Joe Rogan Experience #1959 - David Buss

1. 0:00 – 2:29

   Meeting David Buss & why he studies human mating strategies

   1. DBDavid Buss0:00

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) All right, Dave. Well, thank you very much for being here, man. Appreciate it.

   3. DBDavid Buss0:15

      Thank you. Uh, to ... I'm delighted to be here, and it's a great honor to, uh, be here talking to you, man.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      Well, it was very nice to meet you, uh, with Jordan. Uh, he speaks so highly of you and we had such a fun conversation at dinner that I said, "Well, we, uh, we definitely should do this publicly."

   5. DBDavid Buss0:29

      Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, terrific. And I've been catching up on your podcast, so it ... you have so many that it's im- ... nearly impossible. But, um, I watched the recent one you did with Jordan when he was here in Austin, and, uh, also the one that you did with, uh, Russell Brand. Um, and I was on ... I was on his, his podcast, and I was just saying, "Man, he talks so fast-"

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:50

      I know.

   7. DBDavid Buss0:51

      "... that it's like, uh ... uh, glad you were kind of a calming influence-"

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:54

      (laughs)

   9. DBDavid Buss0:55

      "... to slow him down a little bit."

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       And he's sober. The guy's completely clean and sober. You would imagine that he was definitely on Adderall or something.

   11. DBDavid Buss1:02

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:02

       Just rounding off.

   13. DBDavid Buss1:03

       That's what I was thinking that maybe when he was on heroin, maybe it s- ... calming him down a little bit or slowed him down.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:09

       Mm. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe that's why he was interested in that stuff. So, uh, what we started talking about was your life's work, which was ... y- your life's work is human mating strategies.

   15. DBDavid Buss1:21

       Yes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:22

       As a psychologist, like why ... wha- ... first of all, why was that, uh, so appealing to you? Why did you choose that as a field of study?

   17. DBDavid Buss1:28

       Yeah. Well, it wasn't ... it wasn't a field of study when I, when I did choose it, and I, I wasn't like I had a plan going in. But, um, a little bit of backstory on this is, um, uh, I'm a, a psychologist by training. So, trained at UC Berkeley, PhD, uh, and, um, and there was nothing of this sort going on there or no research. But I started reading because I have fairly broad interests. I started reading in different areas, like evolutionary biology, and I was reading evolutionary biology, I came across these amazing theories of evolution like Hamilton's Theory of Inclusive Fitness, uh, Trivers' Theory of Parental Investment, uh, of course, Darwin's Theory of Sexual Selection. That was really ... that's really the one that blew me away, Darwin's Theory of Sexual Selection. Um, and then I realized, man, these, these theories have so much applicability to humans, but nobody is studying them. And they lead to, uh, at least the then-theories lead to some

2. 2:29 – 6:37

   Darwin’s sexual selection: survival vs mating advantage

   1. DBDavid Buss2:29

      pretty clear predictions that could be tested. And so I was trained as an empirical scientist where, you know, you, you take the hypotheses, generate predictions, do the studies, and if the studies ... if the empirical findings support the predictions, then you say, "Okay, this looks promising. You know, we'll go further." And so I did some initial studies of, uh, human mate preferences. So one of the, the core things, maybe to back up just a second, uh, if I could, Darwin's Theory of Sexual Selection, so this is Darwin, 1871. Um, and it's, it's, it's one of the most brilliant and then unrecognized theory, evolutionary theories in existence. So, most people when they think about evolution, they think about survival of the fittest, you know, nature red in tooth and claw. Um, you know, and of course, that's really what Darwin's first book, On the Origin of Species was all about, um, survival, adaptations to survival, and he came up with this, uh, brilliant phrase, uh, called the hostile forces of nature. And that h- ... and that organisms have these adaptations to deal with these hostile forces of nature in order to survive. So, uh, they were basically threats from the environment, uh, things like you've ... you know, fall off a cliff, you, you drowned in the ocean, uh, uh, food shortages, threats from predators, you know, the lions and tigers and bears, threats from parasites that can eat you from within. Um, and so that's really what his first book was all about. And so people equated natural selection with survival selection. But there were, in fact, phenomena that Darwin could not explain on this theory. Uh, and he was very troubled by them. He has ... uh, he noticed that, uh, (laughs) something that all scientists do, uh, scientists develop, uh, fawns for their pet hypotheses, right, their pet theories. And so ... but he noticed that he had a tendency to forget facts that were inconsistent with his theory of natural selection.

   2. JRJoe Rogan4:28

      Mm.

   3. DBDavid Buss4:29

      Um, and so he forced himself to write them down in a separate notebook because he didn't wanna forget them. He was ... you know. So one was like the brilliant plumage of peacocks and he asked, uh, "How could this weird structure possibly lead to a survival advantage?" It's like, uh, first of all, metabolically expensive. And it's, it's like a neon sign to predators advertising fast food. How could this weird structure possibly have evolved? He said ... even said in his notebook that "The sight of a peacock gives me nightmares."

   4. JRJoe Rogan4:59

      (laughs)

   5. DBDavid Buss4:59

      He couldn't explain it on his theory of, uh, natural selection. And he also noticed, um, other phenomena, uh, sexual dimorphism, differences in the size, shape, morphology of males and females of the same species. And the reason this troubled him, was because he, he thought, well, both sexes face the same survival problems, right? Both sexes have to eat, both sexes have to fend off predators, both sexes have to fend off parasites. Well, so why would they differ in morphology, size, strength, et cetera? And moreover, why would different species vary, um, so dramatically? So you have like, uh, elephant seals, for example. Males are four times the size of females. Chimpanzees less so, twice the size of females. Humans, it's complicated because it depends on which aspect of morphology you're talking about. So men are only, say, 10%, 11% taller than women. But things like upper body strength, it's like monumentally, uh, powerful sex differences there. And so, and so-... all this is a long-winded, uh, way of saying that in response to these anomalies, you know, things like the brilliant plumage of peacocks, um, the elaborate birdsong of, uh, and so forth, and the sex differences, he came up with the theory of sexual selection. And sexual selection deals not with the evolution of characteristics that lead to survival, uh, advantage, but rather those characteristics that lead to a mating advantage. And he identified two causal pathways. Uh, sorry if I'm monologuing here. I-

   6. JRJoe Rogan6:33

      No, no, go ahead, please.

   7. DBDavid Buss6:34

      ... I'll, uh, I'll get to a-

   8. JRJoe Rogan6:34

      Very interesting.

   9. DBDavid Buss6:35

      ... a pause here, but, um-

   10. JRJoe Rogan6:36

       Don't, don't pause if you don't want to. (laughs)

3. 6:37 – 10:41

   Two engines of sexual selection: same-sex competition & mate choice

   1. DBDavid Buss6:37

      ... in a, in a, in a second. But, um, so, so mating advantage. So, he identified two causal pathways, which are still the pillars of sexual selection theory, by which mating advantage could occur. Okay, one is intrasexual competition, or same-sex competition, so battles. The stereotype is two stags locking horns in combat, and the victor gains sexual access to the female. A loser ambles off with a broken antler, dejected, suffering low self-esteem and needing ... so, uh, psychotherapy from my, some of my clinical psychology colleagues, uh, mate value rehabilitation therapy or something like that. (laughs) Uh, and so the logic was very simple, but very clear, and that is that qualities that led to success in these same-sex battles, what biologists call contest competition, those got passed on in greater numbers because of the sexual access that the victors gained.

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:36

      Mm.

   3. DBDavid Buss7:37

      Qualities associated with losing the competition just basically bit the evolutionary dust. Um, and the logic of that, um, intrasexual competition is actually more general. So, what I've described is what's called contest competition, where there's a literal physical battle, but it, it's more general in that, for example, with humans, we sometimes do contest competition. In fact, there's somewhat of a long evolutionary history of males doing these physical contests in warfare and sometimes within groups. Uh, but, but we also compete for status. And for competing for status, status gives you a mating advantage, um, uh, but we don't necessarily have to fight. As I always say, like, I've been ... I teach at University of Texas, and, and all the time ... and I previously taught at University of Michigan, Harvard University, Berkeley. Um, in all my years in academia, I've never walked across campus and one time seen two guys duking it out, you know, in public, surrounded by a ring of females who are watching to see who's gonna be the winner, and then having sex with the, the winner. Not once have I observed this. Now, maybe they do it in private, uh, but I haven't seen that. So, so that's, that's the first component, is same-sex competition. Second process is, is, uh, intrasexual selection, which is inter, meaning between sexual, the sexes, so it's basically preferential mate choice. And there, the issue is, what are the qualities that men and women or males and females desire in the opposite sex? Uh, and the logic there is that you need some variability in those qualities, and so they could be anything. They could be physical appearance. They could be, um, sense of humor. They could be intelligence. They could be personality characteristics. Um, uh, so first, there has to be variability. Second, there has to be some heretable, heritability to the variability. Um, and then third, there has, there has to be some consensus. It doesn't have to be total, but some agreement on what qualities are desired. Uh, and so for example, just hypothetically, if it were the case that all women preferred to mate with men who had red hair, okay, it actually doesn't occur, red hair is not a, typically a dominant preference, but if they did, then over time, you would see an increase in the frequency of redheadedness in the population, because those with red hair would have a mating advantage. They would be s- selectively chosen. Those lacking red hair would be, you know, kind of banished or less, less, do less well on the mating market. Right? And so again, you can see evolution, which simply means change over time, uh, either due to qualities that lead to same success in same-sex battles or due to qua- possessing qualities that are valued by the opposite sex.

4. 10:41 – 12:44

   Peacocks, handicaps, and why showy traits can signal quality

   1. JRJoe Rogan10:41

      Okay, so let's talk about peacocks then.

   2. DBDavid Buss10:44

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:45

      What could possibly have caused a peacock to develop that insane plumage, and how would that be preferential, and why would that be preferential to the opposite sex?

   4. DBDavid Buss10:57

      Yeah. Uh, it's a great question, Joe. Uh, and, um, it basically ... we know that it is preferred by the opposite sex. So, the, the more brilliant the plumage, the, um, the more luminescent the plumage, the more females like it. Um, uh, and there are a couple different hypotheses that have been put forward to explain it. We don't know totally the answer to it, but one is that, uh, it has to do with parasite load. So, parasites decrease the luminescence of the plumage. So, a peacock that had a high parasite load would be less healthy. Um, and so one hypothesis is that females are cueing on- cueing into a health queue. Um, another hypothesis is, uh, was put forward by an Israeli biologist name, named Zahavi, called, uh, the handicap hypothesis. And, and the idea there is that the peacocks are saying-Um, I am so big and strong and fit that I can carry around this massive structure and still survive and still thrive, and so I must have pretty good genes. Uh, and so, and so, so we don't know, but ... And it, it could, of course, be some combination of those or a third factor. But we do know females prefer it and probably linked to a health cue, possibly linked to a handicap.

   5. JRJoe Rogan12:23

      Well, it's interesting because it exists in turkeys as well. Like, turkeys have that-

   6. DBDavid Buss12:27

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan12:27

      ... big plumage that they puff out when they're trying to attract the ladies.

   8. DBDavid Buss12:31

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan12:31

      Uh, have you seen that?

   10. DBDavid Buss12:32

       Yeah, I have. Uh, yeah, m- uh, many s- uh, many species do. You see the, um ... And, and you raise an interesting issue that, uh, having to do with the sex difference in this.

   11. JRJoe Rogan12:41

       Yeah.

   12. DBDavid Buss12:41

       So why is, why does it seem, m- to be the males-

5. 12:44 – 15:57

   Human mate preferences: short-term vs long-term strategies

   1. JRJoe Rogan12:44

      Mm-hmm.

   2. DBDavid Buss12:44

      ... who are always doing this and not the females? Which is interesting because in our species, if you ask which sex, um, devotes the most attention to changing their physical appearance, it's actually females.

   3. JRJoe Rogan12:57

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DBDavid Buss12:58

      So women, for example, spend nine times m- bi- more money on cosmetic enhancements, uh, makeup and so forth, compared to men. It w- the, the sex difference in who does the choosing, who does the competing was so pronounced that Darwin even called the preferential mate choice component female choice, simply because he observed that it seemed to be the females who were more choosy about who they mated with, and the males were more indiscriminate. They would basically mate with almost any female who would have them. Um, but what's interesting is when we get to humans, we find that both components of sexual selection apply, uh, to both sexes. So that is, in our species, both males compete with other males for access to females, and females compete with other females for access to desirable males, and both men and women have preferential mate choice. And I know this for a fact, um, not just from the empirical studies, but in my, in my, uh, undergraduate courses, uh, I'd have a couple hundred students, and I'd ask them, "How many males, uh, how many of you guys have no preferences and would just mate with any female no matter what?" And typically, there's, like, one smart-ass guy at the back of the room who raises his hand. But men have strong preferences. Now, they differ in some ways from the preferences of women, and there is the very important issue of whether you're going for a short-term mate, you know, a one-night stand, a casual sex partner, uh, or a hookup, as they call it, on college campuses, or you're going for a long-term, committed, pair-bonded partner. 'Cause the qualities that you pref- that people prefer differ dramatically. So, uh, bottom line here is both, both components of sexual selection operate within both sexes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan14:53

      So, like, when you're talking about the difference between, like, uh, what someone's attracted to for a one-night hookup versus what someone's attracted to in a relationship, that has to do with the whole concept of having the opportunity to spread your genes without any commitment, right? So, like, someone who is what you would call hot and, uh, you know, promiscuous, the attractiveness to that is that this is an opportunity for the male to spread their genetics without having to work too hard.

   6. DBDavid Buss15:26

      Uh, yeah. The way I would phrase it is, uh, um, that that is the, um, result, so to speak. Uh, men don't think about that consciously, right? You know, they're just ...

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:37

      Right.

   8. DBDavid Buss15:37

      They're just, uh ...

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:38

      It's ch- it's a natural cycle.

   10. DBDavid Buss15:40

       They, they find this, like, woman attractive, and they wanna have sex with her.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:43

       Right.

   12. DBDavid Buss15:44

       Uh, and they're not thinking ... Just like when you eat food, you're not thinking, uh, although some may now, but most people don't think, "Oh, what is the underlying nutritive logic that led to my survival?" You know, they just say, "Oh, this smells good, it tastes good. I'm gonna eat it."

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:57

       Right.

6. 15:57 – 26:24

   Obligatory parental investment & the puzzle of women’s affairs

   1. DBDavid Buss15:57

      You know? And so we're not conscious of the underlying logic that drove the evolution of these, uh, attractions, in the, in this case. But your question also raises the interesting issue of, um, males versus females. You know, so f- for ... So, so and this gets to a fundamental sex difference in our reproductive biology, which is referred to as, um ... It's kind of a clunky phrase, but, uh, obligatory parental investment. So, uh, in other words, what is the minimum obligatory parental investment that a man versus a woman has to put in to produce one child? And for men, the minimum, the absolute bare minimum, is, is one act of sex, you know, that can result in a child. For women, the minimum is that nine months of pregnancy.

   2. JRJoe Rogan16:50

      Hmm.

   3. DBDavid Buss16:50

      Which i- which is huge. Uh, and so this has actually been called, uh, the, the, the Darwinian paradox or the Darwinian puzzle, is that we know that given that asymmetry in investment, we know that, um, it has been beneficial in the currency of reproductive success for men to have sex with a variety of women. Okay? That's p- fairly straightforward. Um, but why do women do it? Because we know women also engage in short-term mating. They engage in affair mating, so estimates vary, but say somewhere between, say, 20 and 35, 40% of women have affairs, even if they're in a committed long-term relationship. Interesting issue. Well, what do they get out of it? They don't increase their direct reproductive success and never could have, 'cause th- th- you know, unless their partner happened to be infertile, the most they can have is basically one kid a year. Uh, and so adding additional sex partners doesn't do anything for their reproductive success. Okay? And so it's been a puzzle, and there have been-You know, maybe four or five leading hypotheses about why women do it. And, uh, this is, uh, one area where I've, uh, changed my mind on, uh, pretty dramatically. So, uh, early on, a former student of mine, Marti Hazleton, who's now a professor at UCLA, and other friends and colleagues like Steve Gangestad and Randy Thornhill put forward this idea that the reason that women do it is that they're pursuing a dual mating strategy. That is, they're trying to get investment from one guy, like the good dads, uh, but good genes from another guy. Um-

   4. JRJoe Rogan18:37

      Oh, wow.

   5. DBDavid Buss18:39

      And, and so it's, it's, um ... And, and-

   6. JRJoe Rogan18:41

      Is there any research done on what type of mate a woman is likely to cheat on?

   7. DBDavid Buss18:48

      Uh, well, that's, that's a good question. So, um, there's been some, and it's not conclusive. But basically, the only way this could work, uh ... And I have to back up just a second o- on that. Uh, we know that affairs are very costly for women. So if discovered, they result in, um, infidels, result in violence, sometimes they result in killing. You know, getting to the killing, I don't know if we wanna get into that, maybe later in our conversation. Um-

   8. JRJoe Rogan19:19

      Yeah, you wrote a whole book on murder.

   9. DBDavid Buss19:20

      I wrote a whole book on murder, yeah. (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan19:21

       (laughs)

   11. DBDavid Buss19:22

       Uh, you know, uh ... Yeah, The Murderer Next Door.

   12. JRJoe Rogan19:25

       (clears throat)

   13. DBDavid Buss19:25

       Uh, but, um, uh, but also women suffer more than men. If an infidelity is discovered, they suffer reputational damage.

   14. JRJoe Rogan19:34

       Hm.

   15. DBDavid Buss19:34

       Uh, they suff- suffer, uh, sometimes social ostracism. Uh, it's, uh, cataclysmic for their relationships. So v- you know, it's, in fact, it's one of the leading causes of divorce worldwide, across cultures, uh, is if there's a female infidelity. Um, and so it, and so the issue is, what benefit could be so great to a woman that she's willing to risk all the, all these costs if it's discovered? And so the good genes, dual mating strategy argument could work in principle, um, and it would w- could work if there were no cost. And this is, you know, one of the reasons why men and women, um, commit infidelities in, in secret, you know? It's been driven underground. They d- people don't go on Twitter and say, "Hey, I just, hey, I just had an affair on my partner," you know? (laughs) Um, uh, it's driven underground. People try to keep it under wraps so they don't experience the cost. And of course, there are costs to men as well, by being discovered. They're just not as, uh, cataclysmic as they are, as there are for women. So the only way it would work, though, is if the, getting back to your original question, uh, is if there's a, a large discrepancy between the woman's regular partner, uh, and her affair partner in terms of the quality of his genes. And so what these, um, these good genes, dual mating strategy theories propose is that there are certain markers of good genetic quality. They hypothesized masculine features, um, and there's a logic behind that. Uh, they hypothesize symmetrical features. So we are a bilaterally symmetrical species, so normal development. You know, we, we have, you know, our hands, our arms, our legs grow, you know, more or less symmetrically. But there are things that cause deviations from symmetry, so, uh, mutations or genetic mutations can cause deviations. Um, diseases can cause asymmetries, um, and, um, environmental insults, uh, in a variety of ways. And so what they, the good genes theorists argue is that if someone is, uh, if a male is very symmetrical, then that's a marker that he's, um, not experienced a history of disease or environmental insults, um, or a high mutation load, uh, or has a, a, what they call a developmental system that's very kind of impervious to these insults. So even though they've suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, they still maintain that symmetry. Well, I think there are, there are, there are problem, problems with that. But anyway, um, back to, uh, to backtrack a second, why I changed my mind. So I used to t- advocate this. Well, this seems ... It's, it's logically plausible, um, uh, but I started to doubt it. And I started to doubt it for two reasons. One is, um, some, um, replications, some larger scale replications, uh, o- of the work started to fail to replicate, uh, the in- original finding. So what they did is, how do they, how do they test this? What they looked at is do women change their preferences when they're ovulating? So because it's only in that narrow window of ovulation that she's gonna be getting the good genes. So, so what they looked at is women's normal mate preferences, and they tracked them over the ovulation cycle, and do they change to prefer more masculine, more symmetrical features when they're ovulating and then go back to their normal preferences? And the initial study suggested yes, they do. Um, initial studies suggested that when women have affairs, it tends to coincide with when they're ovulating and some other things like that. Um-

   16. JRJoe Rogan23:24

       How do they gath- gather this data?

   17. DBDavid Buss23:26

       Uh, well, it's very difficult and time-consuming data, but, um, you know, it started out, you know, with crude methods such as estimating the woman's time of ovulation through a back, through a counting, backward counting method.

   18. JRJoe Rogan23:39

       Right, but I mean, how do they get people to even become a part of a study where they admit that they have cheated on their husbands?

   19. DBDavid Buss23:46

       Oh, well, so tha- so tha- that's a, that's a different question. What they ... Th- these studies just looked at changes in mate preferences. So, um-

   20. JRJoe Rogan23:54

       Right, but you're talking about affairs. It's not just-

   21. DBDavid Buss23:56

       Uh-

   22. JRJoe Rogan23:56

       ... changes in mate preferences. It's a decision to have intercourse-

   23. DBDavid Buss23:59

       Right, right.

   24. JRJoe Rogan24:00

       ... with someone other than your husband.

   25. DBDavid Buss24:01

       Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan24:01

       How do you-

   27. DBDavid Buss24:02

       Right, and-

   28. JRJoe Rogan24:02

       How do you run a study like that?

   29. DBDavid Buss24:03

       Right, right, and they, and they haven't run studies like that. So they, they haven't said, "Okay-" (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan24:06

       They haven't?
7. 26:24 – 34:06

   From ‘good genes’ to mate switching: Buss changes his mind

   1. DBDavid Buss26:24

      me. So, so one is the failures to replicate those studies. So the larger-scale studies failed to find those preference shifts at ovulation. But when you started to ... When I started to look at the literature about women who were having affairs and the reasons that they're having affairs and the nature of the affairs, there are things that cropped up like, like this. Um, 79% ... One study found 79% of women fell in love with or became emotionally involved with her affair partner. And to me, this is exactly the opposite of what you'd want if you're trying to pursue that dual-mating strategy idea. You want ... You, you wanna get the good genes and then forget about the guy, uh, so as not to jeopardize your investment from the regular partner. Um, and so, and so it's really ... It's a design feature that's counter to that notion.

   2. JRJoe Rogan27:24

      Can I stop you here? It doesn't ... But it seems to me that you're pursuing this, like, as if it's a logical endeavor that's based on-

   3. DBDavid Buss27:30

      No.

   4. JRJoe Rogan27:30

      ... trying to achieve an outcome. And I think it's far more likely you're dealing with mental illness, alcohol, you know, uh, uh, em- emotional imbalance, uh, extreme desire for attention, narcissism, which leads people to seek out exorbitant amounts of attention from other people. Like, you have to take that into account, don't you?

   5. DBDavid Buss27:52

      Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, uh, that's a fair point, and those things, um, aren't necessarily inconsistent if you ask, like, "Wha- ... H- who has affairs, and what are their personality characteristics?" Okay. But affairs happen in all cultures, or virtually all cultures, unless the women are extremely cloistered as they are in some cultures, where they're, like, they cannot leave the home without a male bodyguard.

   6. JRJoe Rogan28:17

      Right.

   7. DBDavid Buss28:18

      Um, but affairs happen in all cultures. And so-

   8. JRJoe Rogan28:21

      Would you like some coffee?

   9. DBDavid Buss28:22

      Uh, sure. I'd love some.

   10. JRJoe Rogan28:23

       All right.

   11. DBDavid Buss28:24

       Thank you.

   12. JRJoe Rogan28:25

       No problem. So affairs happen in all cultures.

   13. DBDavid Buss28:29

       Yeah. Affairs happen in, in all cultures. And so, uh, a competing hypothesis about why, and this is the one I'm currently, um, putting my money on if there's a, like, a horse race, is what I call the mate-switching hypothesis. Uh, and, and this is the notion that women who are in relationships, who are ... Uh, where the relationship is going south. Perhaps the partner starts out looking promising but has failed to live up to his promise. Perhaps he becomes an alcoholic or a drug addict or loses his job, uh, or, um, or s- starts, um, abusing her, starts beating her up. That, that women use affairs as a mate-switching device either to divest herself of her regular partner, um, uh, or ... And/or to trade up in the mating market to someone who's more desirable or to make it easier to transition back into the mating market on, on the notion, on the assumption that she'll be able to find someone more desirable out there. Uh, and so, uh ... And so there's, um, um, at least a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that supports the mate-switching hypothesis like, uh, the one I just mentioned. Um, women ... Uh, with 79% of women becoming emotionally involved or falling in love with their partner, this suggests, you know, it's not just, "Oh, I'm seeking transient attention," uh, as you mentioned, though that some women might do it for that, of course. Um, but it suggests that they're, um, uh-... forming a long-term attachment to this other guy, rather than their regular partner. So here's, here's another one, and this may seem like super, super obvious, um, is that women who are unhappy with their regular relationship, either sexually unhappy or generally unhappy with their overall relationship, they're more likely to have affairs. Now, this seems like the most obvious thing in the world, right? Yeah, sure. Uh, tell me something I don't... your grandmother couldn't tell you. You're unhappy in the relationship, you're more likely to have an affair. Uh, but it turns out the same is not true for men. That is, there are at least some studies that show that if you compare men who have affairs with men who don't, there's no difference in how happy they are with the relationship. Um, and that's why you can have men... and this is to bring up, I don't know, movie star examples. Um, uh, like, uh, th- this is an older one, but Hugh Grant was, um, involved with, uh, Elizabeth Hurley. I don't know if you remember-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:11

       Yeah.

   15. DBDavid Buss31:11

       ... uh, that, that one. And he's, like, having sex with a prostitute in LA. Uh, why, why is he, uh, uh, cheating with Elizabeth Hurley? Um, kind of crazy. Now, in his case, in that case, uh, the male motivation for affairs differs, on average, substantially from the female motivation. Uh, and that is that men are... uh, have this tremendous desire for sexual variety, meaning a variety of sex partners. Uh, men tend to have a higher sex drive, uh, in general, on average. Uh, and so they try to satisfy. So even, even men who are involved with or married to c- classically beautiful, beautiful women sometimes have affairs. And people are very puzzled by this, but that desire for sexual variety is what drives most men in- into affairs. And so there's a dramatic sex difference in why men have affairs, with, um, desire for sexual variety pushing most men into it. You know, it's like... well, uh, I think it was Chris Rock said, you know, men are only as faithful as their opportunity. If you get a low-cost opportunity, a lot of men act on it. You know, if, uh, you're a, uh, like an academic, you're away at a conference, you're in a different town, you know, uh, some fall into bed with someone else, a one-night stand, a brief affair, and, and that's that. Um, uh, but women, it... it's really different. Of course, some women do it just for sexual variety too. Uh, but that's a minority. If you ask... if you ask the question, "Why do most women have a... have an affair?" I think that it's the mate switching notion.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:52

       So, what they're trying to do is get out of a committed relationship that they're in that's not promising, it's not working out. And so one of the ways to do that is to introduce new partners to just sabotage their original relationship. So even if it's not someone that they would seek a long-term relationship with other than their partner, they would have sex with that person just to sort of poison the water of whatever committed relationship they have, and that would aid in them getting out of it?

   17. DBDavid Buss33:22

       Yeah. Yeah. That's one, one variant of it. Uh, or it could be that they genuinely have found another guy that they're... they wanna trade up to.

   18. JRJoe Rogan33:30

       Right.

   19. DBDavid Buss33:31

       Um...

   20. JRJoe Rogan33:31

       I still don't understand peacocks.

   21. DBDavid Buss33:32

       (laughs) .

   22. JRJoe Rogan33:34

       (laughs) . I'm still struggling. I'm still struggling with the feathers. I just, uh... how did that become a thing? But, but back to people. So, um, but there are also... there's people that have, like, severe mental illnesses, right? Like, there's, I think, a lot of people that are very promiscuous. There's, there's, there's a... some sort of a lack of attention in their development cycle as they were young, like maybe lack of male attention that's leading them to desire constant and consistent male attention.

8. 34:06 – 42:26

   Dark triad traits, ‘bad boys,’ and why exploiters can succeed

   1. DBDavid Buss34:06

      Yeah. Yeah. Uh, there are, uh, in fact, personality characteristics and, um, developmental characteristics that are correlated with who's more likely to have an affair, and you've pointed to one of them. So narcissism is indeed one of the, uh, predictors of affairs. So narcissism, um, uh, also... uh, and actually, Jordan Peterson mentioned this on his podcast with you, the dark triad traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. He mentioned sadism. I don't think that really plays into infidelity so much. Uh, but the, the dark triad is a good predictor of who, both males and females, which ones are likely to have affairs.

   2. JRJoe Rogan34:49

      Mm-hmm.

   3. DBDavid Buss34:50

      Uh, so... but, um, but there's a big sex difference there because men tend to be much higher on these dark triad traits than women. And so it's a, you know, smaller minority of women who are inclined in that direction.

   4. JRJoe Rogan35:05

      Now, why are men more inclined towards those traits? Does that have to do with some sort of survival strategy? Does it have to do with a success strategy that would lead to more mating? Like in... if you encourage psychopathy or narcissism, or, uh, not even encourage, but if somehow or another those behavior traits are rewarded by success because you have this ability to do things that other people might find reprehensible or amoral or, you know what I mean?

   5. DBDavid Buss35:39

      Yeah. Uh, yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

   6. JRJoe Rogan35:41

      Amoral. Yeah.

   7. DBDavid Buss35:42

      Yeah. Yeah. And, and what I would say is you, you have to break it down by, um, each of those dark triad traits, because I think each one has a somewhat different origin. So with respect to psychopathy, psychopathy, uh, these are... uh, one of the hallmarks is a lack of empathy. And so these are very bad dudes and, um, where, uh, they pursue, uh, an exploitative strategy where they, they, they feign cooperation. So most people are cooperators. So, you know, you give me a cup of coffee, I'm, I'm grateful for that, you know, and I see you're thirsty for some water, and I, I give that. So there... most people are cooperative by nature.... those high in psychopathy feign cooperation and then basically fuck people over over the long run.

   8. JRJoe Rogan36:35

      Mm.

   9. DBDavid Buss36:35

      You know, it's kind of like a bait and switch type strategy, which, um, can work, uh, except there are huge costs associated with it in small group living, where we evolved. And that's why I think m- my hypothesis is that there's been an increase in psychopathy over the last 10,000 years as people started living in towns and cities, and as migration became more common where you could move from place to place without incurring that reputational damage. Because people, you know, you, you fuck people over, uh, word gets around.

   10. JRJoe Rogan37:13

       Mm.

   11. DBDavid Buss37:13

       And, and then people might ostracize you from the group, or kill you, or whatever. Or, or if the victims were, uh, members of your family or your friends, you'd incur a lot of costs associated with that strategy. But in the modern environment, you can get away with that strategy much more easily. I mean, we, we are being preyed upon by people online from, in different continents that we never even encounter, um, that are high on these psychopathic traits. So, so it's psychopathy. Um, narcissism is attractive, uh, to women, and this is a circle, like this is one of the questions I get asked a lot is that, "Why are women attracted to bad boys?" You know, guys who seem like they're assholes, who don't respect them, you know, et cetera. But there are reasons, and the, uh, uh, and, and one is they exhibit, um, a lot of confidence. And confidence, people often interpret as a cue to status. Why would you be confident if you didn't have something to back up your confidence? Um, those high in narcissism also like to be the center of attention, and as humans, we use the attention structure as a cue to status. That is the, the high-status people are the ones to whom the most people pay the most attention. And so if someone's paying you a lot of attention, and narcissists put themselves, you know, at the center of the party, at the center of attention, and so women interpret, "Oh, that's a status cue." Um, and so, uh, and so, so the confidence and status are known. We know that these are attractive to women. But over time, uh, with, um, experience, women become less and less attracted to these bad boy characteristics. That is just primarily young, relatively inexperienced women who are drawn to these guys.

   12. JRJoe Rogan39:05

       Mm. That makes sense. That makes sense, so over time, women would recognize like, "Oh, I've seen this before."

   13. DBDavid Buss39:13

       Yeah. Yeah, and then they, the, uh, Machiavellianism to, to just close the loop on the, the dark triad, these are, um, exploiters. These are the, the manipulators. Uh, this actually came from, uh, originally from the book, The Prince, which is one of these, um, classic books where, um, there's an advisor to the prince who's advising him on all of these, you know, kind of, uh, underground strategies to manipulate other people and manipulate and maintaining power and so forth. Uh, and these highly manipulative people, well, sometimes they g- they rise to the top. Sometimes they, um, maneuver themselves, um, by out-competing others and they become CEOs or, or whatever. And so, uh, it kind of depends on the environment. Uh, high Machiavellians tend to thrive more in a kind of a free, free-for-all environment where there aren't very strict rules, uh, of engagement. You know, so probably more difficult to do it, say, in the military where there's, they're very regimented, they're very rule-oriented.

   14. JRJoe Rogan40:24

       Mm.

   15. DBDavid Buss40:24

       They, uh, uh, the high M- high Mach people as they're called, they wouldn't thrive in those environments typically. But more free-floating environment, maybe, um-

   16. JRJoe Rogan40:33

       Day trading.

   17. DBDavid Buss40:34

       ... day trading, huh, yeah. Or, or even, you know, uh, business entrepreneurs who are-

   18. JRJoe Rogan40:40

       Yeah.

   19. DBDavid Buss40:41

       ... wheeling and dealing. Uh-

   20. JRJoe Rogan40:42

       That makes sense.

   21. DBDavid Buss40:43

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan40:43

       And, and you do meet a lot of psychos that are doing that.

   23. DBDavid Buss40:47

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan40:47

       Yeah. There's a, a lot of people that have, uh, great aspirations about starting big businesses and get, and they, you know, you meet them and you're like, "Oh, you're kind of fucking crazy."

   25. DBDavid Buss40:57

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan40:57

       You know?

   27. DBDavid Buss40:57

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan40:57

       Like there's a lot of those guys that are like hopped up on Adderall and very aggressive and-

   29. DBDavid Buss41:02

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan41:03

       ... it makes sense that they're attracted to that.
9. 42:26 – 1:05:46

   Sex differences, paternity uncertainty, jealousy, and mate guarding

   1. JRJoe Rogan42:26

      How difficult is it with you with this lifetime of resource?... uh, life- lifetime of resource- uh, research rather, and, you know, this field of study that you've chosen to exist in this world where there's this denial, this current world, where there's a denial of the differences between males and females, when you're- ... a guy who studied this longstanding history of the variabilities and like-

   2. DBDavid Buss42:55

      Yeah, yeah, well, uh, it's-

   3. JRJoe Rogan42:56

      It's almost like a denial of all your work, like, "Oh, you're, this is nonsense, there is no difference."

   4. DBDavid Buss43:01

      Yeah, yeah. Well, it's, it- it- it is- it is kind of odd, and it's in some ways something I never really expected, because-

   5. JRJoe Rogan43:09

      I don't think anybody expected it.

   6. DBDavid Buss43:10

      Um, you know, as, uh, yeah, a- as an empirical scientist, I always, uh, and this is maybe my naivete, is I thought, "Well, you know, you- you do the studies," and, y- you know, one of the hallmarks of our science is you wanna see independent replication of the results. So, and in- in, if you're- if you're claiming a sex difference, say, in mate preferences or mating strategies, you wanna see it replicated by other researchers, and you also wanna see it cross-culturally. So does it occur in Venezuela, in China, in, you know, uh, Swahili, every, in all cultures? And we've done the studies, we've done these, my first study on the mate preferences had 37 cultures with over 10,000, um, participants in it. Uh, and so what I thought is, um, 'cause I first found these sex differences, by the way, in American samples, and I- and I thought, "When I publish these, no one's gonna believe that they're evolved sex differences," you know, 'cause it's just Americans are weird and, you know, who knows? So that's why- that's why I did 37 different cultures until I got enough evidence that convinced me that my findings were real and that the sex differences were universal. Uh, and so I thought, "Well, it's- it's- it's really, um, people will look at the data and say, 'Okay, we're supposed to be oriented toward the science,' and if the data are there and solid and independently replicated, and show up cross-culturally, and also show up through different methods that don't share the same methodological problems, then surely everyone will just go, 'Well, okay, we- we believe him.'" Uh, but to my astonishment, uh, some of them (laughs) have, um, been challenged. And so you- you're- you're absolutely right, Joe, we live in this odd time where there's, uh, sex differen- d- denial of sex differences, um, but not only do they exist, um, e- evolutionary theory provides a very powerful meta-theory that can explain where and why they exist, and the domains in which they exist and the domains in which they don't exist. So some people, um, have these, uh, kind of cliches like men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Well, that's not true.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:25

      (laughs)

   8. DBDavid Buss45:25

      We're all from the same, we're all from the same planet. Uh, we're all members of the same species, but the- the evolutionary meta-theory, which is just a fancy term for theory of theories, is simply that we expect to see similarity in male and female psychology in all domains- domains where they face the same or similar problems, you know, like dealing with Darwinian hostile forces of nature that I mentioned earlier. It's only in domains where they face different adaptive problems, as we call them, or adaptive challenges that we expect to see sex differences. Well, as it turns out, these domains fall very heavily in the mating and sexuality domain, uh, for reasons that w- well, I mentioned, alluded to one earlier, but you start as a kind of a ground level truth, there are sex differences in our reproductive biology, so, um, fertilization occurs internally within women, not within men. Okay, this creates an, uh, a problem for men, uh, in this parlance, an adaptive problem known as the problem of paternity uncertainty. So, in other words, women, no woman on Earth has ever, to my knowledge, given birth, and as the baby is coming out of her body, looked down and wondered, "Gee, is this kid really mine?" Um, maybe Rosemary's baby, (laughs) uh, there was, uh, said that one. Uh, but men can never be sure. So maternity is 100% certain. Men can never be sure. Some cultures use the phrase, um, "Mama's baby, Papa's maybe," to kind of capture that-

   9. JRJoe Rogan47:02

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DBDavid Buss47:02

       ... that asymmetry. Um, and- and we actually know w- their estimates of the rates of, um, paternity uncertainty 'cause we have the genetic data, the molecular genetic data to- to do that now, uh, and they, of course, vary from culture to culture. But this, what this means is, this is a, this is an example of a feature of our reproductive biology, a sex difference in our reproductive biology, that has created a problem, in this case, a, uh, sexually asymmetrical problem, problem for men, not for women, such that if a man devoted, say, two decades of his resources in a, an offspring in the mistaken belief that it was his own when in fact it was a rival's offspring, well, he's actually benefiting the rival's reproductive success, uh, at a tremendous cost to his own. And so this, solving this paternity uncertainty problem was, is so, um, critical and so dramatic that it accounts for why long-term high-investing males are so rare in the mammalian kingdom. So if you look at all mammals, there are about, m- m- ballpark of 5,000-plus species of mammals, only somewhere around 3 or 4% have anything resembling a long-term pair bonding strategy, uh, and even fewer where males invest. So even, like our closest, um, primate ances- uh, relative, the chimpanzee, with whom we share more than 98% of our DNA, uh, the males don't do anything. They- they have sex with the female when she's ovulating, she has these-... bright red genital swellings and, you know, they were very i- interested in her, uh, at that time. And then after that, they just ignore the females and they don't do much, if anything, for the infants or the offspring. Whereas our species, we have huge male parental investment, where... Not all the time, of course. We have deadbeat dads and men who don't do anything. But a lot of men do invest, uh, tremendous resources in feeding their kids, protecting their kids, socializing their kids, ta- you know, uh, paying for them to go off to school, um, making sure that they develop the right skills, et cetera. So we're, we're an extraordinary species in that sense. But we couldn't do that unless men had some way of solving that paternity uncertainty problem. So this is, this is a lo- a, a c- a long-

   11. JRJoe Rogan49:37

       But, uh, up until-

   12. DBDavid Buss49:39

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan49:39

       ... genetic testing, up until you, th- this ability to find out by, you know, taking a sample from the child, whether or not the child actually is yours, it was just based on looking at the child.

   14. DBDavid Buss49:55

       Yeah. Well, well, there are a couple things there. So one is, um, uh, so the question that you raised, Joe, is a, is a really good one. It, it, the issue is, what adaptations have been evolved to solve this problem?

   15. JRJoe Rogan50:08

       Yeah.

   16. DBDavid Buss50:08

       Because obviously, they couldn't, uh, they couldn't involve testing DNA, 'cause that has, is, that's a very recent technology. So they could do a couple things. One is mate guarding. So, um, the emotion of jealousy, for example, is one of these mo- emotions. And, uh, I'd be very curious about your thoughts on that, 'cause I know in a previous podcast, I think you talked, I can't remember if you talked about jealousy or envy, uh, as being a very negative emotion, which they, they are. Jealousy and, and envy are both, um, things-

   17. JRJoe Rogan50:40

       I think that was not in regard to mating preferences, though.

   18. DBDavid Buss50:44

       Yeah. Yeah, it was, uh-

   19. JRJoe Rogan50:44

       That w- that was really in regard to other people's success.

   20. DBDavid Buss50:46

       Yeah, so other people have stuff that you don't have and so you feel envious, uh-

   21. JRJoe Rogan50:51

       Not even stuff. It was accomplishments.

   22. DBDavid Buss50:53

       Oh. Accomplishments, okay.

   23. JRJoe Rogan50:54

       Yeah.

   24. DBDavid Buss50:54

       Yeah. So, so, so, uh, so but men have evolved this emotion of jealousy, which motivates mate guarding, um, which involves, uh, a r- an array of behaviors, from that I, uh, I've identified 19 clusters that range from vigilance to violence, where men wanna monitor their, uh, w- their, uh, partners if they're investing, uh, they wanna see, uh, watch their interactions with other men very carefully, see potential signs of flirtation, um, and then it c- in extreme, in a modern environment, they, they hack into their computers and cell phones or put, uh, tracking devices on them and so forth. Uh, this increase in vigilance, um, all the way up through things like, um, ramping up the benefits they bestow on the woman. So, well, the fact, if she's maybe looking at other men, maybe I better ramp up my investment in her and show her that I'm really the guy she wants to stay with. All the way up to really horrible things like abuse, where, um, if there's the threat of, um, infidelity or defection from the relationship, some men beat up their partners. Um, and infidelity or suspicion of infidelity, or suspicion that the woman is thinking about leaving, these are the triggers of the more violent, um, ma- male tactics. And the kind of uncomfortable, um, I wanna say truth of the matter, the uncomfortable, I'll call it a hypothesis though, uh, is, uh, which is gonna sound horrible, but that this abuse is sometimes functional in the sense that, um, it is designed to dissuade the woman from an infidelity and from leaving the relationship. And one of the mechanisms by which it, it works is, is A, the threat. "If you leave me, I will track you down to the ends of the Earth and kill you," in extreme cases. But, "If you leave me, I will, you know, inflict a lot of costs on you." Of course, they don't use that kind of language. But the other way that it works is psychologically, where it lowers the woman's self-esteem. So no woman feels good about herself if her husband's beat her up. Uh, she feels bad about herself. Uh, and self-esteem is partly a monitoring device that monitors your mate value, that is how desirable you are on the mating market. And so, if you feel bad about yourself, then a woman might think, "Well, um, no one else is gonna like me, and so I better stick with this guy even though he's, he's abusive, uh, because I'm never gonna find anyone else." And he cli- he claims that he loves me and he's apologetic about it and says he's never gonna do it again. But of course, as we know, um, abuse tends to escalate over time. So, uh-

   25. JRJoe Rogan53:55

       Why do we think that is?

   26. DBDavid Buss53:57

       Um, uh, I, uh, that's a good question. Um, I've never, never thought about that one. I could speculate on it. Um, uh, one, one is that by the time it occurs, so it often starts as verbal abuse. Um, so with the g- with the guy putting the woman down or insulting her appearance, you know? And then what we found in our studies of couples is that, uh, it can sometimes escalate. The verbal abuse predicts it escalating to physical abuse in a... And that could start very mild. He pushes her, slaps her, or whatever, and then gets increasingly, uh, severe over time. Partly because the milder forms might cease to work, and by the time the abuse is happening, she's probably already thinking, "Oh, I'm in a bad relationship, I better exit." Um, or, um, yeah, exit from the relationship. And...... this is one of these things. (laughs) We've gone real, really, this is a tangent on a tangent, um, which is, which is totally fine. Uh, but, um, I think one of the things that happens, and this is also a speculation, is that, um, older men sometimes snap up younger women before they have sufficient experience to understand their own mate value, their own desirability on the mating market. And then so they get in a relationship with this older guy who's convinced her that she's, he's the, the world's greatest guy. Um, but then over time, she starts to realize th- her mate value, and a mate value discrepancy, that is that she can do better on the mating market than the guy that she's with. Um, uh, a cl- classic example, uh, this is an old, old example, but, um, but you might be, you might remember this. So, uh, there was this guy, this ha- this, uh, involved Playboy magazine, but there was this guy Paul Snider, um, who, uh, picked up, uh, Dorothy Stratten. She was, like, working at a, a burger-flipping joint up in, I think it was Vancouver. And anyway, uh, he thought she could be in Playboy, and so he brought her down to L.A. And turned out, she, she was, and, um, uh, but anyway, but, uh, uh, at the Playboy mansion, she met other people who were higher in mate value, um, and, um... Let's see. What, what is that director's name? Peter Bogdanovich, I think. She started an affair with him, and got very serious about that relationship. But meanwhile, this guy Paul Snider, who was psychopathic, he was the dar- well, example of the dark triad guys, um, you know, he was kind of left in the dust. But part of the reason is that he kind of snapped her up when she was super young, before she had a good understanding of her desirability on the mating market. Uh, so, um, anyway, to, to... I wanted to, to close the loop, before, before I, uh, before I forget my digression on integration-

   27. JRJoe Rogan57:11

       W- but, b- w-

   28. DBDavid Buss57:11

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan57:11

       ... that tangent, the reason why you went on it-

   30. DBDavid Buss57:13

       Yeah.
10. 1:05:46 – 1:32:11

    Social media, OnlyFans, porn, and the ‘mismatch’ problem in modern dating

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:05:46

       Um, here's something that I really wanted to talk to you about today. Um, because I think it's a new thing in the world, and it is social media, and social media's effect on relationships and the way people are marketing themselves. Because, uh, you know, I, I have seen, uh, friends that have, uh, these relationships with people that they... like, their con- their significant other has a Instagram page, for example, where every single pose is sexually suggestive. They're in a committed relationship, but every single pose is them of their ass, their, their butt in the air, their arched back.

    2. DBDavid Buss1:06:33

       (laughs)

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:06:34

       They're covered in sweat. You know, they're wearing lingerie. They're wearing a, you know, very small outfit. They're in these suggestive poses. I'm like, "You're signaling to try to get more mates. You're, you're, you're putting out this very clear signal that you're available and that you are... you're, you're looking for a romantic partner. In fact, you're horny, and you're, you're ready, and you're willing, and there's not even anybody there with you, right?"

    4. DBDavid Buss1:07:07

       Yeah.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:07:08

       "Which is kinda wild."

    6. DBDavid Buss1:07:09

       Yeah.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:07:09

       "What I, I would imagine that would put a tremendous strain on a committed relationship." If you are-

    8. DBDavid Buss1:07:16

       Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:07:16

       ... committed to someone-... and then you're like, "Well, let me see what my wife is up to," and you go to her Instagram page-

    10. DBDavid Buss1:07:22

        (laughs)

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:07:22

        ... like, "Jesus Christ, woman."

    12. DBDavid Buss1:07:24

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:07:24

        Like, where every day, she's essentially throwing the bat signal up for, for more men.

    14. DBDavid Buss1:07:29

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I imagine most men in committed relationships would be rather alarmed at discovering that.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:07:36

        But it's happening a lot.

    16. DBDavid Buss1:07:38

        Yeah.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:07:39

        Like, I have friends, more than one, whose wife or girlfriend does this.

    18. DBDavid Buss1:07:45

        And, and, and what's your... What, w- what's your, your guess? Why are they doing that?

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:07:50

        Well, I think it's what we talked about before. There's narcissism. There's, um, some sort of, uh, a lack of attention, a fundamental lack of attention in the development cycle that's led them to desire an exorbitant amount of male attention as they get older. Um, you know, it's just... It's almost l- like, their cycle was interrupted as they were young. It had never fully matured, whether their father wasn't around, or their father was abusive, either physically or sexually. Like, whatever it is that's causing them to desire an exorbitant amount of male attention.

    20. DBDavid Buss1:08:26

        Yeah, yeah. That's interesting.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:08:27

        And then it becomes... And then the other problem, part of the problem is it becomes a business, you know, because a lot of these women, they will then start... Do you know what an OnlyFans is?

    22. DBDavid Buss1:08:39

        Yeah, yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:08:39

        So, they'll, they'll then start an OnlyFans. And so men will subscribe to get small messages from them or, you know, to get individualized photos or videos from them.

    24. DBDavid Buss1:08:51

        Mm-hmm.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:08:52

        And these women make an extraordinary amount of money.

    26. DBDavid Buss1:08:55

        Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:08:56

        And it's really quite shocking. So, they're making, you know, way more than they've ever made in their life doing this, but yet they're in a committed relationship with a man. And so the man has to deal with the fact that not only is his woman out there, like, uh, on display, but she's signaling that she's desiring better mates.

    28. DBDavid Buss1:09:20

        Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and, um, I think your point about some developmental issue, uh, is relevant. We do have empirical data on a- attachment styles. So, um, basically, there are these, uh... They call them three different attachment styles, which is an oversimplification, but securely attached. So, you know, do you tend to trust other people? You're... You know, you feel confident and in a stable relationship. There's, uh, anxious attach, which is you're, you're always worried your partner is gonna leave you or cheat on you, or maybe you have a history of partners leaving you or cheating on you. Uh, and then there's what's called, um, uh, ambivalent attachment style, where there are people, both men and women, who, um, they don't really, uh, want an intimate romantic relationship. They kind of avoid... If someone gets too close, they kind of push, push them away. And in, uh, studies of infidelity, the securely attached have the lowest rates of infidelity, and my guess, probably the l- lowest rates of these Instagram posts or, um, you know, OnlyFans, um, um, vocations. Uh, whereas... And then the second, uh, is, uh, the anxious attached, but the, the, the most is, um... in terms of infidelity rate, is the avoidant attachment style. And so women with that avoidant attachment style are also likely to be high in narcissism and probably engage in that behavior. And also-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:10:55

        Could you please explain avoidant attachment?

    30. DBDavid Buss1:10:58

        Yeah. Yeah. So, so these, um, are, uh, people who don't like close, intimate relationships. Uh, and so they, they avoid them and try to be... If it gets too close, they push them away. They wanna maintain their independence. And so even if they're married, they still... There's this distance. There's always this pushing away, um, of the other person and of intimacy, psychological intimacy with that other person. Uh, and so these are, you know, women who are more likely to, uh, engage in short-term mating and more likely to have affairs if they're in a long-term mateship.

Episode duration: 2:33:29