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Sexual Conflict in Human Mating David Buss
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https://youtu.be/vC4bcOvkhms
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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 saying,
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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 lightly]
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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 lightly]
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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 lightly]
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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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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, which are very common,
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that nowadays, 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:
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, 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:
How do mate value discrepancies
cause conflict?
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Well, it's illustrated by a female colleague
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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 t
he 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,
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 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,
they start drinking, they start abusing drugs,
they go into depressions, et cetera.
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It's a very intense, emotionally laden thing, 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.
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If you're ever a victim of stalking,
do not be friendly to your stalker,
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and especially don't smile at your stalker,
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because that triggers the
sexual over-perception bias
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and reinforces the stalking behavior, okay?
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Number 2, is that sexual over-perception bias.
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Men need to realize
that the inferences that they make
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about the intentions of women,
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when they smile or even when they
give an incidental touch on the arm.
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That's another one.
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Incidental touch on the arm.
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And a man thinks, “Oh, boy, that's a signal.”
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[audience laughs]
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>Men need to realize that sometimes
they are over-inferring sexual interest
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when it's not there.
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It could be politeness, friendliness, or could
even be anxiety because the guy's a creep.
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[audience laughs]
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>And the third thing is to realize that we have a very complex mating psychology,
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a complex sexual psychology
that involves, at a minimum,
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a system designed for sexual attraction
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and a system designed
for long-term pair bonding,
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involving attachment
and the emotion of love,
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which turns out to be universal.
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And I know one man told me that
when he understood the logic of this,
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that there are these two evolved systems,
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it helped him to stay more faithful
to his wife because he realized
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that when he was attracted to women
who were other than his wife, he realized,
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“Oh, that's just my evolved
desire for sexual variety.
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It doesn't mean I don't love my wife.”
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So that enabled him to remain
more faithful to her,
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and, I think, lived happily ever after.
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So, in conclusion, I would just like
to wish all of you the best of success
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in your own mating lives,
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and I hope some of this information helps
you to reduce conflict between the sexes.
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Thank you very much.
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[audience applauds]
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>Thank you. Thank you.