1
Q
types of reproductive strategies
A
- long-term
- short-term,
- mixed
2
Q
long-term strategies
A
- involve a lot of investment in your partner
- time, work, care for them, resources you can provide including security
- typically involve investment in shared offspring
- people who are looking to get married and settled down are your typical “long-term strategists”
3
Q
short-term strategies
A
- involves minimal investment in your partner with the exception of investment in whatever it takes to get laid
- focus on accentuating their own attractiveness and get a potential partner to be interested in a short-term mating opportunity
4
Q
mixed strategy
A
- has both investment in long and short term strategy, potentially at the same time
- “best of both worlds”
5
Q
why do we have differences in sex strategy
A
- facultative ‘decisions’ based on the best strategy for current situations
- based on a lot of information from the environment about what your odds are, the availability of mates, imbalance of sex ratio, and your knowledge of your own mate value
- sex differences predicted by parental investment theory
6
Q
allo parenting
A
- the care provided to young by individuals other than the biological parents.
- cooperative care of offspring
- strong tendencies toward bi-parental care
- the female parent is normally the obligate caregiver, but males in our species still invest a large amount into their offspring compared to other primate species
7
Q
bonobos and sex
A
- are a promiscuous species with a lot of sexual activity that is not always reproductive in nature
- friendly masturbation
- if there is any conflict it turns into “jerking them off” till everyone is happy again
- keep track of who is sleeping with who → telling of trustworthiness
8
Q
testicle size and promiscuity
A
- on average we find really large testicles among species that are entirely promiscuous
- e.g. chimps and bonobos have large testicles compared to their body size
- e.g. gorilla or lion have tiny testicles → fight at the level of semen
- e.g. human for our body size the average testicle is larger than expected for a monogamous species, but smaller compared a entirely promiscuous species
Selective pressure to have a seminal volume that can compete in terms of sperm competition
9
Q
parental investment theory
A
- differences in reproductive speed and potential
- differences in risk
- differences in benefits
- not all reproductive opportunities are worth the risk
- predictions about what will be a risk or a benefit for males and females, how they differ and some cases where they overlap
10
Q
sex differences in willingness
A
- if you are a heterosexual male and you are asked to have sex 20% will say yes, 25% probably would, 30% probably not, and 20% certainly wouldn’t
- 50% of women said certainly not, 30% probably not, 15% probably would, 5% certainly would
- this is descriptive of parental investment theory
11
Q
orientation differences in having sex with an attractive person based on knowing them for different increments
A
- average sex difference in the 1 hour category which persists until one week
- heterosexual females are the most cautious at every stage, suggesting they have the biggest risk, followed by bisexual females
12
Q
sex differences in preferences for resources
A
- variability is not that great but the largest difference is between straight men and women
- the individuals who are most likely to invest in short term are bisexual males and females
13
Q
sex differences in preference for intelligence
A
- males have higher standards of intelligence for steady dating and marriage
- but the data is steady for females
- males we find are willing to compromise on intelligence for casual sex
14
Q
sex differences in preference for income
A
- males had a lower expectation for the resources their partner would provide and that was true whether it was a single data, casual sex, long-term dating or marriage
- females began at the 50th percentile for dating and casual sex, meaning the resources weren’t as important for short-term because they would not depend on or need to take advantage of the resources
15
Q
sex differences in preference for partner age
A
- males preference for age trackers female fertility
- females track male age and resource access
- trade-off between female fertility and male resources
- across the female categories they were interested in partners slightly older than themselves
- gay males average to no age difference
- bisexual and straight men have a preference for younger partners but straight men having the largest preference for younger partners
16
Q
sense of humour
A
- ALL genders value a sense of humour and find it important in a potential mate
- modest gender difference in what they describe as ‘good sense of humour’
- on average, women want someone who will make them laugh whereas males define humour as someone who finds them funny or thinks the same things are funny
- production of humour is correlated with intelligence
17
Q
agreed ranking preferred qualities
A
- males and females on average rank the most important things as:
1. mutual attraction and love
2. dependable character
3. emotionally stable
4. pleasing disposition
18
Q
sexual vs. emotional infidelity
A
- when examining sexual infidelity, heterosexual males are the outlier, because their reaction is not within the proportion of the other orientations
- parental investment theory would say the emotion of jealousy is there to ensure fidelity
- ancestrally they don’t want to raise a kid that not theirs and they need to pass their genes on
19
Q
sexual and emotional infidelity including other orientations
A
- found that the people who were most bothered by sexual infidelity the ones who were attracted to women/femininity were the ones more bothered by sexual jealousy
- being attracted to a body that can get pregnant or gives pregnancy cues makes sexual infidelity more troublesome
- these findings can be described as being experienced due to the risk of parental uncertainty
- the majority of this sample as still more bothered about emotional infidelity
20
Q
coolidge effect
A
- an effect of sexual motivation in that novelty or the presence of a novel potential partner is very likely to increase sexual arousal
- you don’t expect to these effect in an entirely monogamous or harem based species like gorillas
- refractory periods do exist and can extend over time
- could be due to prolactin that is released after an organism and is associated with pregnancy and lactation
- arousal can happen more quickly after an organism if a novel “mate” is presented
21
Q
coolidge effect after separation
A
- monogamous partners, when away from each other, particularly men, will rate their partners as more attractive than usual when seeing them again and will indicate a greater interest in having sex with them
- it is about physical distance apart rather than “dry spells” without sex
- “absence makes the heart grow finder” hypothesis
- positively correlated with semen and sperm volume
22
Q
coolidge effect on intrasex competition
A
- rivals may affect semen production → more production when a rival is present
- higher quality sperm may also be a production of perceived intrasex competition
- human experiments are based mainly on self-report data
23
Q
porn studies
A
- the bestsellers had explicit cues of sperm competition
- had more males in it then females → heterosexual sex but happened to have lots of males present - the presence of sperm competition would increase seminal volume and might increase the pleasure that men felt, associated with masturbating to these type of porn
- more sperm is produced if there are more males than females
- e.g. a threesome of 2 men and 1 woman compared to 2 women and 1 man
psych 373: evolution & human behaviour
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