EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,164 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast.…
- DBDavid Buss
(drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- DBDavid Buss
Thank you. Uh, to ... I'm delighted to be here, and it's a great honor to, uh, be here talking to you, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
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."
- DBDavid Buss
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-"
- JRJoe Rogan
I know.
- DBDavid Buss
"... that it's like, uh ... uh, glad you were kind of a calming influence-"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DBDavid Buss
"... to slow him down a little bit."
- JRJoe Rogan
And he's sober. The guy's completely clean and sober. You would imagine that he was definitely on Adderall or something.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Just rounding off.
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- DBDavid Buss
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- DBDavid Buss
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 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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DBDavid Buss
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
No, no, go ahead, please.
- DBDavid Buss
... I'll, uh, I'll get to a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Very interesting.
- DBDavid Buss
... a pause here, but, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Don't, don't pause if you don't want to. (laughs)
- DBDavid Buss
... 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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, so let's talk about peacocks then.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Uh, yeah. The way…
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- DBDavid Buss
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 ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DBDavid Buss
They're just, uh ...
- JRJoe Rogan
It's ch- it's a natural cycle.
- DBDavid Buss
They, they find this, like, woman attractive, and they wanna have sex with her.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DBDavid Buss
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- DBDavid Buss
And, and so it's, it's, um ... And, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there any research done on what type of mate a woman is likely to cheat on?
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you wrote a whole book on murder.
- DBDavid Buss
I wrote a whole book on murder, yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DBDavid Buss
Uh, you know, uh ... Yeah, The Murderer Next Door.
- JRJoe Rogan
(clears throat)
- DBDavid Buss
Uh, but, um, uh, but also women suffer more than men. If an infidelity is discovered, they suffer reputational damage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
How do they gath- gather this data?
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, but you're talking about affairs. It's not just-
- DBDavid Buss
Uh-
- 30:00 – 45:00
Yeah. …
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
... 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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DBDavid Buss
Um...
- JRJoe Rogan
I still don't understand peacocks.
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs) .
- JRJoe Rogan
(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.
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. Uh, yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
- JRJoe Rogan
Amoral. Yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. That makes sense. That makes sense, so over time, women would recognize like, "Oh, I've seen this before."
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Day trading.
- DBDavid Buss
... day trading, huh, yeah. Or, or even, you know, uh, business entrepreneurs who are-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
... wheeling and dealing. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
That makes sense.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
(laughs) …
- DBDavid Buss
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Buss
... 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-
- JRJoe Rogan
But, uh, up until-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... 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.
- DBDavid Buss
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?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think that was not in regard to mating preferences, though.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. Yeah, it was, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
That w- that was really in regard to other people's success.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, so other people have stuff that you don't have and so you feel envious, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Not even stuff. It was accomplishments.
- DBDavid Buss
Oh. Accomplishments, okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Why do we think that is?
- DBDavid Buss
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
W- but, b- w-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that tangent, the reason why you went on it-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is 'cause you were talking about violence and abuse.
- DBDavid Buss
Well- (clears throat)
- JRJoe Rogan
And does that relate to that story?
- DBDavid Buss
Well, well, uh, yeah. He ended up killing her.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. You didn't, you left that part out.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Is that really the…
- DBDavid Buss
their taste preferences change? They change suddenly when a woman becomes pregnant, and all of a sudden, she has two problems that she's never faced before and that men never face. One is she's eating for two rather than one, but the other is she has to avoid ingesting, um, what are called teratogenic substances, that is, toxins that in minute quantities are not dangerous to the adult woman or man, but can, if they pass the placental barrier, um, can be, can be dangerous to the fetus. And so even things like, uh, all of a sudden, they, they don't wanna eat broccoli. Why broccoli? Well, broccoli turns out to c- contain this, these minute, um, toxins that could be damaging to the fetus. Um, and same with other things like, uh, coffee and other, other sorts of things, and so people attribute women's taste preferences, they say she wants, uh, pickles and ice cream, and her, she's kind of just become wacky 'cause she's pregnant, but there's actually a logic to the shift in taste preferences.And so the point is that her taste preferences diverge from those of men's when she's facing this different suite of adaptive problems that no man has ever faced. And then after that, after the breastfeeding, her taste preferences return to... be very similar to those of men. And so, um, so w- where we expect to see the sex differences, as I said, fall very heavily in the mating and sexuality domain. But that domain, uh, just to finish (laughs) with that long-winded sentence, and I apologize for, um, monologuing about this, uh, but that domain is much larger than most people think. Uh, and, and that is because mating is related to so many other things. It's related to status. It's related to warfare. It's related to kinship, like family relations. Now you may be thinking, "How in the world is it related to family rel-" Well, it turns out, um, parents have a very strong interest in the mating lives of their offspring, but especially the mating lives and sex lives of their daughters. So th- we've developed a, what I call the, with my former students, uh, the daughter guarding hypothesis, where... and this is true in all cultures, parents are more, uh, restrictive about their daughters', um, sexuality and, and mating. They, they wanna be... they wanna meet the guy she's going out with. They im- impose stronger curfews on their daughters compared to their sons. They, uh... a lot of the sons, more la- more freedom, more latitude. They, um, they engage in this, this daughter guarding, uh, behavior, um, and part of the reason for that is that, you know, women are an extraordinarily valuable reproductive resource. Men are, um, expendable, so to speak.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that really the strategy? Or is the strategy is you're concerned that your daughter's going to get pregnant?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whereas you're not concerned that your son is going to get pregnant?
- DBDavid Buss
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think that that's very simplified.
- DBDavid Buss
Well, well, well, w- w- yeah. N- o- f- of course. Yeah. And, and I apologize for oversimplifying in that way. But the daughter getting pregnant, yes, at the wrong time with the wrong guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, at the wrong-
- DBDavid Buss
Is the-
- JRJoe Rogan
... time specifically when they're young.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? When you're imposing-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... curfews, you're, you're assuming that this is not an adult.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So you don't want your child to get pregnant, so you're imposing curfews and keeping an eye on you, eye on them also because you understand men. So you-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... understand, like-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the more they're around men, the later it is at night, the, or, males, I should say, the, the more chance they have of running into trouble.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. Yeah. A- absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause you're not worried about the man... You're more worried about the man getting someone else in trouble more than you worry about them physically-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... being in trouble.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. Absolutely. And so, but, but what this does is, uh, it kind of, uh, highlights the, in, um, what we call the difference between proximate explanations and ultimate explanations. So there's the, the psychology that's driving this, which is exactly as you describe. And there's the, the evolutionary forces that have created that psychology.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Buss
Uh, and so, and so, and so both are important. They're kind of complementary forms of expl- explanation. So, you know, analogous to, um, if I asked you, "Well, why did you eat that plate of food?" You might say, "Well, I was hungry, and it smelled good, and I knew from my history it tasted good, so I ate it." That's a proximate mechanism. Or "Why did you have sex with that person?" "Well, I found them attractive." You know, we're not aware of the underlying adaptations that led to the qualities that you find tasty or attractive.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course. But you're, you're literally talking about your child when you're talking about curfews.
- 1:15:00 – 1:30:00
(laughs) …
- JRJoe Rogan
proclaiming their support for climate change or Black Lives Matter or whatever. They're trying to put themselves into a- a moral high ground position. And then there's the sexually suggestive poses that go along with that, and f- hilariously enough, oftentimes you have all three of those things combined.
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like they're trying to go for the coup de grâce. They're kind of ... They're- they're in their underwear with their butt up in the air-
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... talking about social issues while they're using a filter.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's ... I- I would imagine that it- that just this platform, whether- wh- what- whichever one you're talking about, whether it's TikTok or Instagram or whatever, these platforms are fertile breeding grounds for all sorts of pathologies. Uh, uh, narcissism, um, uh, sociopathy, like all sorts of bizarre-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... behavioral characteristics that are encouraged by these social media applications, and the impact that it has on people. Like oftentimes, like, I'll just randomly scroll through, uh, my search feed-
- DBDavid Buss
Could I grab some coffee?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, please. Here.
- DBDavid Buss
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, I will find some person, just a v- average human being who, you know, takes photos in their underwear, and they have four million followers, which is insane.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, that's a lot of people. That's never been achieved before. Like, no one f- just hanging around, like working at the post office has ever gotten-
- DBDavid Buss
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... four million Instagrams.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But if you have a nice butt and you work out a lot and you take pictures of yourself, you can get four million followers. And so then you have direct messages from who knows how many thousands of men who are trying to hook up with this person and link up with them.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so that kind of interaction and that tho- that amount of dating options, it's like it's- this is an unheard-of experience. This is an unheard-of, like, situation for a young woman-
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to try to navigate.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think that ... I mean, uh, the question you raise is- is really a big, big, and important question. Um, and to put it in an evolutionary context is, ancestrally, you would have been exposed to maybe a few dozen potential mates in your lifetime. You know, we lived in small groups. There was very limited geographic mobility. You couldn't say, "I'm gonna up and move to a different town." You know, you were basically limited by how far you could walk. So, we were exposed to very, very few people, and so now in this weird modern environment, we have, as you mentioned, um, Instagram, OnlyFans, online dating apps. Uh, pornography is another one, uh, which is massively consumed, um, heavily by men. Um, and so these inputs into our mating psychology, it- it ... We- we don't know fully what they are at this point. There haven't- there hasn't been long enough and we don't know- there haven't been enough studies, but there have been some studies that show, for example, that men who are exposed repeatedly to images like the ones you describe on Instagram, repeatedly exposed to images of, uh, attractive and sexually attractive women, um, decrease their commitment to their regular partner if they're in a regular mateship. And so it actually has a- a- the effect of undermining long-term committed relationships. Um, it also, I think, gives people the illusion that, um ... Sometimes it's called, um, you know, if you're talking about single people, it's called, um, um, decision paralysis, where, you know, like they sh- show this in stores, like, uh, where they ... If you present six jams and say, "You taste six jams," and people go, "Oh, I like this one," they buy a jar of jam. You present 24 samples of jams, people go, "Uh, I can't decide. I'm not gonna buy anything." And I think a similar thing is happening in the mating domain, is where people see these thousands or millions of potential mates out there, or think that there are potential mates out there, and I think it's caused a decrease, um, uh, in...... committed relationships. And, and we know, we know, uh, I can't definitively trace it to that, but we, but we know very certainly that there has been a, a diminution of relationships, romantic relationships, marriage, uh, offspring production, uh, where a lot of people are sitting in front of their screen, um, uh, getting presumably some of their needs met through the- these online forums rather than in real life. Um, and I think that these, uh, are, are likely to have fairly detrimental and possibly catastrophic effects long-term. You know, because even things like, um, you know, from a male perspective, uh, what it means if you're spending all your time in front of a computer screen looking at Instagram photos of women with butts in the air or pornography, um, you're not out there interacting with real women in real life. And so you're not developing the kinds of social skills you need to attract a real woman, uh, in real life. Um, and then also, I think the other thing that this creates is, um, is different forms of anxiety. Uh, so we know, for example, that a lot of men suffer from, uh, dating anxiety, you know, that is they feel, they fear rejection, and so they don't, they don't want to approach women. So it actually is the, the narcissists (laughs) and the psychopaths who don't fear any rejection, they're, they, um, boldly go.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Buss
Um, but, um, but a lot of men do have, uh, uh, you know, what I would call dating anxiety. They, you know, and so they get intimidated, uh, by women. And then furthermore, even, and this is a speculation, but, uh, watching porn I think can have a detrimental effect on, uh, both women and men, uh, in the following sense of, is that we are a species that engages in social comparison. It's one of the things that we do. And I guess maybe when you were talking about envy, uh, earlier, of envy of other people's accomplishments, that's one facet of that. We, we compare ourselves to others and it's, it's a human nature kind of thing. We, you know, how, how well am I doing compared to my neighbor or, or, uh, or, or whatever. So but if, if people are comparing themselves to what they're seeing o- on porn, then from a woman's perspective, she's, she thinks, "Well, men are expecting me to be a sexual acrobat in, in real life." Uh, and so it's created these, um, perhaps detrimental expectations from women. And then men see n- these guys who can go for 45 minutes, um, uh, and who have, um, schlongs that are (laughs) as I actually just, um, uh, recent, research is the average male penis is about, um, five and a half inches long, uh, erect. The average porn star is eight inches long with the 2002 record, um, top porn star guy, 13 inches. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
2002?
- DBDavid Buss
Two, oh, sorry. Two- 2022.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DBDavid Buss
Uh-
- 1:30:00 – 1:32:11
Yeah, yeah. (laughs) …
- JRJoe Rogan
yeah, go to Guatemala.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, go backpacking. (laughs)
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Stay in a hostel together.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, yeah. Well, and yeah. Uh, you, you'd wanna curate exactly where, where, where you go. And, um, so I've been to Guatemala, and, uh, there, there are some dangerous places there, as there are everywhere, of course.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DBDavid Buss
But, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course.
- DBDavid Buss
... I mean, Guatemala, as you probably know, I mean, there's, like, extreme economic inequality there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DBDavid Buss
And, uh, it's, um, as a consequence, I think, produced some high crime rates in people have z- you know, zero money, and they're kinda forced into, um, criminal activity.
- JRJoe Rogan
Great place to test out a new relationship.
- DBDavid Buss
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DBDavid Buss
At a rest- w- well, uh, and then you'd... Th- the woman would find out very clearly how well this guy's gonna be a good bodyguard.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DBDavid Buss
'Cause that's one thing women select on is, um, not only the physical qualities, is he gonna be a good protector, um, but also, is he psychologically... does he have courage and boldness to be a good protector? Even if he has the physical capability of it, does... is he gonna be able to face down someone who's, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DBDavid Buss
... un- uncomfortably accosting his girlfriend?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, right. Yeah, that's, um, that's a, that's a giant factor for women that people wanna deny exists.
- DBDavid Buss
Oh, it, it's, it's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, there's, there's a lot of weird, uh, cultural influences on the denial of these basic premises that you're discussing about why women are attracted to certain men and men are attracted to certain women. That's what's disturbing to me, is this sort of wholesale acceptance of this denial, the, the, where we're, you know, we're deciding that there is no difference and that, you know, these differences are cultural. These differences are purely brought upon by the patriarchal society to try to suppress-... members of the opposite sex, and it's just, it doesn't back up with science.
Episode duration: 2:33:29
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