Huberman LabHow Humans Select & Keep Romantic Partners in Short & Long Term | Dr. David Buss
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,104 words- 0:00 – 4:10
Introducing Dr. David Buss
- AHAndrew Huberman
(uptempo music) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. David Buss. Dr. Buss is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas Austin, and he is one of the founding members and luminaries in the field of evolutionary psychology. Dr. Buss's laboratory is responsible for understanding the strategies that humans use to select mates in the short and long term, and he is an expert in sex differences in mating strategy. His laboratory has explored, for instance, why women cheat on their spouses or their long-term partners, as well as why men tend to cheat on their spouses and long-term partners. He's also explored a number of things related to the courtship dance that we call dating and securing a mate, including the use of deception related to proclamations of love, or promises of finances or sexual activity. Dr. Buss's laboratory has also evaluated how status is assessed, meaning how we evaluate our own worth and our potential as a mate, and who is, let's just say, within range of a potential mate, both in the short and long term. For instance, today we talk about how people don't just make direct assessments of their own and other people's value as a potential mate, but also using the assessments of others to indirectly determine whether or not they stand a chance or not in securing somebody as a short or long-term mate. His laboratory has also focused on some of the complicated and varied emotions related to mating, love, and relationships, such as lust and jealousy. And he's extensively explored something called mate poaching, or the various strategies that men and women use to make sure that the person that they want to be with or the person they are with is not with anyone else or seeking anyone else and, indeed, that other people don't seek their mate. Dr. Buss's work also relates to how biological influences such as ovulation or time within the menstrual cycle influences mate selection or tendency to have sex or not with a potential short or long-term mate. And more recent work from Dr. Buss's laboratory focuses on the darker aspects of mating and sexual behavior in humans, including stalking and sexual violence. Today, we discuss all those topics. We also discuss some of the strategies that humans can use to make healthy mate selection choices and, for those that are already in committed relationships, to ensure healthy progression of those committed relationships. In addition to publishing dozens of landmark scientific studies, Dr. Buss has authored many important books. A few of those include The Evolution of Desire and Why Women Have Sex. And his most recent book is the one that I'm reading now, which is called When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault, and it's an absolutely fascinating read. It has endorsements from Dr. Robert Sapolsky, professor at Stanford, who's been on this podcast as a guest before, as well as Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt, who wrote The Coddling of the American Mind. It's a really important book, I believe, and one that doesn't just get into the darker aspects of human mating behavior and violence, but also strategies that people can take to ensure healthy mating behavior and relationships. There's so much rumor, speculation, and outright fabrication of ideas about why humans select particular mates in the short and long term, what men and women do differently, and so on. What I love about Dr. Buss's work is that it's grounded in laboratory studies that are highly quantitative using rigorous statistics, and so throughout today's discussion you'll notice that I'm rapt with attention, trying to extract as much information as I can from Dr. Buss about the real science of human mate selection and mating strategy. I'm certain that everyone will take away extremely valuable knowledge that they can use in existing or future relationships from this discussion with Dr. Buss.
- 4:10 – 8:33
Sponsors: ROKA, InsideTracker, Headspace
- AHAndrew Huberman
Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is ROKA. ROKA makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality. I've spent a lifetime working on the visual system, and I can tell you that the cells and connections of our brain and visual system have to contend with an enormous number of challenges in order to see clearly. For instance, when you go from a brightly lit environment to a dimmer environment or into a shadow, your visual system has to adjust. The problem with a lot of sunglasses and eyeglasses out there is that they don't work well with those adjustments. ROKA has overcome those challenges, and as a consequence, no matter what environment you're in, you see with crystal clarity. ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses are also terrific because they are extremely lightweight, so you don't even notice that they're on your face. And they can be worn when working or for school or just walking about, but also when running or cycling, and indeed, if you get sweaty, they won't slip off your face. That's a terrific feature. But they can be worn to do anything. I wear readers at night and sometimes when I drive at night, and a wonderful thing about ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses is that unlike a lot of other performance glasses out there that make people look like cyborgs or make it look like you're definitely off to exercise, ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses have a range of terrific aesthetics that you could wear anywhere. If you'd like to try ROKA eyeglasses, you can go to roka.com, that's R-O-K-A .com, and enter the code Huberman to save 20% off your first order. That's ROKA, R-O-K-A, .com and enter the code Huberman at checkout. Today's podcast is also brought to us by InsideTracker. InsideTracker is a personalized nutrition platform that analyzes data from your blood and DNA to help you better understand your body and help you reach your health goals.I've long been a believer in getting regular blood work done, for the simple reason that many of the factors that strongly impact your immediate and long-term health can only be assessed from a quality blood test. And nowadays, with the advent of modern DNA tests, you can get additional information about how your body and your nervous system work, your immune system, in ways that can inform better health choices. The problem with a lot of blood and DNA tests out there is that you don't get any information about what to do with the data that you get. InsideTracker solves that problem. They have a very easy to use dashboard, so when you get your numbers back, it can direct you towards specific nutrition, supplementation, or lifestyle changes that you can make in order to bring the numbers for given hormones, metabolic factors, immune factors, into the range that's ideal for you. If you'd like to try InsideTracker, go to insidetracker.com/huberman to get 25% off any of InsideTracker's plans. That's insidetracker.com/huberman to get 25% off. Today's episode is also brought to us by Headspace. Headspace is a meditation app that's supported by 25 peer-reviewed published studies, and benefits from over 600,000 five-star reviews. There is now a plethora of scientific data pointing to the fact that a regular meditation practice is immensely beneficial for reducing anxiety, improving sleep, improving focus, many, many other aspects of mental and physical health. The challenge many people have, however, is maintaining a regular meditation practice, and indeed, I am one of those people. I've been meditating on and off for about 30 years, and I confess, a lot of times it's more off than on, until a few years ago when I started using the Headspace app, and then I found it very easy and I continue to find it easy to maintain a daily meditation practice. And that's because Headspace has many meditations to select from. So even if I only have five minutes or 15 minutes, I'm able to do a meditation. I really enjoy those meditations, and I always see the benefits of those meditations. In fact, if I just miss a couple of days, I start to notice that I'm not doing as well as when I'm meditating regularly. The Headspace app makes it exceedingly easy to meditate regularly. If you want to try Headspace, you can go to headspace.com/specialoffer, and if you do that, you'll get a free one-month trial with HeadSpace's full library of meditations for every situation. That's the best offer they have right now. So again, if you're interested, go to headspace.com/specialoffer today. And now my conversation with Dr. David Buss.
- 8:33 – 13:40
Choosing a Mate
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, David, delighted to be here. I've, uh, followed your work for a number of years, and I'm excited to ask you a number of questions about these super interesting topics about how people select mates, uh, how, uh, they lie, cheat, and, uh, but also behave well in the, this dance that we call mate choice.
- DBDavid Buss
Yes, yeah. Fortunately, there are, there are, uh, well-behaving humans in the, in the mix here. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Good to know. Um, just to start off, um, perhaps you could just orient us a little bit, um, about mate choice, you know, some of the primary criteria that studies show men and women use in order to select mates, both, um, should we call them, uh, transient mates as well as, um, lifetime mates?
- DBDavid Buss
Right. Well, that's a critical distinction, because what people look for in a long-term committed mateship, like a marriage partner or a long-term romantic relationship, is different from what people look for in a, in a hook-up or casual sex or one-night stand, or even a brief affair. Uh, so, um, so that's actually critical. I wonder if we could maybe j- just back up a second and just talk a little bit about the theoretical framework for understanding mate choice.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sure.
- DBDavid Buss
So, uh, it basically stems from Darwin's theory of sexual selection, and most people when they think about evolution, they think about, uh, cliches like survival of the fittest, or nature red in tooth and claw. And Darwin noticed that there were phenomena that couldn't be explained by this so-called survival selection, things like the brilliant plumage of peacocks, uh, sex differences like in, you know, stags for example, have these massive antlers, and the females of the species do not. Uh, and so he came up with the theory of sexual selection, which deals not with the evolution of characteristics due to their survival advantage, but rather due to their mating advantage. And he identified two causal processes by which mating advantage could occur. One is intrasexual competition with the stereotype being two stags locking horns in combat, with the victor gaining sexual access to the female, loser ambling off with a broken antler and dejected and low self-esteem, and needing psychotherapy perhaps, or, or mate, mate, mate, uh, value improvement therapy. Uh, and the logic was, whatever qualities led to success in these same-sex battles, those qualities get passed on in greater numbers, and so you see evolution, which is change over time, and increase in frequency of the characteristics associated with winning these, what Darwin called contest competition. And we know that the logic of that is more general now, and involves things like in our species competing for position and status hierarchies. So anyway, so intrasexual competition is one, but the second, most relevant to your question about mate choice, is preferential mate choice. That was the second causal pathway, and the logic there is that if members of one sex agree with one another, if there's some consensus about the qualities that are desired, then those of the opposite sex who possess the desired qualities or embody those desired qualities, they have a mating advantage. They get chosen. They get preferred. Those lacking desired qualities get banished, shunned, ignored, or in the modern environment, become incels. Uh, and so the logic there is very simple, but also very powerful, and that is that, uh, whatever qualities are desired, consensually desired, if there's some heritable basis to those, then those increase in frequency over time.And so, and in the human case, these two, uh, causal processes of sexual selection are related to each other, in that the preferences of the mate, preferences of one sex, basically set the ground rules for competition in the opposite sex. So, if for example, hypothetically, women, uh, preferred to mate with men who were able and willing to devote resources to them, then that would create competition on, among men to claw their way, you know, and beat out other men in resource acquisition, and then displaying that, their willingness to commit that to a particular woman. And same with women though. And this is one of the interesting things about humans is that we have mutual mate choice, which is not true in all species. So, and that is that it's not just a matter of, you know, you selecting someone to be your mate. They have to reciprocally select you. And so with mutual mate, mate choice, um, we have both preferences, mate preferences that women have, and mate preferences that men have, and consequently competition among men for access to the most desirable women, and competition among women for access to mo- the most desirable men. So, that's sort of a little bit of the theoretical backdrop. Uh, so you asked, well, what are the qualities
- 13:40 – 18:31
Long Term Mates: Universal Desires
- DBDavid Buss
that men and women desire? And maybe we'll start with long-term mating, and then shift to short-term mating. And long-term mating is, is interesting in and of itself, in that it's very rare in the mammalian world. So, there are more than 5,000 species of primates of which, uh, I'm sorry, more than 5,000 species of mammals, of which we are one, but, um, the percentage of mammals that have anything resembling like a pair-bonded, long-term mating strategy, it's about 3% to 5%. It's extremely rare. And even our closest primate relatives, the chimpanzees, uh, uh, they don't have a long term mating strategy. They don't have anything resembling pair-bonded mating. In the chimps, the females come into estrus. Almost all the sexual activity occurs during the estrus phase. After that, males and females basically ignore each other, uh, for the most part, with some, some exceptions. Uh, but with humans you have the evolution of long-term pair bonding, attachment, uh, heavy, uh, male investment in offspring, uh, relatively concealed ovulation, uh, and so, and so these are kind of unique aspects of the human mating system. So, uh, so to get to your question, um, so well, what are the qualities? So, the, the, the best, the, the most large-scale study that's been done on this is a study that I did a while back of 37 different cultures, and it's now been replicated by other researchers. But basically what we found is three clusters of things. We found qualities that both men and women wanted in a long term mate, we found some qualities that were sex differentiated, where women preferred them more than men or men preferred them more than women, and then we found some attributes that were highly variable across cultures, in whether people found these as desirable or indispensable or irrelevant in a mate. And so I could give examples of each of these, if that...
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, that would be great. I, I'd love to know, um, what some of the common themes were across these cultures in terms of what, what's being sex, uh, made and sexually selected for.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. So, um, so some of the things that were... So, you've talked about universal desires, so things that men and women share. Uh, there are things like intelligence, uh, kindness, uh, mutual attraction and love, uh, which is really kind of heartwarming, because some people think that, uh, love is a, a recent Western invention by some European, uh, poets, but it turns out it's not true. You go to the !Kung San in Botswana, uh, and they describe pretty much the same experiences of falling in love as, as we do, and even describe the distinction between this kind of infatuation stage of love and the attachment phase, where, you know, you, you can't maintain this frenzy of infatuation and obsession for very long. Six weeks, maybe six months at most. Um, uh, otherwise you can get nothing else done in your life, and...
- AHAndrew Huberman
Those are those dopamine circuits firing at high frequency.
- DBDavid Buss
Yes. Uh, yeah, so, so, um, so mutual attraction, love, um, uh, good health, uh, uh, dependability, uh, emotional stability, although there's a bit of a sex difference there with women preferring it a bit more than men. Uh, and, and so basically ... And, and these may seem obvious. So no one wants a stupid, mean, ugly, disease-ridden mate, and so perhaps obvious. But, um, but no one knew this in advance of the 37 culture study. So, these were some universal preferences. So, you go to the Zulu tribe in South Africa or, uh, you know, uh, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, or, uh, Portugal or Oslo, uh, or anywhere in the world, and these are qualities that people universally desire in long-term mates. Sex differences. So, sex differences basically fall into two clusters. So, women more than men prioritized good earning capacity, um, slightly older age, uh, and the qualities associated with resource acquisition. So the- these are things like a man's social status. Uh, does he have drive? Is he ambitious? Um, uh... Does he have a good long term resource trajectory is one way that I like to phrase it, because-... women, often they don't look at necessarily, um, uh, the resources that a guy possesses at this moment, but what is his trajectory. And so-
- AHAndrew Huberman
May I ask,
- 18:31 – 25:10
What Women & Men Seek in Long-Term Mates
- AHAndrew Huberman
uh, just sorry to interrupt, but may I ask, um, is there anything known ab- uh, about the commonalities of how that is assessed? You know, i- i- is it, um, you know, he's rolling out of bed early and, uh, r- running eight miles, uh, he's showing proficiency in school, uh, he handles himself well socially at parties, isn't drinking too much, but knows when, you know... I mean, w- obviously-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... they're integrating multiple cues. The brain is a complex place-
- DBDavid Buss
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... but, uh, uh, is there any information about what those variables are, uh, across cultures?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. Well, I think that, um, uh, there's been less attention to that, so that's a great question. Um, one of the things that we do know across cultures is that women attend to the attention structure. So, um, the attention structure is a key determinant of status. So it is people who are high in status, or those to whom the most people pay the most attention.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Ah, so the attention of others to them, not how well a- a given potential mate pa- can focus and pay attention-
- DBDavid Buss
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... necessarily.
- DBDavid Buss
Yes. Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh-huh.
- DBDavid Buss
E- exactly. And, but- but, um, but women, look, I mean, you know, uh, is the guy, even in the modern environment, is the guy spending eight hours a day playing video games, um, uh, eating Cheetos and drinking beer, or is he, uh, devoting effort to his professional development? Uh, so hard work, um, ambition. Does he have clear goals, or is he in an existential crisis not knowing what he's gonna do with his life? Um, so those are some of the qualities that- that- that people look for, and also women use, uh, what's called in the literature mate choice copying, and this is related in part to the attention structure. That is, guys who have, um, uh, passed the filters of multiple women, uh, those are, uh, like, um, uh, pre-approved, pre-approved, and so we've done studies where you just take a guy, photograph him alone, uh, versus take the same guy, put an attractive woman next to him, or put two women next to him, and women judge exactly the same guy to be much more attractive if there is, if there were, he's paired with women than if, than- than if he's not. And so, and some guys exploit this in the modern world by hiring wingwomen to go with them on dates and so forth. "Oh, this is my- my sister, former girlfriend," or whatever. Um, so, um, uh, but, uh, but- but- but you're correct in- in mo- in that women use multiple cues to assess these things. Uh, a- and they change over time, you know? So, um, you know, (laughs) in- in the modern environment, even things like the attention structure, does this guy have a million Twitter- Twitter followers or three Twitter followers? Uh, so, um, that is an index of the attention structure, and hence the status of the guy within the broader community. Uh, so, and- and from an evolutionary perspective, it's reasonable that women would prioritize these qualities because of the tremendous asymmetry in our reproductive biology, namely that fertilization occurs internally within women, not within men. Women bear the- the burdens of the nine-month pregnancy, which is metabolically expensive, as well as creating opportunity costs in terms of mobility and- and solving other tasks that people need to solve in the course of their lives. And so, uh, one way to phrase that is that the costs of making a bad mate choice are much heavier for women when it comes to sexual behavior, certainly, uh, because, um, i- uh, a- and the- the benefits correspondingly of making a wise mate choice are higher for women in the sexual context. Um, but as I said, we have m- mutual mate choice in our species, and so what do men value more than women? Uh, physical attractiveness, um-
- AHAndrew Huberman
They rank that m- as a ho- uh, more important criteria than do women about men?
- DBDavid Buss
Yes. Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
All right.
- DBDavid Buss
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Consistently across cultures.
- DBDavid Buss
Consistently, and it's not that women are- are- are, uh, indifferent to it. So women do pay attention to a guy's physical appearance, his- his fitness and so forth, and guys are actually off base in th- uh, thinking that women prefer more muscular men than they actually do. So like in muscle magazines, these men with bulging biceps and so forth. Women don't find that especially attractive, but they do prioritize fit men, a good shoulder to hip ratio, and other qualities of physical appearance, as well as things like, um, cues to health. So and physical- so physical appearance provides a wealth of information about a person's health status, but also provides for men a wealth of information about a woman's fertility, uh, her reproductive value. Now, not that men think about that consciously. I mean, men don't walk down the street and see a woman and say, "Oh, I find her attractive because I think she must be very fertile." Um, maybe a few weird people do that, but most men just, it's like, uh, they just find those cues attractive, and the cues are cues associated with youth and health, because we know that youth is a very powerful cue to fertility and reproductive value. So men prioritize physical appearance and- and in the field of psychology, it used to, I was taught when I was an undergraduate that you can't judge a book by its cover, that physical attractiveness was infinitely arbitrary, infinitely culturally variable, and- and it's simply not true. We know now based on the last 20 years of scientific, uh, studies that the cues that-...men find attractive in women are not at all arbitrary. Uh, there is some variation across cultures, like in relative plumpness versus thinness, uh, but things like clear skin, clear eyes, symmetrical features, uh, a, a low waist to hip ratio, uh, uh, full lips, um, lustrous hair, all these are qualities that are a- associated with youth and health, and hence have, have evolved to be part of our standards of attractiveness. And so, and so it's not just that men are these, uh, superficial creatures who evaluate women on the basis of appearance. There, there is an underlying logic to why they do so. Um, and as I said, relative youth, this, this age thing is one of
- 25:10 – 32:20
Age Differences & Mating History
- DBDavid Buss
the largest sex differences that you find in long-term mate selection, with women preferring somewhat older men, and men preferring somewhat younger women.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Is there a consistent age gap, um, through, uh, to relate to that statement?
- DBDavid Buss
Yes, there is. Uh, so the age gap though depends on the age of the man. So, um, so we can document this. So in my studies, what we found is that men preferred women who were about three to four years younger than they were on average, uh, and I'll qualify this in a second. Women preferred guys who were about three and a half to four and a half years older than, than they were. So, there was a sex difference going in the opposite direction. Uh, but as men get older, they prefer women who are increasingly younger than they are. So, one way to gauge this, so there, there are actual marriage statistics, uh, and then there are expressed preferences, and both sexes kind of converge. So, if you look at, um, you know, m- first marriage, second marriage, third marriage, as if people get divorced and remarried, average age gap is, uh, in America anyway, is three years at first marriage with the guys being older, um, five years at second marriage, and eight years at third marriage. Um, uh, so that is as men are getting older and getting divorced and remarrying, they're, they are marrying women who are increasingly younger than they are. Uh, in terms of preferences, it's also expressed in preferences. So, it doesn't go down, so, so like a, say a 25-year-old man would, say, prefer a woman who's 20 or in her early 20s. A 35-year-old man might prefer a woman who's in her late 20s or early 30s. Uh, a 50-year-old man might prefer a woman who's say 35 to 38. So, so the, the preferences do go up, but the gap gets increasingly larger. And the reason that you don't see things like, um, well, why aren't men preferring women? So peak fertility in humans is around age 24, 25. Um, and so you, you say, "Well, why aren't the 60-year-old men prioritizing 25-year-old women?" Well, as I mentioned, we have a, it's a reciprocal mutual mate choice phenomenon, so-
- AHAndrew Huberman
She constrains the equation too.
- DBDavid Buss
She, well, she, she constrains it, but also, uh, mar- marriage and long-term mating are, uh, things other than reproductive unions in the modern environment. That is, they're, um, you know, we, we, you're supposed to do things as a couple, and if you get too large an age gap, then essentially you're in different cultures. You know, you, you know, you grow up with different songs, and, and, and w- a- and if the cultural gap gets too large, you don't understand each other. Uh, so, so, so there are constraints on that. But if you look at contexts where there are no constraints of that sort, so historically kings, emperors, despots, uh, et cetera, and I'll give one more modern example. Um, they basically prefer young, fertile, attractive females, and if they have harems, they stock the harems with those, and then circulate them out when they're 30 and so forth. And so, so if you look at, at marriage systems that are unconstrained, um, then th- the preferences are more likely to be revealed. Or within cultures. That is, if you look at men who are in a position to get what they want, so as Mick Jagger noted, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, um, you get what you need.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I hear that, that most of the time, he got what he needed.
- DBDavid Buss
Right, right. (laughs) He, he got what he wanted.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- DBDavid Buss
Uh, yeah, and maybe what he needed. But he, he was in a position, uh, I don't know if he still is, he's in his 70s now. Uh, but he was in a position, as was, uh, let's say Rod Stewart, to take another example, or Leonardo DiCaprio. Uh, if you were a male who's in a position where there are thousands of women potentially available to you, and you can have your pick, then you see that clearer expression for younger females. Uh, there was a chart that f- was floating around the internet of the, the girlfriends of Leonardo, Leonardo DiCaprio as he got older, and so he's getting older and older, and the graph of the age of his w- girlfriends basically stayed the same. It was in their early, early 20s or so.
- AHAndrew Huberman
He values consistency.
- DBDavid Buss
He values (laughs) consistency. Uh, but, um, so, uh, s- so anyway, the, the data converge on that, and so these are universal sex differences in, uh, long-term mate selection. So now, when we shift to... Oh, oh, and I should mention cultural variability, uh, because that's a critical thing, 'cause there is, in my 37 culture study, what I found was the preference for virginity, that is no prior sexual experience, that was the most variable, uh, desire across cultures. So, you had cultures like, um, at the time of the study, China, uh, it was basically indispensable that a partner be a virgin, uh, and then at the other end, you have Sweden, where Sweden, Swedes typically place.... close to zero value on it, and some even find it undesirable, like you're weird if you're a virgin. And so you have this whole spectrum.
- AHAndrew Huberman
This is, uh, virginity in the female, or is this also, is this not ...
- DBDavid Buss
Well, uh ...
- AHAndrew Huberman
In China, was it preference that the male and the female be virgin?
- DBDavid Buss
Okay, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So mutual mate selection?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, it was a preference for both sexes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting.
- DBDavid Buss
Um, but it's a good question, because where there was a sex difference, it was always in the direction of males preferring virginity more than females. And we've gone back to China, so I still do research in China, among other places, and we've gone back and retested modern urban populations, and the importance of virginity has gone down in China, especially in the urban areas. And the sex difference that didn't exist before has now emerged, where males value it more than females. And I think part of it was, in previous times, you hit, you hit ceiling effects, you know, where both sexes say, "Yeah, it's absolutely important to be a virgin." Um, so, so there's cultural variation and cultural change over time in some of these qualities. Uh, but the sex differences that I described have remained invariant over the years. So since my 37 culture study, this has been replicated in at least a couple other dozen different cultures, and, um, and we've gone back to some of the cultures. So, I mentioned we've gone back to China, uh, Brazil, and India, uh, to look at cultural changes over time, and, and there have been, you know, in some cases, dramatic cultural changes over time, but the sex differences that I described are invariant. They haven't changed a bit.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd be remiss
- 32:20 – 37:30
Deception in Courtship
- AHAndrew Huberman
if I didn't ask about, um, truth-telling and deception, because some of the measures that you're describing, uh, age, for instance, um, one can potentially lie about, right? I'm guessing that there are people who do that on online profiles-
- DBDavid Buss
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and whatnot. Um, from what I understand, people also lie about height and other features on online profiles. Um, but some of them are much harder to hide, right? Eventually, uh, the truth comes out about some, if not all, of these things. So if you would, um, could you tell us about how men and women, uh, leverage deception versus truth-telling and communicating some of the things around mate choice selection?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. Well, so basically, the... both men and women do deceive. Um, so we have, uh, the modern cultural invention of online dating, which, you know, was little used 10 years ago, and virtually absent 20 years ago. Uh, and people do lie, but they lie in predictable ways. They lie in ways that attempt to embody the mate preferences of the person they're trying to attract. And so men do lie. They deceive about their income, their status, so they exaggerate their income by about 20%. Uh, they, they, uh, they add, they tack on about two inches to their height. So, if they're 5'10", they round up to six feet. Um, so they don't, like if they're 5'10", they don't say that they're gigantic, but they, they kind of round it up in the more desirable direction. Uh, women tend to deceive about weight. So, they tend to shave about 15 pounds off of their reported weight. And, and both sexes post photos that are not truly representative of what they actually look like. So, they might post photos of, uh, themselves when they were younger, or there are even advice, um, uh, tips on how to create the best selfie of the best angle that will maximally, you know, enhance what you look like.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or, or just doctoring of photos, I'm guessing also occurs.
- DBDavid Buss
Oh, yeah, yeah, Photoshopping, absolutely.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
And one of the things, um, uh, about it, now you say like, well, do people find out? Of course, people, people do find out. I mean, I'll just give you one story about a colleague of mine who was doing, is a male who was doing internet dating, and he picked only women who self-described as sevens on the one to seven on attractiveness, so the most attractive, uh, as self-reported. And so, and he went out with this one woman, and she was missing her front teeth. And he said, "Well, call me picky, but missing your front teeth, and she thinks she's like the top of attractiveness?" He was a little, um, uh, disappointed about that. And women, of course, are disappointed. They meet a guy who they think is this physically fit, you know, athletic guy, and he comes up, he's, you know, 300 pounds and overweight. Uh, so people, people do find out. And there are, some internet dating sites have, um, kind of a vetting of the accuracy of something. So some things you can look up through public records, and does this guy have a criminal record, for example? Is he, is he on a, you know, a sexual, um, offender's, uh, website? Uh, so, so there's some things you can verify. But what I tell people is, you really have to meet the person and interact, you know, because the, in part because of the deception, but also because what happens with internet dating is that the phys- the photograph tends to overwhelm all the other cues, and all the other cues are written statements. And we weren't really evolved to process written statements, um, but we were evolved to respond to physical cues. But, uh... And men tend to attend to the visual cues much more than women. So women, in their mate selection, they have olfactory cues. So what does the guy sound like? His vocal qualities. Uh, uh, that's, uh, auditory cues. Uh, but olfactory cues, what does he smell like? And so women have a more acute sense of smell than men do....and, um, and so if the guy doesn't smell right, even if he embodies all the other qualities women want, that's a deal breaker. Uh, and, and so I encourage people to just, you know, stop with the 100 texts back and forth or messaging, and meet a person for a cup of coffee and interact, and then you'll, you know, you'll get a more accurate read on the person. And then of course, some qualities you can't assess even with a, with a half hour interaction. You can tell a lot, but things like emotional stability are things that have to be assessed over time. And so, one of the things that I advise people to do, and I'm not in the advice-giving business, but people ask me all the time.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sure.
- DBDavid Buss
Once they find
- 37:30 – 38:40
Emotional Stability
- DBDavid Buss
out what I study, they say, "Well, I got this problem. Can you give me advice?" But one of the things to assess things like emotional stability, which is absolutely critical in long-term mating, uh, is to do something like go on a trip together. Take, take a vacation and where you're, even in an unfamiliar environment, where you're, you have to cope with things that you're not familiar with, and, um, as opposed to, uh, an environment where it's very predictable. And, and so you, you get a greater exposure, because one of the, one of the hallmarks of emotional instability is, uh, how they respond to stress. So emotionally unstable people tend to have a long latency to return to baseline after a stressful event. And so this is the sort of information you can't get on a coffee date, you know? You can only get by assessing it over time.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, as somebody who's laboratory studies stress and tools to combat stress, I, um... That's great. It's yet more incentive for people to develop, uh, self-regulatory mechanisms-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
...uh, for themselves. Um, I'm guessing many of the,
- 38:40 – 41:56
Lying About Long-Term Interest
- AHAndrew Huberman
uh, features of deception, in this context, uh, were present long before internet dating. Um, and so is it... It's somewhat dark to think about, but is, um, is deception built into this dance that we call mate selection, and has it been built in for a long time? Or is this, um, or is this something that you think has emerged more as people, uh, are approaching each other through these electronic, uh-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
...web-based mediums?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, I, I, I mean, some forms of deception have been there, uh, for a long time over human evolutionary history. So one form of deception which we haven't mentioned is deception about whether you're interested in a long-term committed relationship or a short-term hookup. And so there's deception about that, especially on the part of men. So men who are interested, like on Tinder, uh, it has been reported, although Tinder denies this, that it's been reported that something like 30% of the men on Tinder are either married or in long-term committed relationships, and they're looking for something on the side. But, uh, the, uh, in terms of successfully attracting a mate, the overt display that, hey, I'm interested in just a short-term hookup. I'm interested in sex, so I want to have sex right now. Uh, let's just go back to my apartment. These are very ineffective tactics. And so effective tactics for men are often displaying cues to long-term interest, and so... And of course that's effective for a woman who's seeking a long-term interest. Uh, and so, and so that's a deception. So we find in our studies of deception that men tend to exaggerate the depths of their feelings for a woman, uh, exaggerate how similar they are, and how aligned they are in their values and religious orientations and political values and so forth. Uh, and so, and, and so I think there's deception around that, and I think that's probably an evolutionarily, uh, recurrent form of deception that women have defenses against, by the way. But I think that modern internet dating opens the door for certain types of deception that were, at a minimum, more difficult to accomplish ancestrally. So like, things like Photoshopping. Uh, you know, uh, you know, wasn't available back then. Um, plus we evolved in the context of small group living, where you not only had your own personal observations of someone's qualities, you had also your, your relatives, your friends, allies, the social reputation that someone had. And this is, these are all critical sources of information that are less available in modern environments, because, you know, people migrate, they move from place to place. Um, uh, they can close down one internet profile and put up another, or they could have six going simultaneously. So there, so the modern environment opens up the door for forms of deception that weren't available, or weren't available to the same degree ancestrally.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I see. Um, very interesting. Um,
- 41:56 – 46:25
Short-Term Mating Criteria, Sliding Standards & Context Effects
- AHAndrew Huberman
would you mind touching on some of the, the features that, um, uh, are selected for, in terms of, um, sex- sexual partner choice? Um, we talked a little bit about, um, mate choice. But, um, in terms of sexual partner choice, are there, is there, are there any good studies exploring what people are selecting for? Or is it, um, that they are both just in a state of, of, uh, pure hypothalamic drive?
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, I'm a neuroscientist after all.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, um, and therefore it's hard to recreate in the laboratory. Uh...
- DBDavid Buss
Well, well, no, no. We do know something about that, and we know, uh, something about how the preferences for a sex partner differ from preference for a long-term mate. Uh, there is overlap, uh, of course, but, uh, one thing is, um, physical appearance. So physical appearance for women is important in long-term mating, not as important as it is for men.... but it becomes more important in short-term mating. Uh, and so, is, is the guy w- good-looking? Uh, so those physical attributes are more important for women. Um, they are, they remain important for men, physical appearance, in short-term mating, but with the footnote that men are willing to drop their standards in short-term mating, uh, if it's low-commitment, low-risk, uh, just sex, um, you know, without entangling commitments.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Buss
Um, women are more likely to prioritize, um, what I call, uh, bad boy qualities, so guys who are very self-confident, uh, guys who are, um, uh, strut, guys who are a little arrogant, guys who are risk-taking, guys who, uh, defy conventions. Uh, women are more attracted to those guys in short-term mating than long-term mating. Uh, and whereas in long-term mating, they go more for the good dad qualities. Is this guy dependable? Is he going to be a good father to my children? Um, and then also, um, in short-term mating, women use that mate copying, um, uh, heuristic, that is, uh, if there are thousands of other women who find him attractive, women find him attractive, and so that's why you have the groupie phenomenon. So, so with rock stars, for example, there are thousands of screaming women, all of whom want to sleep with this, um, famous rock star, and they use that as information. They find if you took like, a still photo of some of these rock stars and asked women how attractive the guy is, versus tell them he's a famous rock star and show the thousands of women screaming, uh, at him, th- they judge him entirely differently in terms of his, um, attractiveness. Uh, so, so or even, and, and this is, this is an important point, that women's attraction to men is more context-specific, and varies more across contexts than men's attraction to women. And so I'll give you just an example of that. This is a, a female colleague of mine went to a conference, an academic conference, and she found the organizer of this conference to be really attractive, and, and, and then saw him six months later and wondered, "Well, what was I thinking? Uh, he doesn't seem very attractive at all." And what it was is, when he was the organizer, he was at the center of the attention structure. You know, he, he was the guy up on stage directing everybody, and everyone was attending to him, and then when he was just a normal presenter at a conference, uh, he wasn't, didn't command the attention structure like he did in that, when he was the organizer. And so this is just an illustration of how, uh, circumstance dependent women's attract- mate attraction is for guys. It depends on, you know, h- his, his status, the number of, uh, women that are attracted to him, uh, the attention structure, is he, how, how he interacts with a puppy or, or a baby, if he's ignoring a baby in distress or positively interacting with a young child. Um, uh, all these things, wh- whereas for men, it almost doesn't matter. You know, context is more irrelevant. They're honing in on the specific psychophysical cues that the woman is displaying and context be damned.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Very interesting. Um,
- 46:25 – 54:25
Sexual Infidelity: Variety Seeking & (Un)happiness & Mate Switching
- AHAndrew Huberman
let's talk about infidelity, uh, in committed relationships. Uh, what are some of the consistent, uh, findings around, uh, reasons for and maybe even, uh, long-term consequences of infidelity for men and women? And, and this could be marriage or, or long-term partnership or...
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... you know, infidelity of any kind, I suppose.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. So, well-
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm guessing it does happen. (laughs)
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well, that's-
- AHAndrew Huberman
How frequent is it?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, that's the interesting thing. Well, well, it, how frequent it is is difficult to gauge, because, um, it's the, the, one of the forms of human conduct that people like to keep secret. So, so if you go back, um, now, say, 70 years to the classic Kinsey studies, the questions about infidelity were the questions that most people refused to answer, and when the question was brought up, caused more people to drop out of the study. And so that kind of tells you something that, I mean, what, what do people conceal? You know, infidelity, incest, murder. You know, there is a small handful of things that people universally want to conceal, and infidelity is one of them. Uh, so, but people do it, and so Kinsey estimated 26% of married women committed an infidelity at some point during their marriage, and about 50% of men. Other studies have given lower figures, and so the, the exact figures bounce around depending on, you know, anonymity provided and how comfortable they are with the interviewer and so forth, but...
- AHAndrew Huberman
And by infidelity, does that mean intercourse with somebody else?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So we're not talking about, uh, quote unquote emotional affairs.
- DBDavid Buss
Right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
We're talking about...
- DBDavid Buss
This, we're just-
- AHAndrew Huberman
... sex, sex with somebody other than their committed partner-
- DBDavid Buss
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... unbeknownst to their partner.
- DBDavid Buss
Right, right. And there are other forms of infidelity which we could get into, including emotional infidelity and financial infidelity, but here, we're just talking about, for the moment, sexual infidelity, and the interesting thing about sexual infidelity is that the sexes really differ fundamentally in the motives for committing infidelity. So for men, um, the primary motive, and th- these are on average sex differences. So whenever I talk about sex differences, I'm talking about on average sex differences, 'cause there's overlap in the distributions, and, and, uh, but so these are generalizations of which there are exceptions. So...... um, so for men, it's- it's mainly a matter of sexual variety. So, about 70% of the men, it's, "The opportunity presented itself, I was out of town, and I had this opportunity." So, low risk, low cost, uh, pursuit of sexual variety, sexual novelty is a key motivation for men.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sorry to interrupt. I just want to make... So, 70% of men that cheat, that's the, uh, uh, primary d- uh, cause, or is it that 70% of men do cheat?
- DBDavid Buss
No, no, no, no.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- DBDavid Buss
70, uh- of the men who cheat, 70%, thank you for that clarification, of the men who do cheat, 70% cite that as the key motive, uh, the key reason why they committed an infidelity.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sort of like why mountain climbers climb mountains, 'cause they're there?
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs) Right, right, because they're there. If they... Well, you know, the comedian, I think it was Chris Rock, said, "Men are only as faithful as their opportunity." Um, and-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or- or how, um, how available their password on their phone is to their partner.
- DBDavid Buss
Right, right. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. So, but... And that's an exaggeration, but, um, uh, but- but if you look at women, um, this just desire for pure novelty, sexual variety is much less of a- a motive. Um, it, but women who have affairs cite that they're unhappy with their primary relationship, emotionally unhappy or sexually unhappy, and typically both. And this may seem like totally obvious that, well, of course people if they're unhappy in the relationship are more likely to stray, but, in fact, it's not true for men. So, if you compare men who are happy with their marriage and men who are not happy with their marriage, there's no difference in their infidelity rates, and I think it goes down to that issue of, um, you know, motive for seeking variety. So now, why do women do it? Uh, because it's- it's a risky endeavor. She risks her long term mate or losing a long term mate. It's risky in terms of reputational damage for both sexes. Uh, so it's a risky thing. Why do women do it? Um, and there are two competing hypotheses, uh, at least two, but there are two primary competing hypotheses in the evolutionary literature. One is called the dual mating strategy hypothesis, where women are seeking to get resources and investment from one guy and good genes from another guy. So, in prince- and in principle, that- that can- that can work, and I initially... Uh, this isn't, wasn't, uh, hypothesis original with me. This is, uh, Steve Gangestad, Randy Thornhill, and some others have, uh, Marty Hazelton, a former student of mine, have advocated this dual mating strategy hypothesis, and originally, I was, um, e- e- endorsed it, because the data seemed to support it. And we can get into which data seemed to support it, but over time, I became more and more dubious about this hypothesis, and instead have advocated what I call the mate switching hypothesis. And so if you look at, um, a whole host of information around why women have affairs, it's not compatible with the dual mating strategy hypothesis. So... And is compatible with the mate switching, that is women who are looking to, uh, either divest themselves from an existing mateship, uh, or, uh, trade up in the mating market to a mate who's more compatible with them or higher in mate value or simply see whether they're sufficiently desirable so that it eases the transition into the mating pool or keep- keeping a mate as a potential backup mate, what I call mate insurance. Uh, so you have car insurance if something bad happens to your car, house- hous- house insurance, we also have mate insurance, you know, keeping... Some wo- one woman said, um, "Men are like soup. You always want to have one on the back burner." So, um...
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting.
- DBDavid Buss
Whether that (laughs) that's the best, um, analogy or not, I'm not sure, but, um, but it kind of captures something about- about why. So- so, well, what evidence am I talking about? Well, for one thing, women who have affairs, and this is about 70% of them, they-
- 54:25 – 57:00
Genetic Cuckolds, How Ovulation Impacts Mate Preference
- DBDavid Buss
example, what are the actual rates of genetic cuckoldry? Well, in the modern environment anyway, they're pretty low. It turns out they're like 2% to 3%.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Could you just explain for the audience what genetic cuckoldry is?
- DBDavid Buss
So- so this is where- where, uh, the woman, where- where the man believes he is the genetic father of a child, but it turns out he's not. Might be the mailman or the next door neighbor or the guy she's having an affair with. So, um, uh, mi- mistaken paternity, uh, and genetic cuckoldry is just one way to-... um, capture-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Named after the cuckoo bird, right?
- DBDavid Buss
Named after the cuckoo bird, yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right, who sneaks its eggs into the-
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... nest of the other, rolls, destroys the future offspring of the-
- DBDavid Buss
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... bird, and then basically offloads all the work onto another-
- DBDavid Buss
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... father.
- DBDavid Buss
Parasitizes, yeah, the parental investment of, uh, uh, different bird species. So, um, so, so anyway, uh, so I think that, uh, and there's other sources of evidence that I think point to... So, so one of the sources of evidence that initially seemed to support the dual mating strategy hypothesis was ovulation shifts. So, in other words, um, it looked like, from the early studies, that when women are ovulating, these are among non-pill-taking women, non- women not on hormonal contraceptives, that they experienced a preference shift toward more men who were masculine and symmetrical, which were hypothesized markers for good genes. And, and there's an explanation for that. Uh, but it turns out the effects of ovulation on women's mate preferences are far weaker than init- than the initial studies looked like. Uh, and in fact, some larger scale studies have failed to replicate them entirely. And so, it's, um, uh, that was one of the key sources of evidence, these ovulation shifts, that women were going after good genes, because it's only when she's ovulating, and she can get pregnant by having sex with another man, that it would make sense for her to have sex with another man. And, and there was even some early evidence that women were timing their affairs, uh, timing sex with their affair partners, to coincide with when they were ovulating. Uh, but, but as I said, some of these subsequent studies have failed to replicate these early findings, calling into question the dual mating strategy notion. And so, so I think I've, I've shifted my views on this, uh, and, and now endorse, um, the mate switching hypothesis as a more
- 57:00 – 59:15
Long-Term vs. Short-Term Cheating, Concealment
- DBDavid Buss
likely explanation for why most women have affairs.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, the way you described this, um, makes me wonder if, w- when, of the women that have affairs, do those affairs tend to be more long-lasting than the affairs that men have? Because the way you described it is men are, uh, seizing an opportunity, so sort of a carpe diem type approach-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... to infidelity, and women potentially, uh, on average, are, um, capitalizing on something that is longer term. Now, of course, if they're doing this o- uh, around ovulation, then it would constrain the amount of times they would need to see or have sex with the, the, um, this other person that they're not married to. But, um, is there any evidence that women have more ongoing affairs and man- men have trans- more transient affairs?
- DBDavid Buss
Yes. Yeah, th- there is. And so, if you look at people who have affairs, there's a sex difference there, so that women tend to have affairs with one person and become emotionally involved with that one person over time. Men tend to, who have affairs, tend to have affairs with a larger number of affair partners, and so, which then by definition can't be long-lasting. You can't have long-term affairs with six different partners.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, unless he's, um, juggling multiple, uh, phone accounts or something.
- DBDavid Buss
R- Right, right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That sort of thing.
- DBDavid Buss
And some men try to do that, but, um, I think it's a, could be very taxing.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. Well, and in this day and age, it's, um, it's easier to meet more people by virtue of online communications, but it's also easier to get caught. Meaning, it's harder to conceal-
- DBDavid Buss
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, interactions. Everything's in the cloud anyway. A good friend of mine-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... who was, um, former very high level in special operations said, "Anything that's not in your head, and only in your head, is available for others to-"
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs) Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
"... to find, should they want it."
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I think that's, and I think that's largely true.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, and, and yeah, so, uh, um, and phone information, text messages, and people are very good at hacking into their partner's, uh, phones, computers, and then also, there are video cameras everywhere, so, so, uh, sneaking off to this, uh, a quiet restaurant, I mean, there are probably eight video cameras that can record you walking in and out of that restaurant.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Everything can be found.
- DBDavid Buss
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, I'm certain of that.
- 59:15 – 1:04:35
Emotional & Financial Infidelity
- AHAndrew Huberman
You mentioned emotional affairs and financial infidelity as well.
- DBDavid Buss
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, I, uh, had a girlfriend once who, um, as a early date discussion, uh, said, um, "Not that I get the impression that, uh, you are, but I want to be very clear," she said, "that you are not emotionally, physically, or financially tied to any other women."
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I thought it was very interesting that now you bring up, uh, financial infidelity. She's, um, quite happily partnered now, and, um, uh, not with me, but, uh, but it's interesting. It's the first time I heard anyone spell it out that way as a list, almost like specific aims in a grant. Um, uh, what is emotional infidelity? What is financial infidelity?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, yeah. Well, this is a very smart woman. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Indeed, she is.
- DBDavid Buss
To tap into all three.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, indeed she is.
- DBDavid Buss
Uh, so, uh, and I assumed you, you were, you gave honest responses to all of those three questions.
- AHAndrew Huberman
As I recall, I did.
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs) Okay. But, uh, as we now know, um, that they're, uh... Well, you can ask her at some point. Right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm happy to provide you her information.
- DBDavid Buss
Okay, uh, and, and there is self-deception in the service of deception that is another issue. So, emotional infidelity is basically, um, exactly what it sounds like. It's, it's falling in love with someone else, becoming psychologically close to someone else, sharing intimate, uh, or private information with someone else. Uh, that's what I mean by emotional infidelity, and, um, one of the hallmarks of this, a, a study done by a former, uh, student of mine, Barry Cooley, it was very clever, I thought. He analyzed, there used to be this reality TV show called Cheaters where they would hire detectives, uh, and they would, when the detective would like, say, follow someone to a hotel room, they'd call up the partner and, uh, say, "Uh, your husband just walked into the hotel room, uh, with someone else. Do you, would you like to come down to the hotel and confront him?" And a certain percentage of people would confront, and what he analyzed, so he analyzed all these episodes of this show called Cheaters, and-... and what he examined was the verbal interrogations when people confronted their partners. And when men confronted their partners, the first question they wanted to know is, "Did you fuck him?" Uh, women, their first question was, "Do you love her?" And so, this kind of captures that difference between a sexual infidelity and emotional infidelity, and also kind of captures, eh, another sex difference when it comes to sexual jealousy, you know, where men tend to be more focused on the sexual components of the infidelity, because those are what, um, compromise his paternity certainty, his certainty that he's actual- actually the genetic father of whatever, um, offspring ensue. Uh, whereas, uh, w- love is a cue to, "Do you love her?" That's a cue that he's gonna leave you, the woman, for another woman. Uh, it's a cue that, to the long-term loss of that investment and commitment from that partner. Uh, and so, and so the sexes seem to differ, um, in which, um, aspects of the infidelity, with women more attuned to or more upset by the emotional infidelity, men more by the sexual infidelity. Now, financial infidelity has been explored much less, but in- in- in my new book, um, When Men Behave Badly, I have a section on financial infidelity, where I summarize all the research that has been done, and I was kind of flabbergasted by the percentage of people who do things like have credit cards that their spouse doesn't know about, keep secret bank accounts, have the credit card bills mailed to their office rather than their home, uh, have, uh, basically, uh, resources and expenditures of pooled resources that they keep from their partner. And both sexes do it. Um, and- and the percentages vary, uh, from study to study, but they range from, like, 30 to 60% of all people who are keeping financial information from their- from their spouse in one way or another. It could be the woman's out buying designer purses or designer handbags. Uh, it could be the guy's out, uh, going to strip clubs or taking his affair partner to, uh, restaurants, and doesn't want those charges to show up on, you know, a- a jointly held credit card. Uh, so financial infidelity is critical. Uh, and then even things like diverting pooled resources to one set of genetic relatives versus another set is another thing that people tend to keep secret. So, there are forms of financial infidelity, um, uh, as well, so yeah, infidelity, you're absolutely, it's a great question, because it shouldn't be confined to sexual infidelity, which is what most people think about, uh, but also emotional and financial. Interestingly, if you ask people, "What do you mean, what- what is infidelity, uh, in a marriage?" Men tend to say, "Well, it's obvious it's she has- has sex with someone else. Um, that's infidelity." Uh, whereas women ha- are more likely to have a broader definition of infidelity. They will cite things like emotional infidelity, financial infidelity as part of the definition, whereas men have that more narrow definition.
- 1:04:35 – 1:06:22
Contraception
- DBDavid Buss
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting. I have a- a good friend who's a, um, couples counselor, a clinical psychologist, and, uh, she told me something interesting that relates to this, which is that, um, in cases of infidelity, oftentimes the, some of the arguments, uh, b- between couples boil down to whether or not contraception was used or not. That becomes a- a key feature, and she always, um, thought that that was, you know, home- homing in on a- a detail, which of course is an important detail as it relates to both, um, paternity issues and pregnancy, but also disease, right? But, um, as we're talking about all this, it- it makes it- uh, makes me think that, uh, this may have deeper evolutionary roots in our, uh, fur- further down in the brain, as we say in neuroscience literature.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, yeah, well, and- and, uh, yeah. A- and using a condom versus not using a condom, not using is a more intimate act, in a way. You are literally physically more intimate with someone else, uh, than if you do use a condom. So, um, you know, but whether it's, uh, whether there are evolutionary roots to this, I- I don't know. I mean, condoms are probably relatively recent, and, or at least the widespread use of them are relatively recent in, um, evolutionary times, so I doubt we have adaptations specifically for them.
- AHAndrew Huberman
No, and presumably before condoms, uh, one can only speculate, because as we say, when it comes to, uh, behavior, uh, there's rarely a fossil record, um, but sometimes there is, it would be, uh, the withdrawal method of- of contraception, which a good friend of mine who studies- uh, whose laboratory works on reproductive biology says the reason, uh, that's a poor choice of contraception is because it was designed not to work.
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs) Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So note- note to those of, uh, trying to avoid unwanted pregnancy. So we talked a
- 1:06:22 – 1:10:10
Status & Mating Success
- AHAndrew Huberman
little bit about status in terms of what men and women are selecting for, uh, for different types of relationships. Um, is there anything else about status that- that you find particularly interesting, and, you know, what men are finding attractive besides these, you know, waist to hip ratios, and, um, uh, qua- quality of potential mothers, um, and so forth? Um, are there any kind of, uh, hidden gems in the literature around this that I might not have heard of?
- DBDavid Buss
Uh, well, yeah. So, uh, you- you mean among, uh, you know, things like sex differences and what leads to high status or s- or...
- AHAndrew Huberman
For instance. Or what, um, or perhaps things that, uh, are surprising in terms of what people are selecting for. Do people even know what they're selecting for? This is, or is this all subconscious? Any and all of the- those topics are of interest to me.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. So, well, to take them in reverse order, you know, I think a lot of it is conscious, but some of it is certainly unconscious, or there are elements, uh, which are totally unconscious. So-... uh, I mentioned one earlier where a man looks at a woman. He's not... He's aware that he's attracted to her, and attracted to her physical appearance, but he might not be aware of why. You know, we didn't evolve to be aware of why. Just like with food preferences, we, we find certain things delectable and other things, um, you know, nauseating. We, we don't understand the, uh, adaptive logic of why our food preferences exist and why we have them. And the same is true of mating, you know? And so, uh, uh, men find women with s- with a low waist-to-hip ratio attractive, uh, but they might not... The, the, they almost rarely... Rarely will they know, oh, low waist, waist-to-hip ratio is actually associated with higher fertility, lower endocrinological problems, um, uh, you know, lower age, et cetera. Um, so, so we're sometimes aware of what we want, but we are unaware of why we want it.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Buss
So, uh, so I think there are unconscious elements that the whole topic of status and what leads to high status and low status is a topic I'm currently investigating. Published a couple scientific articles on it. Uh, and, uh, so, but maybe we'll hold off on that for, uh, a future discussion. But, but it inter- it intersects... I'll mention one. It intersects with mating in, in interesting ways, in that higher status gives people the ability to, um, choose from a wider pool of potential mates than they would if they have low status. Um, and so one of the reasons that people strive for status is because they have access to more desirable mates. Conversely, uh, having desirable mates endows you with higher status. And so if you have... if you're a male, you have a very, um, attractive, um, woman on your arm, that leads to high status. And so there's a reciprocal link between status and mating in that way, and there have been studies where you, you... Say, say they pose a, uh, kind of a unattractive guy, older unattractive guy, and a stunningly beautiful woman, uh, as, as a girlfriend, and they say, "Well, what, w- w- what's this guy all about?" And they say, "Oh, he must be very high in status. He must be very wealthy. He must, uh, have a lot going for him." Um, uh, you know, whereas the reverse, people don't make the same, uh, attributions. And so, uh, and so there is an interesting reciprocal link between status and mating success, where mating success leads to high status and high status leads to more mating success.
- 1:10:10 – 1:24:13
Jealousy, Mate Value Discrepancies, Vigilance, Violence
- DBDavid Buss
- AHAndrew Huberman
So over and over again, there are these instances that you describe where the assessment of potential mate, sexual or long-term partnership, are, um, being made in the contents of g- of good statistical practices, looking at the choices of others as a readout of your own choices. Um, I keep... Eh, this seems to be a theme that th- this is not being made in a very narrow context, but paying attention to what other people are paying attention to seems to come up again and again.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, slightly off center from that, but still paying attention to what other people are paying attention to. Uh, what's known about jealousy in men versus women, and, uh, how frequent it is, how intense it is, and what people do with that jealousy? I mean, we hear, or I've heard at some point, that, uh, a large fraction of homicides are the consequence of jealous lovers. Um, that's the darkest angle of all this. But, um, in evolutionary psychology context, uh, what is jealousy? Um, does it relate to paternity issues only? Uh, what can you tell us about jealousy?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. So, well, uh, it's a, a great set of questions. And, and when I first started studying jealousy, I reviewed all the prior publications on jealousy. And at that time, jealousy was regarded as, um, uh, a, a sign of immaturity, a sign of, uh, insecurity, uh, uh, a sign of, uh, neurosis or pathology, or in some cases delusion. Um, and what I argued, um, is, and do argue, is that jealousy is an evolved emotion that serves several adaptive functions, okay? Uh, one of which you mentioned is, is a paternity certainty function. Uh, but, uh, but to, to back up a second, basically once you have the evolution of long-term mating, long-term pair bonds, you're talking about, from a male perspective, investing a tremendous amount of resources in a woman and her children over years or decades. Um, even with boomerang kids now, it may (laughs) go more than two decades.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Boomerang kids?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sorry.
- DBDavid Buss
Kids, kids who leave home and then come back and li- live at home 'cause-
- AHAndrew Huberman
That happens?
- DBDavid Buss
... they, because they... Oh yeah. Uh, that happens.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I don't have children, so I have no...
- DBDavid Buss
Okay, yeah, no. That's a big thing, um.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But if I do, I'll just expect that they'll come back at some point.
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs) They'll come back 'cause they, they can't find a job or they find it cheaper to live at the parents' house or whatever.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh goodness. I can't think of anything worse. I mean, I love my parents, but...
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs) I know. I know, again, I can't imagine, but, uh, but it happens, and it's happening more and more in the... given the current economic situation. Okay, but... So, uh, once you have long term mating, you need a, uh, a defense to prevent or preserve the investment that you've made or and are making in long term mateship. And so jealousy serves this, um, mate guarding function if you will, or mate retention function. So, in other words, one way of phrasing this is that we know that there, there are affairs. We know that people break up, they get divorced. Um, but people have adaptations to want to hold on to their mates. Okay? And that's what jealousy is in part about. And so jealousy gets activated when there are threats to that romantic relationship.And there are other forms of jealousy, like sibling jealousy and so forth. But we're focusing on mating jealousy, uh, in this context. So, uh, now what's interesting is that the threats to an ongoing valued romantic relationship come from many sources. So they could be you detect cues to your partner's infidelity, uh, uh, or cues, uh, of a, a lack of, of an emotional distance between you and your partner. You, you say, "I love you" to your partner, and your partner says, uh, "Oh, I wonder how the, how the Knicks are doing this scoring season," or whatever. If you get an unreciprocated "I love you" is a bad cue.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or a half, or some people are so tuned to this, if there's a half millisecond delay...
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs) Right, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... they can detect delays in responses.
- DBDavid Buss
Yes, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
Delays in responses. Uh, but even things like, uh, uh, so that's one set of cues. Uh, but then there's another set of, uh, interested mate poachers. So, you know, if you're mated to someone who's desirable, um, which many people are, other people still desire them, and so sometimes try to poach them or lure them away from you for a short term sexual encounter or for a longer term relationship. And so we have to be, so jealousy motivates people to be attentive to potential mate poachers in their environment. Uh, but even more subtle things like, um, mate value discrepancies can trigger jealousy. So even if there are no mate poachers and no cues to infidelity, if, um, a mate value discrepancy opens up in a relationship, so in the American system, like you're a six or an eight or a 10, uh, and people generally pair off based on similarity in mate value. So-
- AHAndrew Huberman
That tends to happen.
- DBDavid Buss
Tends.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sixes end up with sixes.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sevens end up with sixes.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Plus or minus one.
- 1:24:13 – 1:25:12
Specificity of Intimate Partner Violence
- DBDavid Buss
here- here's one other thing that is really interesting, uh, about the intimate partner violence, and that's the specificity of it depending on circumstances, and namely when the woman gets pregnant, she's more vulnerable to physical violence, and when the man suspects that he's not the father of that pregnancy, he's more likely to direct the violence toward blows to her abdomen. Okay? It's, that's- that's specific.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Wow.
- DBDavid Buss
Uh, and so in that case, the function is- is, hypothesized function is to terminate the pregnancy by a rival male, uh, as opposed to deterring the woman from committing an infidelity or from leaving the relationship entirely. So, that's why one function of intimate partner violence is- is just sequestering the woman and keeping her all to himself. Um, so it- it's both to prevent infidelity and to prevent defection.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I have a- a friend,
- 1:25:12 – 1:27:33
Mate Retention Tactics: Denigration, Guilt, Etc.
- AHAndrew Huberman
uh, who, um... wife told me, um, that if she, if he cheats, I'll kill him. That's what she said. Um, but it's actually just much easier to keep him very, very busy.
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, um, and that statement now leaps to mind, because, uh, of what you're describing, that there are many tactics by which people can engage this e- effort to reduce the mate value discrepancy, not all of which are overtly violent.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But some are... But all of which are designed to constrain their behavior.
- DBDavid Buss
Right. Right. Yeah, these were, so these would fall under what I would call mate retention tactics, and...... only one or two of which, uh, fall under the violence category. Yeah, there are even, uh, yeah, um, uh, within-partner psychological manipulations, uh, about these things. So, there are psychological manipulations about perceived mate value. Uh, you know, no one else would want you. Um, you know, you're, you're a, a loser. There's denigration of partner within the relationship. Uh, even feigning anger to make the partner feel guilty about, say, looking at someone else. Uh, so, uh, so there's all, all kinds of, uh, internecine warfare that goes on within relationships to manipulate perceptions of these things. This is, I'm creating a much too jaded view of romance and love, I think.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh, no. We, we will get to the, the, the happy endings, and, and lo- I mean, there are certainly many happy relationships out there. I, oh, uh, you know, as a neuroscientist, I hear about this, and, and the immediacy of, of, uh, how people, you know, fall into a, a pattern of jealousy, or a, a pattern of cheating, and not always, but ... And, and I, it just speaks to brain circuitry that's evolved to protect something. And, um, I'm sure this statement is, uh, not exhaustive, but I think it's accurate to say that every species, but, um, especially humans, wants to make more of itself and protect its young. But these issues of paternity and, uh, resource allocation, I mean, I think they're vital. And you know, I look forward to a day where evolutionary psychology and neuroscience, are, uh, can merge at the level of, of underlying mechanism. But I, I don't think it's, um, dark. I think it's just the, the way we're wired, at some level. Um, speaking of dark,
- 1:27:33 – 1:33:25
Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Psychopathy
- AHAndrew Huberman
um, could you tell us about the dark triad?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. So, the dark triad, so we've been talking about sex differences on average, but there are critical within-sex individual differences, and the dark triad is one of the most important ones. The dark triad consists of three personality characteristics. So, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Hallmarks of narcissism are things like, uh, grandiosity. A person thinks that they're more intelligent, more attractive, more dazzling, more charming than they actually are. They think they're the greatest person since sliced bread. Uh, importantly with narcissism, you also get a sense of entitlement. Um, so they feel entitled to a larger share of the pie, whether that be the financial pie, the status pie, or the sexual pie. Uh, uh, Machiavellianism, uh, is high-scorers tend to pursue an exploitative social strategy. So, they might feign cooperation, but then cheat, you know, on subsequent moves. Uh, they view other people as pawns to be manipulated for their own instrumental gains. Uh, and then psychopathy, one of the hallmarks of psychopathy is a lack of empathy. So, most people have a normal empathy circuit, where if a child falls down and gets hurt, we feel compassion for the harm that that person is undergoing, or if a, a puppy gets, uh, hit by a car or whatever, we feel compassion. Uh, psychopaths don't. The- that is, those high on this dimen- it's a dimensional thing. It's not a categorical, um, thing. So, those high on psychopathy, uh, basically lack empathy. Uh, and so if you combine these qualities, narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavelli- Machiavellianism, you, you have, uh, well, some very bad dudes. And I say bad dudes, 'cause men tend to score higher on these things than women, especially on the psychopathy dimension. So, when you talk about clinical levels of psychopathy, it's, uh, estimated to be something like 1% of women and about 4% of, of men. So, men, uh, are much higher on that. So, why is this important? Well, it's important in the mating context, because, uh, those who are high on dark triad traits tend to be, uh, uh, sexual deceivers, for one. So, they're very, often very charming, uh, very good at seducing women and then abandoning them, sometimes with, um, after fleecing them, uh, or, or draining their bank account. Uh, they're very good at, um, at the art of seduction. Uh, they are also, tend to be sexual harassers, serial sexual harassers, and sexual coercers. Um, uh, so when it comes to forms of sexual violence, um, high dark triad guys tend to be perpetrators of this. And so, like most men, I think, uh, would be, uh, find it ethically abhorrent to sexually harass, say, a woman in the workplace. Dark triad guys, in part, maybe they feel entitled to it. And, and, and in part, they do. I mean, in some cases that I report in the book, there are like literal descriptions, where the guys are writing in these journals, "Oh, I knew she was attracted to me. You know, that's why she res- she met me in the, uh, Xerox room just when I was there, 'cause she wanted to admire my bulging biceps," or whatever.
Episode duration: 2:13:01
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode HXzTbCEqCJc
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome