, your level of intelligence,
your health, and even your sense of humor.

Humor turns out to be
a very important quality,

although not everybody believes it.

The comedian Jimi McFarland said,

“One of the things women claim is
important in a man is a sense of humor.

In my years as a comedian,

I've learned that they're usually
referring to the humor of guys

like Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise,
and Russell Crowe…

[audience laughs and applauds]

…Apparently, those guys are hilarious.”

But humor is important.

Humor actually does convey a wealth of
information about someone's verbal skills,

their level of intelligence, their social skills;

and even perspective taking
requires a certain level

of mind reading to get people to laugh.

Now, back to the mate value discrepancies:

How do mate value discrepancies
cause conflict?

Well, it's illustrated by a female colleague
of mine who was complaining to me one day.

She said, “David, why is it that all
the guys that I'm interested in

don't seem to show any interest in me,

yet I'm pursued by all these guys
who are trying to chat me up,

and I have no interest in them?”

And what I told her is,
I said -- I was brutally honest --

I said, “On the mating market, you are an 8,
seeking 10s, and being lusted after by 6s.”

And she said that this single piece of
information when she thought about it

was more important to,
or was more helpful to her,

than three years of psychotherapy
to figure out what the problem was.

She was going for guys
who were too high in mate value.

Now the problem with going for people
who are too high in mate value --

this applies to both men and women –

is, even if you succeed, if you're an 8

and you succeed in attracting a 9
or 10 into a long-term relationship,

they are more likely to leave you when
someone better comes along, statistically;

and also, they're more likely to be sexually
unfaithful to you, statistically speaking,

which brings us to sexual
conflict number 5: infidelity.

Now, from a male's perspective,
from an evolutionary perspective,

it's fairly straightforward why men
would be tempted to have affairs.

How many people have affairs?

[chuckling] I won't ask you
to raise your hands on this one.

[audience laughs]

>But studies point to about 40
to 50% of married men have an affair

at some point during
the course of their marriage,

and it's about 20 to 30% of women.

Women are actually catching up with men.

So not everybody has affairs,

but a substantial number
of people, substantial minority do.

And it's fairly clear why men do.

Studies of motivations for infidelity
for men involve, they say, sexual variety.

“The woman was there.”

“The opportunity presented itself.”

“I wanted to have sex.”

[audience laughs]

>Women, it's more complicated.

For women, my evolutionary colleagues,
other scientists who study this,

have advanced what's called
the dual mating strategy hypothesis

or the good genes hypothesis,

where they basically propose that
women can get the best of both worlds

by getting investment and resources
from one man and good genes

(like genes for good health) from another man.

I think there's reason
to be skeptical about this.

One of the reasons is that we know
from DNA fingerprinting technology

that only 2% to 3% of offspring
are actually fathered by men

who are other than the person
believed to be the father

(the husband or the regular mate).

So what that means is that most women

are getting genes and investment
from the same guy.

So that raises the puzzle:
Why do women have affairs?

And this is something
that my lab has studied,

and I think there are some important clues.

One is that women who have affairs

tend to be sexually and emotionally
unhappy with their regular relationship.

And you may be thinking, as I would be,
“Well, that's totally obvious.” Okay?

“Women who are unhappy
with their relationship

are going to be more likely to have affairs.”

But it turns out, it's not true for men.

If you compare men who have affairs
with men who don't have affairs,

there is no difference
in their marital happiness,

but there is a huge difference for women.

Clue number 2: 70% of women
become emotionally involved

with their affair partners or fall
in love with their affair partners.

Now, if you're just trying
to get good genes,

this seems like a very bad strategy.

Why get emotionally
involved or fall in love?

And the third clue is that the qualities
desired in an affair partner

turn out to be more or less identical to
the qualities desired in a long-term mate.

And so what I think this does,

this set of clues combined
with other evidence

points to the mate switching hypothesis,

which I think is a more compelling
hypothesis about why women have affairs.

So in our lab, we've also documented

that women tend to cultivate
what we call backup mates.

One woman told me, she said,
“Men are like soup;

you always want to have
some on the back burner…

[audience laughs]

…in case something goes
wrong with your relationship.”

Of course, some of this information might
be disturbing to the males in the audience.

It might be disturbing to realize

that your partner is cultivating
surreptitiously backup mates,

that they have fantasies, sexual fantasies
about people other than you,

and that maybe perhaps
someone who's just a friend.

“Oh, he's just a friend.”

Or that maybe you're more
replaceable than you realize.

[audience laughs]

>Which brings us to the last
sexual conflict: breaking up.

Now, Reke asked you if you've ever
experienced a romantic breakup.

Studies show that about
85% of all people

have experienced at least
one romantic breakup.

It's a very, very common thing.

It is rare to meet the one and only
when you're 18 years old

and then live in happily-ever-after,
monogamous bliss for the next 50 years.

It happens sometimes, but it's rare.

People engage in what I call serial mating,
mating with one person--

(I don't mean Cheerios
or Wheaties or anything.)

Mating with one person, breaking up,
mating with another person for a while,

and some people get better at it with time.

[audience laughs]

>Now, breaking up involves a lot of conflict,

and it's one of the most heart wrenching
phenomena that people go through.

I mean, people get depressed,

they start drinking,
they start abusing drugs,

they go into depressions, et cetera.

It's a very intense,
emotionally laden thing,

even if you're doing the dumping, okay?

It's worse if you get dumped,

but it's even bad for
the person doing the dumping.

It results in conflicts over sexual access.

Does sexual access-- Does sex
Continue after the breakup?

And sometimes it does for a period.
There's some oscillation.

Conflict over division of pooled resources.

So couples often pool their resources.

I know one couple that got into
a bitter, bitter, bitter divorce

over who would get the dog.

And of course, there are financial resources,

and there's sometimes
conflict over re-mating.

And this is one of the darker
aspects of work from my lab.

I've studied victims of stalking,

that is, we've looked at about
2,500 victims of stalking,

and it turns out it's a fairly
common strategy post-breakup.

Often starts as the relationship
is starting to fall apart.

People cyberstalk their partners.

They hack into their cellphones,
they trace them on Facebook, etc.,

and sometimes physically follow them.

And men, of course, are more likely to stalk.
so about 80% of the stalkers are men.

Men who are high on what we call the dark
triad are especially prone to stalking.

That is, men who are highly narcissistic,

they feel a sense of entitlement,
men who are Machiavellian

(that is, using interpersonally
exploitative, manipulative strategy

in their social interactions),

and men who are high on
what's called psychopathy,

which basically involves-- one of
the hallmarks is a lack of empathy.

So you basically get a cold, calculating,
narcissistic, self-entitled guy

statistically more likely to stalk.

Disturbingly, stalking sometimes works.

In our study, 15% of the victims of stalking

ended up getting back
together with their ex,

either temporarily for sexual
interactions or more permanently.

One woman told us that her ex-boyfriend
would threaten any guy who came around.

And after six months, she said
she went back to her ex-boyfriend

because there were no other guys around.

[audience laughs]

>So I think that there are
three pieces of information

that I hope might be useful
for you in your own mating lives.

One has to do with if
you're ever a victim of stalking.

If you're ever a victim of stalking,
do not be friendly to your stalker,

and especially don't smile at your stalker,

because that triggers the
sexual over-perception bias

and reinforces the stalking behavior, okay?

Number 2, is that sexual over-perception bias.

Men need to realize
that the inferences that they make

about the intentions of women,

when they smile or even when they
give an incidental touch on the arm.

That's another one.

Incidental touch on the arm.

And a man thinks, “Oh, boy, that's a signal.”

[audience laughs]

>Men need to realize that sometimes
they are over-inferring sexual interest

when it's not there.

It could be politeness, friendliness,

or could even be anxiety
because the guy's a creep.

[audience laughs]

>And the third thing is to realize that
we have a very complex mating psychology,

a complex sexual psychology
that involves, at a minimum,

a system designed for sexual attraction

and a system designed
for long-term pair bonding,

involving attachment
and the emotion of love,

which turns out to be universal.

And I know one man told me that
when he understood the logic of this,

that there are these two evolved systems,

it helped him to stay more faithful
to his wife because he realized

that when he was attracted to women
who were other than his wife, he realized,

“Oh, that's just my evolved
desire for sexual variety.

It doesn't mean I don't love my wife.”

So that enabled him to remain
more faithful to her,

and, I think, lived happily ever after.

So, in conclusion, I would just like
to wish all of you the best of success

in your own mating lives,

and I hope some of this information helps
you to reduce conflict between the sexes.

Thank you very much.

[audience applauds]

>Thank you. Thank you.