Modern WisdomAbortion, Friendships & Dad Bods - Dr Jaimie Krems
CHAPTERS
- 0:24 – 1:40
Male vs female friendship structure: groups vs dyads and why breakups differ
Jaimie contrasts men’s broader, looser coalitions with women’s more intense one-on-one friendships. They explore how intimacy, disclosure, and time investment can make female friendship ruptures more fragile and more painful.
- •Men more often form multi-male groups; women more often form emotionally intense dyads
- •Female friendships can be shorter-lived and more fragile, with higher breakup grief
- •High self-disclosure can become “ammunition” if the friendship deteriorates
- •Friendship structure shapes conflict style and repair after fallout
- 1:40 – 5:30
Why would deep female friendships be adaptive? Alloparenting, patrilocality, and ‘kin-like’ bonds
They examine possible evolutionary reasons women might rely on fewer close friends, drawing from primate research and human hypotheses. The discussion includes alloparenting needs and the idea that women historically formed kin-like ties with non-kin after moving groups.
- •Non-human primate evidence links close female ties to longevity and offspring health
- •Alloparenting hypothesis: higher stakes in selecting trusted caregivers/support
- •Patrilocality hypothesis: women leaving natal groups may need to create kin-like bonds
- •Men may have more “relatedness buffer” in natal groups; women may not
- 5:30 – 7:43
What men and women want from friends: coalitional support vs emotional support
Jaimie summarizes research on sex differences in friend preferences. Men tend to prioritize activity-based, shoulder-to-shoulder alliances, while women emphasize emotional support, time, and face-to-face processing.
- •Men prefer coalitional/social support; women prefer emotional support
- •Women often expect more time/energy investment in friendships
- •“Shoulder-to-shoulder” (doing) vs “face-to-face” (talking) friendship style
- •Even posture/interaction norms can reflect underlying social threat management
- 7:43 – 14:04
The female need to vent: trust-building, reputation management, and alliance manipulation
They unpack how venting differs from overt derogation: it can harm a target’s reputation while protecting the venter’s image. Venting and self-disclosure can also function as costly signals of trust and closeness within a friend-ranking system.
- •Venting can be strategically effective while looking less aggressive than direct insults
- •Perceived intent matters: venting fails if the listener suspects manipulation
- •Self-disclosure/“sharing ammo” can increase trust and perceived closeness
- •Friend-ranking logic: privileged info signals you value the listener highly
- 14:04 – 18:02
Reputation warfare and why certain attacks ‘stick’ more for women
The conversation turns to why some reputational accusations are harder to refute. Claims about female promiscuity or fidelity can be difficult to falsify, whereas many male-targeted status claims (money, success) can be more visibly counter-signaled.
- •Sexual reputation is hard to disprove (“can’t show how little sex you’re having”)
- •Men can often counter status attacks with visible evidence (wealth, success signals)
- •Women’s valued traits (loyalty, trustworthiness, chastity) are harder to assess directly
- •Female conflict often involves verbal/reputational aggression more than coalitional warfare
- 18:02 – 23:22
Attractiveness inside female friendships: threat vs benefits and the ‘don’t stand out’ bind
Jaimie explains the complicated social calculus around attractive women: they can be feared as mating competitors but also sought as friends because attractiveness brings social and economic ‘goodies.’ They also discuss why women may avoid overt striving to prevent exclusion.
- •Attractive women can elicit aggression as formidable rivals
- •Attractiveness can also confer benefits: people want to affiliate; higher salaries/status effects
- •Women may face a bind: compete to succeed but avoid signaling superiority
- •Women tolerate competitiveness in friends—so long as it’s not directed at them
- 23:22 – 31:48
Friend guarding and jealousy: adaptive signals, calibration, and cross-species parallels
They compare friendship jealousy to romantic jealousy and introduce ‘friend guarding’ behaviors. Jealousy is framed as potentially adaptive—signaling value and preventing replacement—while emphasizing the need to calibrate it to avoid appearing too indifferent or too needy.
- •Friend guarding mirrors mate guarding, but with different threat cues
- •Displays of jealousy can sometimes increase perceived value/commitment
- •Jealousy appears across social species (e.g., chimps, horses, dolphins)
- •Jealousy depends on how much you value the friend and how threatening the poacher is
- 31:48 – 38:23
How we perceive women’s shapes & sizes: fat stigma depends on distribution, not just BMI
Jaimie describes findings that stigma is sensitive to where body fat is carried. Even at the same height/weight/BMI, abdominal fat elicits harsher judgments than hip/thigh distribution, affecting warmth, stereotypes, and perceived traits.
- •Fat stigma varies by fat distribution as well as overall size
- •Abdominal fat leads to less favorable impressions than hip/thigh fat at equal BMI
- •Stigma includes reduced warmth and stronger negative stereotypes (lazy, less intelligent, etc.)
- •Waist-to-hip cues may be interpreted as age/health and future reproductive value signals
- 38:23 – 41:51
Male body shape and the dad bod effect: perceived parenting vs mating effort
They extend body-shape perception to men, discussing evidence that some ‘dad bod’ cues can raise perceptions of being a good father. A proposed mechanism is a tradeoff inference: less mating effort implies more potential parenting investment.
- •Male shape effects are less clear, but ‘dad bod’ can cue good-dad stereotypes
- •Small but consistent effects suggest perceived allocation toward parenting effort
- •People infer tradeoffs: limited energy spent on mating vs parenting
- •Cultural examples and humor aside, the discussion centers on perception mechanisms
- 41:51 – 45:38
Why women dress the way they do: signaling, female-female competition, and modesty when new
Jaimie frames women’s clothing as flexible signaling unlike fixed animal ornaments. Experiments suggest women dress more modestly when entering new female groups to reduce risk of aggression or exclusion, reflecting awareness of intrasexual threat dynamics.
- •Clothing functions as selectable social/sexual signals
- •Women dress more modestly when new to a group to avoid aggression/exclusion
- •Classic study: the same woman dressed ‘racy’ receives hostility from female participants
- •Women balance attracting mates with avoiding peer sanctions
- 45:38 – 55:33
Slut-shaming and ‘price enforcement’: who drives it and why promiscuity cues trigger backlash
They discuss slut-shaming as a mechanism that can enforce restrictive sexual norms, potentially protecting committed strategists and maintaining bargaining power in the mating market. Jaimie notes the empirical landscape on who slut-shames is less clear, while emphasizing women’s strategic intrasexual aggression.
- •Promiscuity cues can be read as threats (mate poaching risk and market-wide price effects)
- •Even promiscuous women may prefer not to befriend other promiscuous women
- •Slut-shaming can function like cartel/price enforcement in a biological market framing
- •Public discussion is polarized: some deny female aggression; others weaponize it
- 55:33 – 1:06:44
Attitudes to abortion as a mating strategy: committed vs uncommitted sexual strategies
Jaimie presents research arguing abortion attitudes can be partly explained by sexual strategy conflict. Committed strategists may benefit from restricting the conditions that make casual sex safer/cheaper, shaping preferences about abortion, contraception, and related social issues.
- •People vary along a committed–uncommitted sexual strategy spectrum
- •Committed strategists may feel threatened by permissive casual-sex environments
- •Predictions: opposition to abortion/birth control and other ‘promiscuity-linked’ issues
- •Argument reframes some moral politics as downstream of strategic reproductive interests
- 1:06:44 – 1:11:26
Religion and sexual strategy: does strategy shape religiosity (not just the reverse)?
They explore evidence that religiosity may track life-history and mating strategy changes (e.g., entering more sexually restricted periods). Religion is presented as supporting norms beneficial to committed strategies, and may serve as moral ‘cover’ for strategic interests without conscious awareness.
- •Religious norms often align with restricted/committed strategies (monogamy, anti-divorce)
- •Data suggest the arrow can run from sexual strategy to religiosity
- •Having children may better explain increasing social conservatism than age alone
- •Moral language can function like a ‘press secretary’ narrative for deeper motives
- 1:11:26 – 1:19:23
Casual sex and self-esteem: a robust stereotype—and why it’s often wrong
Jaimie describes work showing people infer that women (but not men) who have casual sex have low self-esteem, even when told she enjoys it. She contrasts stereotypes with reality, and discusses self-esteem as a sociometer tracking success at one’s own goals.
- •Stereotype: women who have casual sex are presumed low in self-esteem; men aren’t
- •Consequences: perceived low self-esteem reduces hiring, friendship, dating, and voting support
- •Even explicit vignettes (‘she loves casual sex’) don’t remove the stereotype
- •Measured self-esteem often doesn’t align with the stereotype; relationships are complex
- 1:19:23 – 1:30:17
What’s next in Krems’ research + why friendship is central to health and happiness
They close by previewing cross-cultural work on how people compute what makes a ‘good friend,’ including how friends treat your enemies. The conversation broadens to the health and happiness importance of friendship, and why it’s under-addressed in self-development advice.
- •Upcoming research: cross-cultural models of what counts as helpful/good friendship
- •People may rate friends lower if they help both you and your enemy (network effects)
- •Friendship/connection is repeatedly linked to health outcomes and happiness research
- •Friendship is hard because it’s many challenges (find, keep, navigate networks), not one
