David M. Buss

Tycker egentligen något bättre om Evolution of Desire då den har fokus på mänskligt, kvinnligt och manligt, sexuellt begär ur ett evolutionärt perspektiv, medan denna bok är något mer fokuserad på "toxisk maskulinitet". Dock ska det sägas att även denna bok i stora delar har ett mer allmänt grepp och väldigt mycket som tas upp i Evolution of Desire återkommer i denna bok.

Även om striden mellan evolutionspsykologer och "sociologer"/"feminister"/"blankt papper"-teoretiker är show more mindre het idag än den var på 90-talet och början av 00-talet, så är det nog ändå många som kommer finna denna bok provocerande. Själv har jag gått från att vara väldigt skeptisk till evolutionspsykologi till att vara rätt övertygad om att den har mycket att säga oss om hur vi människor fungerar. Ockhams rakkniv tycker jag ger en fördel till evolutionspsykologisk förklaringsmodeller och framförallt verkar empiri/(deltagar)studier av olika slag vara ett betydligt viktigare inslag inom evolutionspsykologin än hos författare jag läst från "andra sidan". Det ska sägas att många, om inte nästintill alla, studier som tas upp i boken lider av problemet med få deltagare och i många fall utgörs av västerländska universitetsstudenter (inte så representativt för världens befolkning) och jag håller inte med om alla tolkningar som görs i boken. Men den övergripande bilden som målas upp i boken finner jag övertygande och när det gäller vissa beteenden tycker jag till och med att evolutionspsykologin har viss förutsägande kraft. Det kanske viktigaste exemplet är hur kortsiktiga parningsstrategier blir norm i grupper med ett överskott av kvinnor, medan långsiktiga relationer blir norm där män är i överskott. För fullständighetens skull ska det väl påpekas att Marcia Guttentag i sin bok Too Many Women?: The Sex Ratio Question hävdar att mäns sökande efter tillfälligt sex enbart är en konsekvens av att de har den ekonomisk och politiska makten och att om istället kvinnor hade den strukturella makten i samhället så skulle kvinnorna vara de som sökte efter tillfälligt sex, men jag tycker inte det resonemanget är särskilt övertygande.

I sista kapitlet diskuterar Buss hur evolutionspsykologin kan vara till hjälp för att förstå vissa beteenden och i vissa fall genomföra politiska och ekonomiska förändringar och att ändra vissa kulturella normer. Även om det inte innehåller några universallösningar eller ens går särskilt djupt var det ändå något i ansatsen eller stilen på kapitlet som jag ändå uppskattade. Kanske blev kvinnor och män mer fullständiga som människor i sista kapitlet än de skillnader på gruppnivå som diskuterats i resten av boken. För under tiden jag läste boken hade jag en liten otäck känsla som låg och gnagde.

För att förklara den känslan måste jag berätta om en annan studie på mänskligt beteende och ekonomistudenter. Det finns ett beteendeexperiment där två deltagare ingår som inte träffas. Den första ska dela upp en summa, säg 1000 kr, mellan sig själv och den andra. Hen kan dela upp pengarna hursomhelst mellan de två, säg 500/500, 700/300, 300/700 eller 999/1 och så vidare. Den andre deltagaren får sedan ta del av budet som den andre lagt och har sedan de två alternativen att avslå eller godta erbjudandet. De flesta lägger bud på nära 50% och genomsnittet för att acceptera ett bud ligger på en uppdelningen 60%/40% i uppdelarens favör. Om uppdelaren tar mer än 60% avslår den andre personen i regel budet, trots att det innebär att hen då inte får en krona. Människor har helt enkelt en rättvisekänsla. Men många ekonomistudenter, som studerar samhället utifrån en model med perfekt rationella, ekonomiska egoister, svarar annorlunda. När de lägger bud ger de 99% till sig själva och de accepterar alla bud som ger dem en krona, eftersom de anser att alla bud som ger något borde accepteras då båda deltagarna vinner ekonomiskt på det. Dessa ekonomistudenter har alltså förvandlats till de rationella egoister som finns i deras modeller.
Min gnagande känsla är att män och kvinnor som läser denna bok dels kan se det som en instruktionsmanual till hur de själva ska bete sig för att uppnå sina mål. Det vill säga att de förvandlar sig till de personer som målas upp på gruppnivå där skillnaderna är i fokus. Jag är än mer orolig att läsare kommer börja se det motsvarande könet i det mest cyniska ljus. I det cyniska ljuset blir män till konstanta sexsökare som är beredda att både lura kvinnor för att få tillgång till deras kroppar och vara otrogen mot deras partner om chansen uppkommer och där en stor minoritet (runt 30%) verkar vara beredda att våldta om de visste att de skulle komma undan med det. Kvinnor blir å sin sida till egoister vars mål är att extrahera så mycket resurser som möjligt från män, som ser med förakt på män som har mindre resurser än de själva har och som lämnar män när deras egna resurser och status blivit större än deras respektive. Det vore olyckligt om det var vad som människor tog med sig från boken.
För även om skillnader och konflikter finns mellan könen på gruppnivå så är det viktigt att komma ihåg att det är på gruppnivå och att det finns oerhört mycket kvinnor och män också har gemensamt. Humor, empati, glädje, kärlek till våra barn, ett sökande efter en (eller i vissa fall flera) respektive och den kärlek vi känner när vi träffat "den rätte". Kärlek må vara en evolutionär adaption, men det betyder inte att kärleken inte är äkta. show less

Summary: A discussion of sexual violence, deception, harassment and abuse, largely on the part of men, grounded in evolutionary sexual conflict theory that helps explain why so many relationships between men and women go bad.

Harassment. Intimate partner violence. Controlling behavior. Stalking. Sexual coercion and rape. We hear reports in our daily news of these sexual offenses, and indeed, some version of these offenses occur in every culture. And in most cases, the perpetrators are men. As show more a male, this is troubling. Are we all rapists, as Marilyn French has asserted? Certainly many women are wary of all men. Beyond this lies the question of how we explain the universality of sexual oppression and violence.

In When Men Behave Badly, psychologist David M. Buss proposes that sexual conflict theory provides an explanation for these behaviors. In brief, sexual conflict theory roots these behaviors in our evolutionary struggles to reproduce, in which males and females have conflicting strategies for passing along our germ lines. Optimal strategies for men involve multiple matings. For women, the optimal strategy is a long term relationship with a mate. Each gender has developed strategies to counter the other and hence conflict that can turn oppressive, manipulative and violent. These traits are deeply engrained in us. Yet these do not determine or warrant men behaving badly. And not all men do.

It is a battle of the sexes, and largely, a battle over the bodies of women. Buss begins by showing how this works out in the mating market. Buss explores how man assess sexual exploitability, how each gender practices deception and how men and women think differently about what is desirable. It is here that Buss introduces the Dark Triad of traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Men with this triad are much more prone to abuse. Weirdly, perhaps, they are attractive to many women, and there may be evolutionary reasons for this, although they make for terrible long-term relationships. He looks at conflict within mateships–backup mates, and affairs and mate retention through sexual withdrawal and bestowal.

Buss then gets into relationship conflict and the role of jealousy that may be the source of mate guarding, intimate partner violence, stalking and partner rape. All of these may be seen as a form of protectiveness of their investment and guarding partners from other male poachers. Buss goes into the ways perpetrators hijack their victim’s psychology, making it less likely that they will leave. When partners do break up, it may lead to stalking and revenge, including revenge porn.

Buss examines the claim that all men are rapists. Sadly, many men do fantasize about forced sex. Many fewer will act on it. Buss looks at why men who rape do so. Narcissism and lack of empathy, hostility toward women, and disposition to short-term relationships all contribute to a proneness to rape. He also discusses how women defend against sexual coercion, how they avoid assault or escape from it. There is a blind spot. Women most fear stranger rape when in fact most rapes are from men with whom they are acquainted.

The final chapter discusses “minding the sex gap.” He observes some of the misperceptions of desirability and what is attractive (and disgusting) that men do well to understand, the importance of closing legal gaps in terms of harassment and sex crimes, and changing the norms around patriarchy. Learning to recognize the Dark Triad traits mentioned earlier and to protect oneself from them is important.

I found this a bleak book. It is a grim “butchers’ bill” of all the ways men transgress against women, supposedly for some evolutionary reproductive advantage. The back and forth of strategies and counter-strategies felt to me a reduction of relationships between men and women to power games cloaked as sexual transactions. While I think the author would deny it, especially in terms of legal culpability, there is a strong element of evolutionary determinism that underlies the explanations of behavior. It seems the remedy is less self-control as it is evolutionary counter-measures and social and legal controls. I will grant that sexual conflict theory does offer a compelling explanation for the bad behavior of men across cultures. But it reduces human sexuality and all the mating behavior around it to reproductive instincts.

While reproduction is a big part of sexuality for humans as well as animals, this seems an inadequate account of the many beautiful, though always flawed, relationships between men and women that endure long past reproduction, and for the school of character that is marriage, forging mutually sacrificial love, shared and complimentary interests, and generative bonds that not only create families but enrich communities. Buss explains the ways men and women go wrong, and perhaps this is what he most sees. I hope perhaps someday he will have occasion to write about “when men behave well.” I suspect it is to this he aspires, and there are many others I know who have been models of listening to the “better angels of their natures.” Although less noticed, I think asking why this is so is equally worth careful study.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. show less

“Men’s sexual violence towards women remains the most widespread human rights problem in the world.” So says David Buss. It gives a hint to the global mountain of incidents of harassment and abuse the world endures daily. In When Men Behave Badly, Buss has collected an astonishing litany of abuses, origins, variations, defenses and just plain unfathomable data. It is a mind numbing as well as dazzling trip.

There is what is called the dark triad traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, show more and psychopathy. The more men have of them, the more violent and objectionable they turn out. The less they have, the more loving, caring, thoughtful and just plain human they turn out to be. On the other hand, men with deep dark triad traits “turn out to be unusually attractive to women,” Buss says, and then goes on to prove it and its almost inevitably grim outcomes. And so, a no-win conflict is baked right into humanity.

Tracing men’s behavior back through the ages has led Buss to claim “Evolution by selection, amoral in nature and indifferent to suffering, has forged some nasty human adaptations.” So there is some excuse for the way some men are, but there is also no excuse for the way those men are, as Buss repeats after every headshaking trait and example is examined.

Among other things, high-scoring Dark Triad men are more possessive, vigilant, deceptive, manipulative, emotionally exploitative, and physically threatening in their mate-guarding tactics compared to men who score low in these traits. They are the ones who track and trail their own spouses, threaten them, threaten other men who talk to them, lock up their spouses, beat them and rape them.

Worse, the women stay, or if they leave, they come back, a global and historical phenomenon that Buss examines in detail.

Rape of spouse is now a crime in most American states. But it wasn’t until as late as 1993, and it is still entirely acceptable in many, many countries and cultures. It’s all part of the patriarchy by which men ensure their role as top predator in any setting. But a remarkable thing is happening: the patriarchy is diminishing in power. All over the world, mass communication and news sharing is shaming the patriarchy into a less significant role, Buss says. In Scandinavian countries, something close to equality has become the norm. The dark trait men will of course fight for it to the death (power is power, after all, and few give it up voluntarily), but the long term trend is definitely downward.

Buss put numbers to the violence, showing how different societies are saddled with it. Intimate partner violence dogs a fairly astonishing 30% of relationships in the USA, and 27% in Canada, for example. These kinds of stats will make readers look at harassment, violence, guarding and the other abuses in a very different light.

There are also two sides to the story. Men get harassed too. Women can be just as manipulative, have affairs, love to tease, trick and walk away from men. Violence against men tends to go all but completely unreported. As police officers in one case told the male victim – you might as well not press charges, because if she has broken so much as a fingernail, it is you who will be arrested, not her.

“Studies have asked women if they ‘ever had sex’ with a man other than their husband while living with their husband. Ten percent of the non-victimized women reported having had an affair; 23 percent of the battered women reported having had an affair; and 47 percent of women who were both battered and raped reported having committed adultery. “ Humanity is complicated.

For all the talk of harassment and abuse, women weigh it according to the man doing it: “Women evaluated sexual advances from a physically attractive man as significantly less disturbing than advances from a physically unattractive man. Workplace sexual advances from men low in desirability, apparently, are more upsetting, “ numerous studies show.

They also weigh a man’s value by his height(!). Women prefer men to be at least six feet tall, preferably with a V-shaped body. They believe those kind of men will not only protect them from others, but become social and financial leaders in their group, tribe, society or country and therefore a better catch. This is a global phenomenon, going back as far a history is recorded.

Because women live in fear. They seek protection, while men seek sex. Women fear men will chase them, attack them, rape them and kill them, especially if they rape them. (It’s not true, but that is their overwhelming fear.)They dream it, live it and are ruled by it. Reading the book can make it seem amazing that these two totally different subspecies ever get together at all.

But back to men behaving badly, they really do a lot of damage to a very large number of women, damage both physical and psychological: “A study of 1,882 American men found that 120, or 6.4 percent, admitted that they had. Of these, about two-thirds were repeat rapists, averaging 5.8 admitted rapes. This sample consisted not of convicted rapists but of college students attending a midsize urban commuter university. Other studies have found that between 6 and 15 percent of college males admit to rape or attempted rape as long as the word “rape” is not included in the description.”

But this is not all by a long shot. Buss devotes a chapter to online dating and the ways both men and women lie, stalk and harass each other. Their strategies just show how trapped they are by their evolutionary position. There is also a chapter on revenge during or after a breakup. The pitfalls are endless, but somehow, Homo sapiens continues on its merry way.

Buss, a psychologist who specializes and teaches the subject, is steeped in studies. They come from all over the world, and he has conducted countless varieties himself. He knows their strengths and weaknesses, and is highly conscious that correlation does not imply causation. This makes the book overflow with cautionary statements, but It is still thorough, engaging if not overwhelming, and myth-busting.

The word fraught comes to mind. It’s a wonder it works at all.

David Wineberg show less

Buss makes a case for evolutionary explanations to human mating. The overall idea is that men and women have evolved to have two different strategies to maximize their number of offspring. The strategies is not conscious, calculated strategies, but is rather developed as different desires and behavior in men and women with regards to mating. In short, men want to have sex with as many women as possible and in the end settle with a woman while women would prefer to find one man with lot of show more resources to settle down with straight away.

It is of course quite a controversial area of research so I can see how one group hails it as a courageous explaining how the world really is while another group hates it a sees it perpetuating old myths and disregarding counter examples.
The second group can certainly point to some unconvincing parts of the book. Buss offers no explanation to homosexuality, which you would think would be the one thing evolution would make impossible since homosexual relations doesn't result in children, but simply confesses that it is a big unsolved paradox for evolutionary biology. Critics would likely also point out that a lot of these studies is quite small and done with American college students (and very often done by Buss himself) which raises the question about how generalizable the results really are. Some of the hypothesis he gives is also quite unconvincing. Like when he claims women are moody to test men's commitment to the relationship. Or that a woman showing signs of submissiveness in bars is a sign to men they can approach without fearing hostility.

For some the above mentioned will be enough to dismiss the book. But for me it isn't. While some of his claims are a bit out there, I find most of them plausible and the big picture they give shape to quite convincing. It is not an area of study that lends itself to experimental research, but a lot of the data fits very neatly. One example is how divorce rates go down in society with a surplus of men, while they go up in a society with a surplus of women. Or how men gives premium status to the physical attractiveness of women, while women gives much more weight to the general status of a man. One study found college women would find it much more annoying if a low status man continually asked for dates when he was turned down than if a high status man would do it.

Evolutionary psychology is quite a new area of research still. While, as said, if find the overall picture in the book quite convincing I expect more research and studies will make some of the explanations and data in the book obsolete. But I expect the general direction this book points to will be confirmed. And it is quite an enjoyable read (even though it certainly goes into some of the darker sides of human psychology and behavior). show less