Sexual Strategies Theory: Eine evolutionäre Perspektive auf die menschliche Paarung (Teil 6)

David Buss hat mit Sexual Strategies Theory eine sehr interessante Theorie entwickelt und es lohnt sich, sie hier zu besprechen.

Sexual Strategies Theory: An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Mating

Bisherige Teile finden sich hier:

• Sexual Strategies Theory: Eine evolutionäre Perspektive auf die menschliche Paarung (Teil 1)
• Sexual Strategies Theory: Eine evolutionäre Perspektive auf die menschliche Paarung (Teil 2)
• Sexual Strategies Theory: Eine evolutionäre Perspektive auf die menschliche Paarung (Teil 3)
• Sexual Strategies Theory: Eine evolutionäre Perspektive auf die menschliche Paarung (Teil 4)
• Sexual Strategies Theory: Eine evolutionäre Perspektive auf die menschliche Paarung (Teil 5)

Weiter geht es:

Problems Men Confront When Pursuing a Short-Term
Sexual Strategy
Men face a complex and multifaceted problem when they pursue a short-term sexual strategy: Men are constrained in their reproductive success by the number of fertile women they can inseminate. This problem can be separated into four highly specialized adaptive problems or facets:
(a) the problem of partner number, or variety (Symons, 1979);
(b) the problem of identifying which women are sexually accessible;
(c) the problem of identifying which women are fecund; and
(d) the problem of minimizing commitment and investment to effectively
pursue short-term matings.

Noch mal auf deutsch:

Dieses Problem kann in vier hochspezialisierte Anpassungsprobleme oder Facetten unterteilt werden:
(a) das Problem der Partneranzahl oder -vielfalt (Symons, 1979);
(b) das Problem, herauszufinden, welche Frauen sexuell zugänglich sind;
(c) das Problem, herauszufinden, welche Frauen fruchtbar sind; und
(d) das Problem der Minimierung des Engagements und der Investitionen um effektive Kurzzeitstrategien verfolgen zu können

Problem of Partner Number
What specific adaptations should be expected in the evolved sexual psychology of men to solve the problem of gaining sexual access to a number of women?
One first-line solution to the problem of number can be expected in desire: Men may have evolved over human evolutionary history a powerful desire for sexual access to a large number of women (cf. Symons, 1979).
A second specialized adaptation expected on theoretical grounds would be a relaxation of standards imposed for acceptable short-term partners. Elevated standards, by definition, preclude a large number of women from exceeding them. The relaxation of standards should apply to a wide range of mate characteristics, including standards for age, intelligence, personality traits, and personal circumstances such as whether a woman is already involved with someone else.
A third specialized feature of men’s evolved sexual strategy should be to impose minimum time constraints in knowing a prospective mate before seeking sexual intercourse. The less time that is permitted to elapse before obtaining sexual intercourse, the larger the number of women a man can gain access to. Prolonged time delays, by absorbing more of a man’s mating effort, interfere with solving the problem of number.

Also kurz zusammengefasst:

Wenn es evolutionär interessant für Männer ist mit vielen Frauen zu schlafen, dann könnten folgende Strategien die Umsetzung begünstigen:

• Männer müssten erst einmal einen stärkeren Wunsch nach Sex mit vielen Frauen haben
• Sie sollten für Kurzzeitstrategien geringere Anforderungen an die Partner stellen
• Und sie sollten nicht viel Zeit brauchen um mit einem Partner schlafen zu wollen

Das ist alles recht unstreitig bei Männern eher verbreitet als bei Frauen.

Problem of Sexual Accessibility
Men, being the less investing sex, are predicted to be less discriminating than are women when seeking short-term mates. Nonetheless, reproductive advantages would accrue to those men who directed their mating effort most intensely toward those women who are sexually accessible. Time, energy, and resources devoted to women for whom sexual accessibility is unlikely would interfere with the successful enactment of a short-term sexual strategy.

Also quasi die Frage: Wie erkenne ich eine „Schlampe“ alternativ eine Frau, die an einem selbst hinreichend interessiert für eine eigene Kurzzeitstrategie ist.

Specialized adaptations for solving the problem of sexual access should be embodied in the psychological preferences that men express for short-term mates. Women who are prudish, sexually inexperienced, conservative, or who appear to have a low sex drive, for example, should be disfavored. Signs of sexual accessibility, such as looseness or promiscuity, which would be undesirable in long-term mates, might be desired by men in short-term mates because they signal accessibility.

Vielleicht auch einer der Gründe, warum Männer auf viel Haut zeigen stark reagieren: Heute ist es erlaubt, früher wäre es aber ein deutliches Risiko gewesen und hätte vermutlich auf eine gewisse Promiskuität hingewiesen. Aber weil eben stark auf das Signal reagiert wird und eben auch gerade die Lust anspricht ist es für Frauen zugleich attraktiv und nicht attraktiv: Sie erregen Aufmerksamkeit, es erfordert aber eine zivilisierte Gesellschaft damit die Aufmerksamkeit nicht dazu führt, dass sie belästigt wird.

Hier könnten die Signale aus der Sicht der Männer und der Frauen von ihrem Inhalt abweichen.

Problem of Identifying Which Women Are Fertile

Biologists distinguish two facets of the ability to bear offspring: fertility and reproductive value.
Fertility refers to the probability of present reproduction. Among humans, female fertility typically peaks in the early to mid 20s. A copulation with a woman of this age would be most likely to result in reproduction.

Reproductive value, in contrast, is defined actuarially in units of expected future reproduction: the extent to which people of a given age and sex will contribute, on average, to the ancestry of future generations (R. A. Fisher, 1930). In human females, reproductive value peaks earlier than fertility: in the mid teens.

Die Frage also welche Frau am ehesten Schwanger wird wenn man Sex mit ihr hat bzw die Frage mit Frau man noch die meisten Kinder bekommen kann. Der zweite Faktor ist natürlich für eine Langzeitstrategie interessanter, bei einer Kurzzeitstrategie wäre hingegen die Frage, ob sie möglichst zumindest einmal schwanger wird entscheidender.

The difference between fertility and reproductive value can be illustrated by contrasting two women, one age 14 years and one age 24 years. The younger woman would have higher reproductive value than the older one because, actuarially, her future reproduction is expected to be higher. On average, 14-year-old women can expect more future children than can 24-
year-old women. In contrast, the 24-year-old woman is more fertile than the 14-year-old woman because the current probability of reproduction is higher for the 24-year-old woman. After menarche (onset of menstruation), women generally experience a period of approximately 2 years in which they cannot conceive (Frayser, 1985). Women in their early teens typically
have low fertility, even though their reproductive value is high. Given these considerations, it may be predicted that men who seek long-term mates would prefer women of high reproductive value rather than women of high fertility. A man who mates with a woman of high reproductive value will have access to a greater reproductive asset than will a man who mates with a woman of lower reproductive value. The same logic dictates
that men seeking short-term mating partners would prefer to mate with women of high fertility. The future reproductive potential of a woman is largely irrelevant to men seeking opportunistic copulations. Although this adaptive problem for men seeking short-term matings is clear, namely to find a woman of high fertility, the solution to this problem is more difficult than it first appears.

Da kommt er zu dem gleichen Schluss.

How can men „figure out“ (again, no conscious interest is implied) which women possess the highest fertility or reproductive value? The capacity of a woman to bear children is not stamped on her forehead. It is not part of her social reputation, so no one is in a position to know. Even the woman herself lacks direct knowledge of her fertility and reproductive value. So how could a preference evolve for something that cannot be directly
discerned?
The answer lies with those features of women that provide cues that are correlated with fertility or reproductive value. Two obvious cues to these values are age and health. Old and unhealthy women have a lower reproductive capacity than do young and healthy women.

Das Alter ein wichtiger Faktor der weiblichen Fruchtbarkeit ist ist wenig überraschend und ich hatte auch schon ein paar Artikel darüber.

• Warum stehen Männer auf junge Frauen?
• Alter Männer, junge Frauen
• Wettstreit um die Aufmerksamkeit junger hübscher Frauen
• Leonardo DiCaprio, Spieltheorie und „keine Freundin älter als 25“
• Die Vorliebe von Männern für junge Frauen anhand des Alters von Leonardo DiCaprios Freundinnen

Thus, men could solve the problem of desiring reproductively capable women simply by preferring those who are young and healthy. However, age and health, like reproductive capacity, are not qualities that can be observed directly. Counting systems are relatively recent human inventions. In humans‘ evolutionary past before counting systems, age could not be evaluated directly. Indeed, even in modern times with close monitoring of age, deception about age is not unknown. The same applies to health. Short of securing access to a doctor’s report, men have no direct way of evaluating the health of a woman.
Nevertheless, our ancestral humans did have access to three classes of cues that provide probabilistic evidence of a woman’s age and health status:
(a) features of physical appearance (e.g., full lips, clear skin, smooth skin, clear eyes, lustrous hair, symmetry, good muscle tone, and absence of lesions),
(b) observable behavior (e.g., sprightly, youthful gait, and high activity level), and
(c) social reputation (e.g., knowledge gleaned from others about a person’s age and prior health history).

Dennoch hatten unsere Vorfahren Zugang zu drei Klassen von Anhaltspunkten, die wahrscheinliche Hinweise auf das Alter und den Gesundheitszustand einer Frau liefern:
(a) Merkmale der körperlichen Erscheinung (z. B. volle Lippen, klare Haut, glatte Haut, klare Augen, glänzendes Haar, Symmetrie, guter Muskeltonus und Abwesenheit von Läsionen),
(b) beobachtbares Verhalten (z. B. unbeschwerter, jugendlicher Gang und hohe Aktivität), und
(c) sozialer Ruf (z. B. Wissen, das man von anderen über das Alter und die gesundheitliche Vorgeschichte einer Person hat).

Und das ist der Grund, warum die Kosmetikindustrie so gut verdient.

Because physical and behavioral cues provide the most powerful observable evidence of a woman’s reproductive capacity, the evolutionary logic of mating suggests that men may have evolved a preference for, and attraction to, women who display these cues. Men who fail to prefer qualities that signal high reproductive capacity would, on average, leave fewer offspring than would men who prefer to mate with women possessing these qualities.
The reproductive success of women, in contrast to that of men, is not as closely linked with obtaining reproductively valuable mates. A man’s reproductive capacity, to the degree that it is valued by women, is less steeply age graded from puberty on than is a woman’s. Therefore, it cannot be assessed as accurately from physical appearance. Physical appearance should be less central to a woman’s mate preferences than to a man’s mate preferences. This evolutionary logic leads to a clear prediction:
Men, more than women, should value relative youth and physical attractiveness in potential mates because of their powerful links with fertility and reproductive value.1 If men in humans‘ evolutionary past have adopted shortterm matings as part of their repertoire of strategies, then one would expect specialized adaptations to solve the problem of fertility. Men’s mate preferences should be context dependent: They should seek a reproductively valuable woman for the long term but a fertile one for the short term. This prediction must be qualified, however, by the solution to the problem of number, namely, the relaxation of standards. Although men seeking short-term mates, other things being equal, might prefer fertile women in their early to mid 20s, a wide range of ages should be acceptable in short-term mates because of the relaxation of standards.

Also nach Möglichkeit mit jungen 18-22 jährigen fitten Frauen mit schönen Haaren schlafen. Klingt nach einem Rezept, welches Männer in der Tat gern umsetzen würden, wenn sie könnten.