[Music]
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 asked you one of
three questions would you go out on a
date with me would you come back to my
apartment with me would you have sex
with me
so these are actual empirical studies
the first one was done in a state of
Florida and these are the results of
that study of the women approached by
the male to 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 of the women
approached 56% agreed to go out on the
date with the guy six percent agreed to
go back to his apartment
zero percent agreed to have sex with him
women in the sex condition in fact
thought it was a rather peculiar
question most women need a little bit
more information before they agree to
the the sex of the men approached by the
female of the experimenter team about 50
percent agreed to go out on a date with
her 69 percent agreed to go back to her
apartment and 75 percent agreed to have
sex with her
of the 25% of the men who declined
several were apologetic about it
citing a girlfriend a fiancee asking for
a phone number in a raincheck
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 ten 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 to in the next month would
be about right eight eight in the next
couple years and 18 in the lifespan
this was after eliminating three men in
our sample who said they would like a
thousand as we’ll see this is 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 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 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 but 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 this sexual or 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 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
moving to sexual conflict number three
deception I hate to break it to you but
men sometimes lie 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
two 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 is 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 but
it’s especially upsetting to a woman so
if you 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 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 well women in
our studies extremely upset by that on a
seven-point scale they max out men who
are deceived in that by a woman not to
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
mislead him about her willingness to
have sex or led to believe that sex is
forthcoming and said no at the last
minute men were upset about that than
women
sexual conflict number four mate value
discrepancies mate value you have to
distinguish between short term mate
value and long term mate value long term
mate value it consists of a large number
of quality 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
Jim MacFarlane 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 Russel Crowe
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 were
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 eight
seeking tens and being lusted after by
sixes 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 and supplies to
both men and women is even if you
succeed if you’re an eight you succeed
in attracting a nine or a ten into a
long term relationship they are more
likely to leave you but when someone
better comes along statistically and
also they’re more likely to be sexually
unfaithful to you okay statistically
speaking which brings us to sexual
conflict number five infidelity
now from a male’s perspective from an
evolutionary perspective it’s fairly
straightforward why men would be tempted
to have affairs who how many people have
affairs I won’t ask you to raise your
hands on this one but but studies point
to about forty to fifty percent of
married men have an affair at some point
during the course of their marriage and
it’s about twenty to thirty percent of
women women are actually catching up
with men so not not everybody has
affairs but but a substantial number
people’s substantial might already do
and it’s fairly clear why men do studies
of motivations for infidelity for men
involved they say sexual variety the
woman was up was there the opportunity
presented itself I wanted to have sex
women it’s more complicated now 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 but 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 where 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 ok
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 ok women who are
unhappy with their relationship are
gonna 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 two 70% of women to become
emotionally involved with their fair
partners are 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 an affair partner turn
out to be more or less identical to the
qualities desired in a long
made and so what I think this does this
set of clues combined with other
evidence points to the mates which in
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
backburner okay 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 uh or that maybe
you’re more replaceable than you realize
which brings us to the last sexual
conflict breaking up now Rekha 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 for I don’t mean Cheerios or
Wheaties or anything meeting with one
person breaking up mating with another
person for a while and some people get
better at it with time now breaking up
involves a lot of a lot of conflict and
it’s one of the most heart-wrenching
heart-wrenching phenomena that people go
through I mean people get depressed they
start drinking they start abusing drugs
they they go into depressions etc 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 and it results in conflict over
sexual access to sexual access to sex
continued 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 r-e
mating and this is one of the darker
aspects of work from my lab I’ve studied
victims of stalking that is but 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 you know trace them on Facebook etc
and 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 used
in the interpersonal the 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’ve got
basically get a cold calculating
narcissistic self entitled guy for
statistically more likely to stalk
disturbingly stalking sometimes works in
our study 15 percent 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 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
so I think that there are three 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 / perception bias and
reinforces the stalking behavior okay
number two is that sexual / 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 a man takes
up boy that’s a signal 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 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 I 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
thank thank you
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 asked you one of
three questions would you go out on a
date with me would you come back to my
apartment with me would you have sex
with me
so these are actual empirical studies
the first one was done in a state of
Florida and these are the results of
that study of the women approached by
the male to 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 of the women
approached 56% agreed to go out on the
date with the guy six percent agreed to
go back to his apartment
zero percent agreed to have sex with him
women in the sex condition in fact
thought it was a rather peculiar
question most women need a little bit
more information before they agree to
the the sex of the men approached by the
female of the experimenter team about 50
percent agreed to go out on a date with
her 69 percent agreed to go back to her
apartment and 75 percent agreed to have
sex with her
of the 25% of the men who declined
several were apologetic about it
citing a girlfriend a fiancee asking for
a phone number in a raincheck
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 ten 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 to in the next month would
be about right eight eight in the next
couple years and 18 in the lifespan
this was after eliminating three men in
our sample who said they would like a
thousand as we’ll see this is 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 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 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 but 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 this sexual or 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 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
moving to sexual conflict number three
deception I hate to break it to you but
men sometimes lie 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
two 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 is 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 but
it’s especially upsetting to a woman so
if you 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 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 well women in
our studies extremely upset by that on a
seven-point scale they max out men who
are deceived in that by a woman not to
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
mislead him about her willingness to
have sex or led to believe that sex is
forthcoming and said no at the last
minute men were upset about that than
women
sexual conflict number four mate value
discrepancies mate value you have to
distinguish between short term mate
value and long term mate value long term
mate value it consists of a large number
of quality 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
Jim MacFarlane 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 Russel Crowe
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 were
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 eight
seeking tens and being lusted after by
sixes 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 and supplies to
both men and women is even if you
succeed if you’re an eight you succeed
in attracting a nine or a ten into a
long term relationship they are more
likely to leave you but when someone
better comes along statistically and
also they’re more likely to be sexually
unfaithful to you okay statistically
speaking which brings us to sexual
conflict number five infidelity
now from a male’s perspective from an
evolutionary perspective it’s fairly
straightforward why men would be tempted
to have affairs who how many people have
affairs I won’t ask you to raise your
hands on this one but but studies point
to about forty to fifty percent of
married men have an affair at some point
during the course of their marriage and
it’s about twenty to thirty percent of
women women are actually catching up
with men so not not everybody has
affairs but but a substantial number
people’s substantial might already do
and it’s fairly clear why men do studies
of motivations for infidelity for men
involved they say sexual variety the
woman was up was there the opportunity
presented itself I wanted to have sex
women it’s more complicated now 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 but 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 where 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 ok
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 ok women who are
unhappy with their relationship are
gonna 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 two 70% of women to become
emotionally involved with their fair
partners are 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 an affair partner turn
out to be more or less identical to the
qualities desired in a long
made and so what I think this does this
set of clues combined with other
evidence points to the mates which in
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
backburner okay 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 uh or that maybe
you’re more replaceable than you realize
which brings us to the last sexual
conflict breaking up now Rekha 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 for I don’t mean Cheerios or
Wheaties or anything meeting with one
person breaking up mating with another
person for a while and some people get
better at it with time now breaking up
involves a lot of a lot of conflict and
it’s one of the most heart-wrenching
heart-wrenching phenomena that people go
through I mean people get depressed they
start drinking they start abusing drugs
they they go into depressions etc 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 and it results in conflict over
sexual access to sexual access to sex
continued 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 r-e
mating and this is one of the darker
aspects of work from my lab I’ve studied
victims of stalking that is but 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 you know trace them on Facebook etc
and 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 used
in the interpersonal the 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’ve got
basically get a cold calculating
narcissistic self entitled guy for
statistically more likely to stalk
disturbingly stalking sometimes works in
our study 15 percent 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 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
so I think that there are three 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 / perception bias and
reinforces the stalking behavior okay
number two is that sexual / 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 a man takes
up boy that’s a signal 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 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 I 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
thank thank you
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