Modern WisdomEvolution's Secrets To Understanding Relationships - Dr Andrew Thomas
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,298 words- 0:00 – 1:20
Intro
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
If you think about how ludicrous it is that there's a 2D image in front of you that you can put your hand on, that you can look around the side of a monitor and it's clearly not real, but it's enough to trick our ancestral mating systems into thinking sex is about to happen, enough to arouse us. So, of course, your psychology is gonna be lined up with that. Sex is available, I am now aroused, I want the sex. I don't want to entertain a long-term relationship with an extended courting process before I have it.
- CWChris Williamson
I absolutely love your writing, man. Your Psychology Today articles are fantastic. Congratulations.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Oh, brilliant. And am, am I right in thinking, um, I'm the first Welsh person you've had on your show? I've heard that. That was the rumor.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that would be a very interesting start. I don't know. Um, sometimes people are, like, secret Welsh, secret Welshies, you know?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yes, yeah. I'll have to just... Let's just transition that to a ruggedly handsome Welsh person.
- CWChris Williamson
Sure. Abs- yeah, ab-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
I'm sure that's, that's a first.
- CWChris Williamson
Complete win, as far as I'm concerned.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yep, absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
And also the first openly Welsh person.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
We can definitely take that. You didn't use to identify as Welsh and now identify as something else. You're openly Welsh.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, uh, y- (laughs) I don't think the identity politics has hit, uh, Welsh identity yet.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Uh, give it, give it a little bit longer, but... Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) It's com- it's coming for you soon. Hold on tight. Uh, so you just wrote this
- 1:20 – 10:18
Evolutionary Mismatch
- CWChris Williamson
great article explaining five evolutionary theories that everyone should know to understand how relationships work.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Evolutionary mismatch. What's that?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So, evolutionary mi- mismatch is this idea that, um, our psychology evolved, um, you know, and has remained relatively stable over the last 100,000 years. So, it's this idea that society has moved quicker than our biology has been able to cope with it. So, for most modern problems, we're approaching them with a, a s- a Stone Age brain. Um, and yeah, it's something which in my, uh, my teaching at Swansea, I try to apply that quite a bit to, to mating 'cause a lot of stuff that we have in the, in the modern environment is just something that, um, it makes more sense when you sort of figure out that your brain is trying to cope with it (laughs) rather than being able to master it because it's such a novel, novel thing that it's not used to.
- CWChris Williamson
What would be an example of that?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So, I think a really good... The, the best example of that is just sheer choice overload, right? So, if you think about, uh, ancestral human populations, there's some debate over the number, but, um, you know, Dunbar's number is, like, 150 people. Um, nowadays, we have access to almost limited- limitless numbers of people. Um, it leads to a lot more superficial relationships. Um, when... And I, and I mean like friends and family, uh, but also when you go online onto dating websites, it looks like there's this unlimited pool of potential options. Um, and that leads to all sorts of crazy things like, um, people having to use sort of one characteristic to narrow down the playing field. So, dating, I, I think, has become a lot more univariate rather than multivariate. So, historically, you'd meet up with someone and you see the whole person, you take in their physical attractiveness, you also take in other things about them. Um, and nowadays, p- we don't even get to that point where we can make a holistic judgment because we're doing things like, "Oh, they're not six foot, so, uh, that, that's it. They're off the radar." Um, I always like to... It, it's really interesting, actually, so some of, some of the research that I've done with, um, uh, Peter Jonassen has actually shown how people then kind of compensate with that because we have, we're, we're gonna publish this stuff on height, but if you get the, the dating website data, it's really interesting and you plot up what guys' heights are, you get this really weird distribution where it's a normal distribution until you hit 5'10", 5'11" and six foot, in which case it drops on all of those, and then suddenly you get this big influx of everyone saying they're six foot. Um, and embarrassingly, I was one of those liars, right? So, I met wi- my wife on an online dating website. Now, I always tell people I'm six foot minus one. Um, so I put that I was six foot on this dating website and that got me past the bar, and now I'm happily married, and if I-
- CWChris Williamson
Would your, would your partner have not seen you had you have put 5'11"?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
No.
- CWChris Williamson
No way.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That was from the criteria.
- CWChris Williamson
You're a victory story. You're a victory story with this.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So, there, so there we go. You know, so it's, it, it's something that, that, that people do. But it just kind of proves that, that people have... And especially women. So, Steve and I ran this study once that was, uh, a failed study. So, we were g- we were using Plenty of Fish and we... I know we're still talking about evolutionary mismatch. It doesn't feel like it, but we are. Um, and we set up some fake profiles on Plenty of Fish with the idea that we were going to manipulate status and job role and see who got attention and who didn't. And we had to call off the experiment after a week because we balanced the profiles nicely, but the female profile, uh, or the couple of female profiles got like a thousand messages in two days of guys going, "Hey, hey, hey, hey." Whereas the guys didn't get any messages at all. So, we had no variance in the guys to be able to carry on the study with. And this was back in like, you know, probably 2009, 2010. Um, and so, you know, women are getting inundated with, with messages off, off guys, quite superficial ones playing, playing the sort of short-term game. And so naturally, that means a narrowing down, a quick narrowing down of people using very superficial criteria. Um, now from a mismatch p- match perspective, that's crazy, right? The... Because ancestrally, your options would be like two or three people in your village and maybe guys from neighboring villages. Um, so the disparity is, is massive.
- CWChris Williamson
What people are doing is creating sometimes arbitrary, uh, at least to their, uh, forebrain it seems to make sense, rules that can help them to narrow down the, uh, degrees of choice that they have. If you only date within one particular race, if you only date within one particular education...
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
... exactly, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
... if you date within one particular type of profession. "Oh, I, I, I just, I need to have a doctor..." I think I saw the other day that, uh, female doctors, one in five female doctors also date another doctor or surgeon.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Why? Why? Uh, yeah, I mean, you've got a lot to bond over, but c- y- you would have presumed... So all of these things could just be a cope for the evolutionary mismatch of having a significantly broader, uh, choice option, the same way as people elect to do intermittent fasting as a way to deal with the evolutionary mismatch of a prevalence of salty, sweet, and sugary foods.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah. So there's... So, so it's, uh, uh, e- exactly. So there's the, the narrowing down element. There's also, like, the archaic preferences, 'cause the preferences are functional, right? So having, having a partner who has some status and has some resources, that's, that's not a, um, uh, you know... That, that, that's a functional thing. Um, where the mismatch comes in is that now- nowadays you don't necessarily need that. You know, your welfare and your, your, uh, your flourishing doesn't depend, for a lot of people, especially in Western societies with good social welfare progress, it doesn't, it doesn't depend on another person as much as it used to. Um, but you can't just turn the preferences off, in the same way as you can't just turn jealousy off just 'cause everyone's using contraception, you know? It's no longer... Long- j- jealousy, some could argue, is no longer functional now that we have contraception, but you can't just turn it off. But the narrowing thing, I mean, I, I think women get a bit of a hard time sometimes for the, for the, for the narrowing thing. Um, whereas it, it... For me, it, it's kind of just, like, a, uh, a cognitive heuristic that people use whenever they've, they've got too much d- decision-making to do, so... Or too many decisions to make, you know? This is why people gravitate towards, like, ratings on Amazon to cut down decision-making. Um, hell, you know, you go to a supermarket these days, you go to a supermarket where you wanna buy some baked beans. You go to the baked bean aisle where there's then 25 different varieties, and you pause, and you're like, "Oh, you know, what's the prices by the size?" This is why I like shopping in Lidls and Aldi. You want the baked beans they got there or you don't. It's a more (laughs) simplified situation, you know? So we've got all of these different sort of very, very modern factors influencing, um, our mating decisions, which is why my advice on the, on the blog is al- is to maybe look to the past a little bit.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(smacks lips) So when I say look to the past, I mean how were people starting relationships in the past? I mean, when you get up the graph showing how people meet one another, I show this to the, to, to my students all the time, you know, it's the death of everything apart from, you know, meeting in clubs and meeting online. Meeting online has shot up. It's now something silly like 60, 70% of people who get married are meeting online. The stuff that's fallen off, meeting through family, meeting through close friends, meeting through social groups, meeting through work, all of these things are dropping off and online's going up. Um, now the problem is all of those things that are dropping down involve other people that know you in some way. And so, you know, you're not meeting people with this anonymity. They can ghost. They can go away. If they go away, if they do something nasty to you, there's no s- ne- social consequence if your social lives aren't entwined in some way. Um, and sometimes the people who are around us, they know us best, 'cause sometimes we think we know what we want when we don't know what we want, or sometimes we think we know what's good for us when we don't know what's good for us. So, you know, sometimes I'm there like, "Eh, you know, if, if you're really getting stuck, why don't you ask your friends to set you up with someone? Why don't you ask your parents what they think?" Um, yeah. So that's kind of just... I'm not saying it's perfect, um, but it could be something to try.
- CWChris Williamson
It's certainly a untapped, uh, pool, given that most people now are meeting their partners online.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
What that means is that any strategy which isn't meeting your partner online has a competitive advantage as a byproduct of that. Okay, next one.
- 10:18 – 17:33
Evolving Towards Making Small Errors Instead of Big Ones
- CWChris Williamson
Error management.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Go on.
- CWChris Williamson
What's that?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So error management is this idea that for every choice you make, um, you can err in one of two ways. So you can either make a, a false positive or you can make a false ne- negative. So a false positive is, you know, I see a small black thing in the corner of my eye, and I jump thinking it's a spider, but it's not a spider, right? So I've made that error. The other side of the, the false negative is there's a spider there. I don't notice it, right? And let's just assume it's a nasty spider that could do me harm, not that we get many of those in the UK. So there's two different types of error for, for decisions like that, but they come with different costs. So the cost of, of seeing the spi- uh, what I think is a spider, reacting a little bit, and then realizing I'm okay, what's that cost me? A little bit of cortisol and, and, uh, you know, uh, sympathetic nervous system activation for a couple of seconds. Not much, right? But if I don't see the spider, and it's a poisonous one, and it's creeping up, then the consequences could be, could be more dire. So er- error management theory is, um, this, this idea that we evolve towards making the errors which are least costly for us. So the reason why you get a lot of people who are quite reactive to such things is it's better to react to, for, uh, for a little cost for that error than not react and, uh, have a big associated cost.
- CWChris Williamson
How does that relate to dating?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(smacks lips) Probably the easiest one to relate it to is the sexual over-perception bias. Uh, so what you actually find in guys is that they are more likely to perceive sexual interest from, uh, women when it's not there. So the cashier at the supermarket smiles, and instead of them being friendly, uh, it's, "Oh, she's into me." Yeah? And if you stop and think about, like, what the error is there, so the error is if I'm completely oblivious to that, then that's a missed sexual opportunity potentially, yeah? Um, obviously you gotta go on da- some dates first, and e- et cetera, et cetera. But if she's genuinely interested, you don't wanna miss out on that opportunity 'cause that's an opportunity, uh, to-... potentially reproduce. Um, whereas if you see it when it's not there and make an advance, and this is where it gets a little bit, you know, a little bit tough, from, from a selfish perspective, the costs are quite limited, right? So I get a little bit of rejection, yeah? So from an evolutionary perspective, that's not the end of the world. That's not to say, of course, there aren't knock-on effects on the other person, uh, because, you know, if you hara- harass someone, that's a bad thing. Um, but it's this idea that, you know, so w- the, the men may have evolved in the direction of over-perceiving, um, uh, uh, sexual interest just in case.
- CWChris Williamson
How does female under-perception bias tie in with error management theory?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So that's, um, I mean, there's this classic distinction, isn't there, between, uh, men prefer- ha- putting a greater emphasis on physical attractiveness and sexual access, and women putting a greater emphasis on resources and status. And so the female equivalent is, um, uh, the female equivalent actually is, uh, commitment, isn't it? It's, it's commitment skeptic, st- skeptical commitment bias, I think is, is the name. So it's when you're in, uh, when you're courting someone, um, what men don't wanna miss out on is the sexual access. What women don't wanna miss out on is the commitment, according to the skeptic commit- commitment bias. So women are more likely to make errors in judging commitment from men to be lower than it actually is. Because if women say, "Hey, I'm with this guy. I think he's committed to me," and he isn't, big issue. Whereas if, "I s- I'm with this guy and he is committed to me, but I'm a little bit skeptical about it," okay, I could make an, an error and, and hurt his feelings a little bit. Maybe he doubles down and proves himself to me. Uh, but that error is less costly to me than the other way around.
- CWChris Williamson
So this would be the, uh, woman playing hard to get, um, w- making a man wait longer before she texts back, perhaps committing to the man less quickly?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
It, it... Yeah, in the c- in the sort of courting... Like, I'm using courting as if, as if we're in Victoria.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
I like courting. Let's bring that, let's bring that back. So I've been thinking about Victorian mating this week for some strange reason. Um, yeah, so if we, if it's in that sort of set-up of a relationship stage, yeah, but you also get the, um, skeptical commitment bias within relationships as well. Uh, 'cause then it's almost like, um, uh, i- i- i- it's even more damaging if your partner isn't committed to you and, and goes off and, and cheats and takes that commitment away, so...
- CWChris Williamson
Parental investment.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Oh, that's the next one. So pares- parental investment is like the granddaddy of all theories, right? So for me, it's, it's one of the key underpinning theories of my thesis. Um, it's this theory that crosses species in general, so it's not just specific to humans. So it's the i- idea that the sex that invests the most is the one that's in demand, so it kinda sets up these market forces. And this really started with the Bateman principle, so that's actually looking at sex cells. So if you compare sex cells, you know, guys generate millions and millions and millions of sperm continuously on the hour every hour. Whereas women are born with all of the egg cells that they'll ever have, and they're larger and they're fewer in number. So even at the sex cell level, it sets up this, uh, this imbalance where, um, guys are providing something that's quick and cheap, whereas women are br- uh, uh, are providing something that, that's precious. And I'm saying men and women there, but of course, mammals in general follow that pattern as well, which is why we tend to find sex differences in, um, mammals and, uh, and other species that are in kind of predictable directions with, uh, men... Uh, men. Males doing the competing and females doing the choosing. Now where humans are different, of course, is that you have something called obligatory parental investment. So there's the, the stuff that you have to invest, which for most females isn't just the egg. It's the gestation, it's the weaning, you know, there's, there's heavy obligatory investment. Whereas males can generally have, have sex and leave. So in, in most species, that's an option. Um, unless you're a praying mantis or a spider or something. Um, the difference, however, is that in humans, obligatory parental investment isn't just it. We, our typical levels of parental investment are much higher for men. So men do, compared to other species, invest a lot in their offspring, and that's why the sex differences in humans are actually quite modest compared to other species. Like, if you go to a zoo and you look at gorillas and you, or you look at elephant seals and you look at the marked massive degrees in physiology between males and females, you look at humans, it's, it's not as, as sharp. So even though there are sex differences there, because males invest so heavily in offspring, um, it actually redresses the balance a little bit, making our sex differences more moderate in size.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- 17:33 – 21:55
Are Men as Picky as Women?
- CWChris Williamson
And parental investment, presumably as well, is why women are more choosy with how many people they have sex with, who they have sex with-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(sighs)
- CWChris Williamson
... the amount of work that their partner has to go through before they will do that.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
I think, and well, that's, that's a whole, uh, other story I think, because I've, I've heard, I've heard that point be made before. But what's, what's missing with that is this sexual strategy, uh, s- sexual strategies overlay of understanding the distinction between short term and long term. Um, because with women will really, really, really, um, put the, uh, ap- apply the standards to a short-term mating partner because what are they getting out of the arrangement? They're, they're getting the sex and potentially falling pregnant for someone who may not hang around. Um, when it comes to long-term mating though, men are...... as choosy as women, right? So it's not the case that we go on dates where, uh, men get all dressed up in three-piece suits and women go in their dressing gowns or whatever they feel comfortable in, right? So, so women make an effort as well as guys, and that's because there are two investors at the table, two potential investors. Um, so it, yeah, you've got to c- have that nuance about it as well. Within a long-term setting, yeah, maybe there's a little bit more pickiness on women, but, but guys are picky h- picky as well. If they're going to invest, you know, 20, 30 years, bring up children with a person, then they want to know they're getting a good deal as well, right?
- CWChris Williamson
When you talk about sexual strategies, are those the primary ones, short-term mating, long-term mating?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, pretty much. So there's been, there has been some work, um, trying to see whether there's a difference between your long-term committed cohabiting marriage long-term strategy. So that's wh- well-established. Your short-term strategy, your one-night stand, your friends with benefits, your, your promiscuity. There have been some studies th- that have tried to look at this middle ground, but every time they do it, it just seems to fall into, into short-term strategies. So it's, it's like, oh, you've got a guy, a guy that you're with for now, but you never see it going out a- anywhere i- in the future, so you, you can see yourself being with them for the next three months but not the next three years. Really, it, it falls back into short-term strategy, um, uh, uh, the vast majority of the time. So I say yes. I say you really have these, these two constructs. You're either playing the short-term game or the long term. They interact sometimes, so a lot of people are using a short-term strategy with the idea that, um, they want to transition that into a, a, a, a long-term thing. Uh, so there's some, uh, some overlap there. But broadly speaking, I, I, I see those, those two strategies.
- CWChris Williamson
That is the mate-switching hypothesis, or at least it would be part of a female's plan toward mate-switching, that it seems like a good portion of infidelity from women is done as a m- monkey branching strategy to move from one relationship to the next. This was moving from dual mating hypothesis to mate-switching hypothesis.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, I think you were talking about Alex, uh, to Alex about that a couple of times ago. So I, I h- I had a thought about that earlier on today. I can't remember what it was now. Yeah, I, I, I mean, traditionally, even outside of relationships, that's a tactic as well, right? So nowadays it's much more common, have a short-term relationship with someone first, and then if I really like them, transition that into a long-term relationship. Um, the thing about mate-switching as well is that guys do it too. Um, I think the difference, however, is when you consider ... and this is one of the biggest psychological dif- sex differences out there, which is, is the, the desire for casual sex, socio-sexuality. So, socio-sexual desire has a, an effect size of 0.8, something like that, which is quite large by psychological terms. So the difference is that when men are having, um, say, an affair, it may well be just to have sexual access and with no intention of moving past that. But women having lower socio-sexuality, it's more likely that if they cheat, it, it's probably to pursue long-term interests. Uh, it's not to say that men don't do it, but, uh, that's where I think that, uh, particular sort of observation has come from.
- CWChris Williamson
Alex tweeted
- 21:55 – 27:32
Is Promiscuity Heritable?
- CWChris Williamson
that promiscuity seems to be a little bit heritable. Does that suggest that socio-sexuality is also heritable?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
My ... I haven't done a study on it myself, but I'm pretty sure it is. I'm pretty sure I, I read it. I mean, the, the basic starting point for heritability is 0.5 anyway, so if you just guess 0.5 for anything, you'll be right in the vast majority of the time. But I'm pretty sure the socio-sexuality is heritable.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's interesting. So the implication there would be, uh, if you are looking for a particularly committed partner, look at whether his father has got five wives continuously and ...
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs) Yeah, it's a very uncomfortable thing for some people, but, you know, it always comes down to, to that thing, if, if you wanna have intelligent kids, have sex with an intelligent person.
- CWChris Williamson
Yup. Dude, I mean-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
You know?
- CWChris Williamson
... Robert Plomin's been on the show, and in Blueprint he says, uh, "Genetics isn't everything, but it's more than everything else put together."
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, like the most important thing that you want to do if you want to have a successful, happy, flourishing child is pick the person that you have them with very carefully.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, and the other one a- uh, I mean, that's the one part of it. And then the other part is, is the experiences they have outside of the, the family home. I mean, y- if you take, um, juvenile, uh, misconduct, for example, and look at the sort of ACE models behind that, it's like 50% heritable, and then it's like 35% influence outside of the home. In fact, I think it's like 40%, and it's a tiny sliver in the home, which I always think is tr- is tragic, because there's enough pressure on young mums these days of, "Oh, if you haven't bought the right toy, then your kid isn't going to, to develop the ability to see color and, and know what crackling textures are." It's like, no, feed the kids, love the kids, they'll grow fine.
- CWChris Williamson
Get them good friends.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
But get them good friends.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I mean, that's the, I think the ... This is another Rob Henderson thing that one of the best predictors of future wealth is not the wealth of your parents, but it's the average wealth of the postcode that you grow up in.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, f- yeah. So you almost have this, uh ... It's almost k- kind of like a weird lily pad effect. But
- CWChris Williamson
It's like surrogacy, right?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, the next door neighbor's father that is a really cool musician, but your dad's lame. He's a rocket scientist, but he's sort of lame 'cause he's the guy-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... that tells me that I've got to go to bed at night. But John next door, John's dad, he's really cool 'cause he plays the guitar and I wanna learn to play the guitar. And dude, I, I think that there's a lot ... I see it in my own life. I see the influences of the people that were around me even into adulthood, man. Like, you know-... being a club promoter for so long and, and spending time, uh, partying and being around people, and learning, uh, you know, amazing insights around human nature, around networking, business launching, a- advertising, marketing, all of this stuff. But the social, um, values that I had, the hierarchy of things that I prioritized were completely skewed to how they are now.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And now I'm spending, like ... I'm on the phone to David Buss for 90 minutes this morning talking about stuff, and he's, like, telling me about, you know, his dog, his dog needs to come over 'cause it needs to be petted. Like, I'm-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... I'm, I'm evidently going to have, like, a different value stack now. And you wonder, I always wondered about this, you know, at what point do, do our sort of values get locked in? And I'm kind of waiting. There certainly seem to be less fluid. They're less fluid than, uh, they were when I was 10 or 15 presumably.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But, uh, the, the influence of the people around you is always going to be there, and I, I, I do think that that's something that I wish was in more parenting books. Um ...
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Behavioral genetics should be in more parenting books, although if you're t- if you're reading a parenting book reading about behavioral genetics, it's probably a little bit late. Um, but also, what is the ... You, you know, go to every ... You, you want your kid to start boxing because you don't want him to get beat up at school? Okay, go to every different boxing club and look at every kid that's in there.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yep. Yep. It's like when I go to a restaurant and I look at the wine list, I do that t- uh, that, that, that usual thing of I don't pick the cheapest, I pick the second cheapest, right? I'm as ... I'm, I'm the sucker that they, they put the price up on the second cheapest bottle. But that's, that's what you want for any trait in your life, right? So you wanna be surrounded by friends who are part of a wine list, and you wanna be second from the bottom. So you want a lot of your friends ... If you wanna be rich, uh, you want a lot of your friends to be richer than you. If you wanna, uh, you know, have ... Uh, make connections, you wanna surround yourself with people who are connected because you will learn from them and you will grow with them as long as you're liked, being ... I, I think that's one thing that should go in parent- parenting books that is, it's very non-PC. We don't have enough conversations about how it's important to be liked.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Not loved ...
- 27:32 – 36:49
Humans Engage in Multiple Types of Sexual Strategies
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
- CWChris Williamson
Strategic pluralism.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yes. Strategic plural- ... That's the last of the five, I think. So this is ... Um, so if sexual strategies is about having long-term and short-term strategies, distinct, we call sets of psychological mechanisms, strategic pluralism for me is how you navigate switching between those strategies. You know, some people are born wanting a husband or a wife, and they'll do that. They'll have, uh, uh, a high school sweetheart who becomes the only person they'll ever sleep with, and they'll have a million kids with them and, and die in a rocking chair age 80. Um, and good for them. So they're like hardcore long term. And then you have some people who will never settle down because they can't think of anything worse than they just wanna have fun and have as much sex as possible. I know plenty of those people as well. But not everyone has that sort of pure strategy lens. And this isn't something, by the way, that's just unique to humans. So, a lot of animals, uh, from squirrels to bears to all sorts of weird or wonderful things, like ... I think 50% of my, my PhD thesis was animal studies on, on strategies. Um, most people will flick. Most people will have a mixed strategy. "I will apply short term and I'll apply long term." So strategic pluralism is about, well, when do you switch and why? Uh, so for example, if you, um, are in a situation or an environment which is mildly dangerous, then you're probably gonna move towards, uh, long-term mating because it's a safer environment to bring up a child having the support of another person. If you're in a really, really safe environment, one with a lot of social support, maybe good social welfare, then actually having that second partner, uh, or s- having that other partner to bring up a child with doesn't add benefits. And so then s- short-term relationships are on the cards. Um, most people will flick. Most people will have a mixed strategy. "I will apply short term and I'll apply long term." So strategic pluralism is about, well, when do you switch and why? Uh, so for example, if you, um, are in a situation or an environment which is mildly dangerous, then you're probably gonna move towards, uh, long-term mating because it's a safer environment to bring up a child having the support of another person. If you're in a really, really safe environment, one with a lot of social support, maybe good social welfare, then actually having that second partner, uh, or s- having that other partner to bring up a child with, doesn't add benefits. And so then s- short-term relationships are on the cards. What's super interesting about that, by the way, though, is that's like a U-shaped curve, so you actually get some situations which are so dangerous that it's like all better off. There's no point in having parental care because it's not gonna make a difference. Um, so actually, some of the most sort of, um, terrible situations you can find people in, uh, people just sort of go into end-of-the-world promiscuous mating mode.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. That's so interesting.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I, um ... Was it ... I think it was Armageddon where there's that famous scene where e- where the, the girl says, "I don't wanna die a virgin." And they, like-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... cut to the dude that she's saying it to's face, and he's like, "Yes!" (laughs)
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You're like, well, I mean, everyone's gonna die unless Bruce Willis can fix it, but ...
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It's, um ... I mean, that stuff's, th- I, I find that stuff almost, almost endlessly, um, fascinating to think about how different mating strategies can be ... can adjust to the local ecology. I remember the first time that I learned about the sex ratio hypothesis.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And it made me think about humans like plants. You know, you, you put a-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yup.
- CWChris Williamson
... a plant in the corner of the room and there's a bit of light in the top corner, and the plant responds to the local environment.... its ecology determines the way that it's going to behave, and, you know, (laughs) sex ratio is just literally endlessly interesting, uh, and I imagine that strategic pluralism and sex ratio kind of aren't, aren't exactly a million miles apart from each other.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, so that would be an example of a cue. And we know that sex ratio cues, um, I think Arnocki did some, some work on this, sex ratio cues can temporarily s- change short-term mating inclination. What's super interesting about it actually is that when you get down to smaller species like arthropods and stuff, uh, that are doing different mating strategies, because they have short generations, you can actually run the maths on what happens based on the strategies they're following, and you actually find that the different sexual strategies kind of balance out in terms of fitness in the long run. So, the, the ones that are employing sort of more short-term strategies versus long-term strategies, you know, 10, 20 generations down the line, they're both e- representing an equal proportion of the gene pool. Um, so they kind of have a way of balancing out, which is why we keep both of them in there, uh, you know.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, so they can both be successful. It's not like there's a single optimizing function here.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
No.
- CWChris Williamson
How fascinating.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
I mean, some, some of it is context dependent, of course, but-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't you recently do a study that mediated short-term mating desire amongst men based on their arousal?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, yeah. So I, yeah, so I did that with, um, Wiseman recently, or Bisman. Um, that was really, really cool because it was one of those things where the effect was so reliable th- and you just couldn't explain it away with trait variables. So, it was like, yes, if you get guys horny, they then say, "Oh, I, I have a greater interest in short-term mating." And, and that's one of those studies where, like, people reply to it and say, "Oh, yeah, of course, well, you've just done a study showing the water's wet." And I'm like, "Well, hang on a second, okay, so yeah, it makes sense to you, but if you had someone who was very inclined towards long-term mating, so say we had our mister high s- high school sweetheart thing, wouldn't you expect him, if he was horny, to just think of his wife and want sex and pursue sex with his wife?" You know, if we're suspending what we know o- o- o- uh, uh, from sort of folk psychology for a second, like, that's a plausible, that's a plau- plausible hypothesis. But that's not what happens. Even he, so if you, even when you control for socio-sexuality, when you control for dark triad, sexual arousal leads to increase in short-term mating interest, and I think that's really, really cool. It's cool for lots of different reasons. You can go, talk about, you know, how that factors into harassment and all sorts, um, but just from a, um, just from a having control of your own mating destiny perspective, like you're going to make different mating (laughs) decisions based on whether you're horny or not.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
That's something you should know. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
If you... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
What was, what was the, I can't remember what, it's something that rhymes, it's like, ejaculate before you evaluate, or something like that, uh, that's just like a, a little piece of advice to guys before they perhaps consider going in, you know, they're in a long-term relationship with a committed partner and one evening maybe they've bumped into some girl and he goes home and she finds him on Instagram and then messages him and stuff, and he's like, "Oh, should I, should I go round?" You go, "Well, you might just be horny. You might, you might be able to fix this a lot more easily than something that's a bit more of a permanent decision." Uh, but yeah, I mean, the, the insight of the reverse, what, what, what does it suggest to you then that horniness increases short-term mating? What does that say?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Uh, in terms of what? In terms of function or...
- CWChris Williamson
Like, why would that be the case? Like, just-
- 36:49 – 46:55
The Different Levels of Sexual Harassment
- CWChris Williamson
how, how are you tying this into, uh, sexual harassment? Do you think, uh, should we have a, uh, should we extend a particular amount of sympathy to, uh, men who have got highly heritable, they didn't choose it sociosexuality and these are, uh, people-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... whose over-perception bias is just running rampant?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So, there's a couple of different flavors of sexual harassment, let's call it, right? So, there are some guys out there who are just flat-out predators. I've met them, I've seen them in nightclubs, I've kicked them out of nightclubs because they go and they find the drunk woman, and they're stone-cold sober, and they hunt, and they walk around, and they pretend to dance with their friend, and they try to isolate. Like there are some proper predators out there. And that is one flavor of harassment and, and the really, really serious, serious stuff. You then also have harassment that, uh, in my view is born from misunderstanding, yeah? So not guys going out of their way to cause harm and to cause pain. And one of the fundamental, uh, misunderstandings is that people apply what they want to the mind of the other person. So humans are really, really good at theory of mind. It's like one of the human superpowers that we really take for granted. Being able to, to guess and put what other people think, put our mind in theirs, human superpower. But it has its limitations, and one of its limitations, and one of the reasons that sociosexuality is one of the biggest predictors of harassment, is because if someone is playing the short-term mating game, they make an assumption that the other person is as well. So, if you're playing a short ... And this isn't just men, by the way. This is, this is women too. So women who have high sociosexuality are going to assume, if they're heterosexual, that men too have high sociosexuality. Of course, the statistics will show that there, there'll be more right in that guess than the other way around. Um, and so if you're playing short-term strategy, short-term relationships are about sex. That is the, the, the main part of it. It's not like a long-term relationship. You strip away the courting process, you strip away the commitment, the getting to know a person. It's about having sex and it's about having sex as quickly as possible. And so those with h- high sociosexuality, they're more likely to initiate physical contact, they're more likely to lead the conversation down a sexual route more quickly, um, and make no bones about it. Some people are doing that because they know it'll make someone uncomfortable, but they're just playing the numbers game. But others are doing it because they genuinely just think the other person wants that and are causing clum- clumsily causing harm, distress, and upset.
- CWChris Williamson
Are you familiar with this, uh, new performative, um, like resistance to sex study that's just come out?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm-mm.
- CWChris Williamson
So this was ... I mean, William sent this to me and this is the sort of thing where I, I talk about everything on my newsletter, right? Anything.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm like, any study that's just come out, I'm ready to go. This is one that as of yet is a little bit too spicy, so I'll read you the abstract.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Okay. Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
"We investigated whether women ever engage in token resistance to sex, saying no but meaning yes, and if they do, what their reasons are for doing so. A questionnaire administered to 610 undergraduate women asked whether they had ever engaged in token resistance and if so, asked them to rate the importance of 26 possible reasons. We found that 39.3% of the women had engaged in token resistance on at least once. Their reasons fell into three categories: practical, inhibition-related, and manipulative reasons. Women's gender roles/attitudes, erotophobia, erotophilia, and other attitudes and beliefs varied as a function of their experience with token resistance, uh, their sexual experience. We argue that given today's sexual double standards, token resistance may be a rational behavior. It could however have negative consequences including discouraging honest communication, perpetuating restrictive gender stereotypes, and if men learn to disregard women's refusals, increasing the incidence of rape."
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Okay, so now I know why, uh, our mutual Irish friend kept that from me, because he was probably trying to not hurt my feelings, um, because my lab has done something similar (laughs) and we haven't written it up yet.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
And actually, we found a similar thing with four- with that 40% number, um, only we didn't go for the token sexual resistance route. We just played f- uh, went for the playing hard to get route. So, to, to what extent have people played hard to get? To what extent did they think other people play hard to get? 'Cause that's part of it as well. Um, it does have a different flavor to it than, than sexual resistance, but the one thing, um, that we've picked up on is ... 'cause we've also done some qualitative focus groups on it, it's something that doesn't happen at the start of a relationship. So it doesn't happen at that time zero, you're meeting someone for the first time, asking them out on a date. It happens at, uh, a little while in, in that courting process when you've been on a couple of dates and th- you're sort of like maybe trying to communicate that your mate value is higher than it is, or you're, you're starting to play games with someone that you're genuinely interested in. At that stage, you actually get a large proportion of, of ... So, so the, the proportion of women saying that they've ever p- done that as a tactic, and guys 'cause there's not really a sex difference there, is like 70%, 80%. And actually, um, if you ask women, uh, you know, if they met someone that they, you know, for the first time that they really liked, uh, what are the chances that they would use playing hard to get as a bit of a tactic? You know, you get like 40% or something like that. But what's really, really interesting is that women overest- uh, sorry, women overestimate how often other women play that tactic.... um, and men actually underestimate how often women play that tactic, when I thought it was going to be the other way around.
- CWChris Williamson
Me too, yeah.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Um, but I guess the issue with it is, because I think it is a natural part of flirting, playing, playing hard to get, fa- fa- feigning disinterest, from both camps, from both me- uh, males and females. But I think that if you're someone who is looking for a short-term relationship, so you're going to be more sex-focused anyway, and you think that you, you've noticed that women play hard to get sometimes, so obviously I'm talking about men here for a second, and you think that they're inclined to do it within the first 30 seconds of meeting them, that's the recipe for disaster.
- CWChris Williamson
Because if they haven't-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
If they-
- CWChris Williamson
... actually objected within the first 30 seconds, your presumption is that any-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Maybe they are.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's performative as opposed to genuine reticence.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah. And so my lab's doing quite a bit at the moment with, um, this sort of predictors of luck pushing to what extent, you know, you've asked someone once, they've already said no, um, you know, the next day you see them again, if you were to ask them a second time, what do you think your chances are of that being successful? So we're doing some, some work on, on that at the moment. So that luck pushing, that maybe I'll try again element. 'Cause when you do the, the male focus groups, there really is that, that, that thing of, "Well, if it doesn't harm, you may as well try again 'cause you never know." S- so there's obviously some stuff to do there with educating around harm as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Absolutely. I mean, all of this is mediated by being... charming is the closest approximate word that I can find for it.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And, and delivering whatever it is that you do, whether it's the cashier that smiles at you as she packs your bags, or whether it's the workmate that said no yesterday or whatever, I do think that this is the subject of John Berger's book, uh, Make the First Move, which is really, really great and, and touches on sex ratios from a, a very sort of pro-female perspective-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... where he says that, you know, for almost all of human history, women were told that the way to attract a guy was to treat him like you don't like him, why men love bitches, and, you know, uh, feign disinterest and all this sort of stuff. But in a post Me Too world, men are hyper-sensitized to being accused of being a creep or being overbearing. They absolutely do not want to be, uh, a- any of the, the issues. I think it's, um, some huge majority of men would never consider approaching a woman in a bar an acceptable thing to do for fear of coming across as creepy, uh, even though 86% of women still want a man to make the first move. And yet there's still a high proportion of women who have been made to feel creepy by guys when they've approached them. So you have all of these kind of intersecting, uh, challenges that you need to weave your way through. Uh...
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, absolutely. And if you look at some of the work that Leif Kinnear has done or, uh, Apostolos has done, you know, one of the things that, that people who are perpetually single report is that they're useless at flirting, yeah? So they, i- i- if you take a flirting index and ask people, you know, how, uh, to rate themselves on it, they tend to do really, really... because flirting is a skill, and it's, it, it's a skill that you have to learn. You have to learn how to, um, read body language, how to read behind what people are saying, to be sensitive to the fact that actually we're not flirting and I need to go away, um, but unfortunately it is a skill. It's something that you're not born with and it's something that you certainly don't want your parents to teach you, um, and you have to kind of develop that. So, I think we're now reaching the point where it, it's almost not okay to learn that skill and that's a bit problematic, I think.
- 46:55 – 52:56
Is Sexlessness in Young Men Caused by Poor Social Skills?
- CWChris Williamson
I wonder whether part of the challenges that young guys under the age of 30 are struggling with that's causing sexlessness is downstream from straight up poor social skills, to the point where-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
... their ability to flirt has just been tuned down. That it's not to do with, yeah, the, the increasing female achievement and the hypergamy and the men not being able to be up and across and the da-da-da-da-da-da-da, but also maybe this generation of men are just worse flirters than any other generation before.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
I, I absolutely think that and I think, you, you know, (sighs) go back 30, 40, 50 years, that sort of stuff you'd be taught by your older brother or by other positive male role models that you have. You know, there's this whole (sighs) issue around (sighs) people like Andrew Tate and stuff at the moment, where it's like, well, we've got this vacuum and these people are stepping into the vacuum and men are seeking them out. And you've got to think, well, well, what is causing that vacuum? What used to fill that that isn't anymore? And for me, it's strong male role models th- that are showing not toxic masculinity but, like, good masculinity using-
- CWChris Williamson
The Netherlands. Yeah.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah. So it's, it's your scoutmasters. You know, I'm, I'm not hugely religious but it's your church leaders, it's your religious leaders, you know? It's organizations like the Freemasons. It, it's, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
Sports teams, fathers, older brothers, uncles.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Sports teams, coaches, you know, good, uh, good men who are able to, to show you what being a good man means. And I think a- now we're just sort of just... I mean, I do it myself, you're just scrolling on your phone of an evening doing nothing, that's not learning positive... how to contribute to society in a positive way. And young men... uh, so I used to live, right? I used to live in the middle of a park, right? I used to rent a property in the middle of a park so I used to see all of like the 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-year-old kids, uh, and how they used to sort of run around in the park during the summertime. That sounds so creepy. I'm not like that but anyway, the point is...... half, half the time they were destroying things. And not the young girls, the young men are destroying things. They're throwing bottles. Someone planted a tree, they ripped the tree out of the ground. And it's like when you see these guys, it's, it's almost like they have this yearning to control their environment with their hands in some way, to actually do something, to make some sort of mark. And it's like if you don't give an opportunity to construct in some way, they'll just destruct.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
And I think that that's part of the problem as well, that you, you, we, we need stronger male role models who are helping young men, giving, giving them some, some way of building their status, um, 'cause that's a whole other argument as well, of how do you build status? 'Cause you have this really nice dichotomy in, uh, a lot of traditional societies between prestige and dominance, and I think these days a lot of young men see, see, oh, it's dominance, dominance, dominance.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
That's how you build status-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
... when actually prestige is, is more of a sort of healthy way of building, um, building status.
- CWChris Williamson
It's more robust as well. It's more likable, it's definitely going to be able to scale over time, because, you know, your dominance, if you continue to play that game, eventually it's going to get you punched in the face or thrown in jail, or something bad is going to happen. It- prestige may end up with you being, uh, people being jealous of you, but that's significantly better than the outcomes that you get from dominance.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I, um, I'm playing around with this idea at the moment, and unfortunately it, it seems to not really be, uh, actually holding much weight, but we'll see as I continue to do more research. The male sedation hypothesis, which is, why have we not seen young male syndrome given the incredibly high levels of sexlessness amongst young men?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Very high levels of sexlessness, but not, uh, a, um, in-kind increase in the destructive antisocial behavior that you would see amongst that particular cohort of guys.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And my theory originally was that, uh, porn and video games i- are giving a titrated dose of reproductive cues and of status-seeking, camaraderie, goal-oriented behavior-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... but I'm yet to see any evidence that suggests that porn use turns down men's desire for real world sex. David Ley, uh, couldn't find that.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, he's, he, he doesn't see any evidence for it. Uh, David Buss sent me an article earlier on this morning that also doesn't seem to show that sexual desire is mediated by porn. What, what's your view on this?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Every time I put porn in, it doesn't predict anything. Um, you know, and, and-
- CWChris Williamson
But it was such a nice ... It's, the male sedation-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
It, it would be.
- CWChris Williamson
... hypothesis. It's such a nice name-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
It would be nice.
- 52:56 – 1:04:21
Attitudes in the West to Having Multiple Sexual Partners
- CWChris Williamson
uh, attitudes of people in the West to multi-partner relationships?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What is this?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So that, so that's a pre-print that I've got out now. Uh, it's a funny story. I'll be presenting that at HBase, by the way, 'cause I'm on this-
- CWChris Williamson
Hey, you and me both. Let's go.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
There we go. So I'm on this, uh, consensual non-monogamy, uh, panel, which is, is really interesting, 'cause it's, 'cause it, I didn't set out for this study to be a consensual (laughs) non-monogamy study.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
And then it's, it's under review with archives at the moment, and it came back with three reviews all saying, "We, we're, we love the methods, we love the results, but we want you to completely rewrite the introduction from a consensual non-monogamy lens." So I was like, "Right. Interesting. Let's crack on with that." So, uh, I pulled in Justin Mogilski and he's, um, gonna help me with that. Um, anyway, so this study was ... We live in, in, in the UK, uh, and in the UK you're not allowed to do poly- uh, polygamy of any kind. So you're not allowed, uh, to marry, a man can't marry several wives, a woman can't marry several men. This is called bigamy. It's still punishable by seven years in, in prison, by the way. Um, so it's something that's socially sanctioned, and whereas you can c- you can have relationships like that, they're generally frowned upon, right? Which is really, really interesting because you know, the, if you look at fossil evidence and you look at our biology, it all points towards at least s- effective polygyny in, in humans in some way. So men having, um, a smaller number of men having, uh, access to, to, to more women rather than everything being a, a monogamous pairing. And also if you look at all hunter-gatherer societies, um, I think something like 86% of hunter-gatherer societies permit polygyny. Not everyone. It tends to be the chief and, you know, people who are, uh, very high status in those societies, um, but they're permitted in most cultures that, uh, uh, are, are current or, uh, that we've previously known about that have fallen apart. So if ... There's an argument to be made that maybe polygyny is something that's hung around as part of the human mating experience for some time. So we've run a study just basically to, uh, uh, to see, well, do you actually find a desire for polygyny?... in a population, i.e. the UK, where it's actually san- you know, there's sanctions against it, um, because if you can still find interest in that mating arrangement in a society where, you know, people aren't talking about it, you're not allowed to do it, well, maybe that's telling you that we've, we've got an, an, a part of our, uh, evolved mating psychology is, uh, is still there kind of in the, in the background. So, that's what we did. We basically asked, uh, uh, uh, re- well, two studies, actually, a large sample of men and women about their polygynous interest, and polyandry, which is the multiple men to women.
- CWChris Williamson
And what happened?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Interesting stuff. Really interesting stuff. So, um, I've got the f- I've got the exact figures here, 'cause I haven't committed them to memory yet. So, uh, we, we did quite a few things in terms of like correlational profiles and comparing, um, interests for polygynous relationships against, for example, just having an aff- a f- affair partners and stuff. But basically, what you find is a third of guys say that they would be open to a polygynous relationship. So, a third of guys say, "Yes, I would like to have two long-term partners at the same time who know about each other, accept each other. They don't get to have sex with anyone else, just me." About a third of them are like, "Yes, I would be open to that." Women being part of that relationship, not so much. About one in 20 were saying, "Yes, I would be a, like a co-girlfriend or a co-wife." Um, and then quite a pr- b- b- bit of a proportion that's unsure. So about 20, 20% of guys are unsure, 14% of women are unsure. So, sometimes it's easier just to look at the nos. So, if 50% of guys are like, "Definitely no," 80% of women are like, "Definitely no."
- CWChris Williamson
Are you surprised at 50% of men saying definitely no, given male desire for sexual variety?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Um, I'm not surprised because of when you start looking into polygyny, just how difficult that is to juggle as a, a relationship. Um, but also, remember, this is i- in a background where people are, are brought up to be told that this is wrong. So, it's actually more the, the other way around. I'm surprised that you've got 50% of men who are saying either yes or, or un- uncertain. Um, but what's really interesting is that you get that big sex difference in polygyny. So, women are like, "No, no, no, no, no." Um, guys are like, "Yeah, okay, I'd be open for it." But when you look at polyandry, the sexes respond pretty much the same, which is that about 10% of people say yes, um, about 10 to 20% of people say they are unsure, but most people are, are saying no. And there's not a big sex difference between men and women there. So, the, the, um, there's a much more drive on the, the guy side towards po- uh, polygyny than women towards polyandry.
- CWChris Williamson
But it's about the same number of men that would accept being part of a female's harem as women who would want a harem of men, around about 10% on both?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs) That's a so much better way of putting it. I should've had you on the paper summarising stuff for me. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, I, as, as you may be aware, I'm actually giving a short 15-minute presentation at HBES this year, so if you-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs) Really? I should go to that.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
I should go to that.
- CWChris Williamson
I can get you an invite. Pr- you speak to me-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Excellent. Will you?
- CWChris Williamson
... I'll probably be able to sort you out. Um, so interesting stuff there around stated and revealed preferences.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. 'Cause I actually, I, I put that in the paper, right? So, there's a, a massive difference between, like, would, would guys actually, like once you've got the decision in this. There's that whole c- whole hot and cold reasoning element to it as well, right? Um, sorry, I interrupted. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
No, just that was it. It was just the stated and revealed preferences thing. I mean, you know, guys, I imagine that... Uh, actually, do I? I was thinking about the fact that if a man was offered the, the multiple women in front of him, that it would, it would sound great. But I think that that really works best for short-term mating. I think when you actually are faced with the stark thermodynamics of trying to have a household with two women, who as much as they say that they get on great and maybe in the bedroom they're fantastic, I mean, we've had a lot of history of intra-sexual competition between women-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... poisoning each other's kids, poisoning each other, trying to push them down cliffs. You know, all manner of fuckery that's gone on. And it wouldn't surprise me if men may be mediated by status.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah. Oh, ab- absolute- and when we, um, when you look at the data in more traditional societies, you basically find that women are drawn towards polygyny only when the benefits they can get out of the polygynous marriage exceed what they could get out of a m- a monogamous marriage. So, if I've got a, a husband who can only invest five, um, all in me, or there's an husb- a husband here who can invest 20 in me and another person, well, then I'm getting 10 of the 20, which is more than the five.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So, there's a, there's a balance there of would I be, would I be better off on my own or part of, part of this thing in, in terms of having my
- 1:04:21 – 1:14:52
How Many Previous Sexual Partners is Too Much?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Okay, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
How many previous sexual partners is too many?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
212.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Oh, no. Whoops, sorry. Uh, you, I thought you were asking me about my own personal preference. Um, right, so I did some work with Steve on this, and you're gonna really enjoy this because we've got a follow-up study that we're, I'm- I'm just writing up at the moment. So, we did this study in 2018, I think, 2017, 2018. It actually... So this is one of my claim to fame. This got written up in Playboy, so- so that's like, you know, "Oh, we've made it." Um, so we basically said, you know, for a long-term partner, here's a person, they're generally attractive, how willing would you be to go on a date with them or entertain them as a long-term partner based on what people now call body count, but when we did the research was just how many sexual partners they've had. And you find- I still remember walking into Steve's office and him having on the screen where he'd plotted up the data, it's got the- the nicest curve ever, and he was like, "Yeah, I'm writing this up." It was a lovely, lovely curve. And it basically peaks at around about four being, like, the optimal, uh, three to four. What's really, really cool is it's not just a linear pattern. So it's not like three to four and then it just goes downhill. You get this little curve, so people are a bit wary about a virgin as well. Uh, it's still high, so being a virgin is, I think, equivalent to something like having 12 partners, something like that. Um, yeah, being... Oh no, it's less than that. It's seven to eight partners is the equivalent of kind of being a virgin.
- CWChris Williamson
Is this male to female, female to male? Is there a gen- a sex difference here?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
There's, it depends on, uh, again, sexual strategy. So if you're just looking at a long-term relationship, the lines are so close together you could squint and they look the same. Where you get the difference is for a short-term partner and then men's standards drop, um, compared to women. But for a long, for a long-term partner, no, the nice sort of curve shape is about the same.
- CWChris Williamson
How different is a woman's short-term and long-term curve?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Uh, it's a little bit flatter. Um, so if they're looking for a- a short-term relationship, whether someone has two partners or like 12 partners, it's pretty similar.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
It's pretty similar. So it flattens out a little bit. The curve is sort of less steep, uh, but it's still much higher than guys.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. What do you think that it says that having, uh, a virgin or somebody with one partner is less desirable than somebody with three or four? Is this stated in revealed preferences again, or is this something else going on?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
I think that this is... So you've got to think, it's all, it- it's a U-shaped curve at the end of the day and there's almost like u- U-shape, uh, U-shaped risks associated with it, so risks on either end. So-The risk w- to having someone with zero sexual partners is that there might be a reason for it. There might be a reason that they're a virgin. So it could be that they're just not a good deal. It could be that they have low mate value. So it could be that you're actually o- completely overestimating how good a catch this person is. And of course-
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, it's a kind of preselection.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, once you enter into a relationship and you start investing, you don't want to be investing in someone who is not the best deal for you. On the other end, when you have people who have too many sexual partners, then you have things like sexually transmitted disease. If you want a long-term relationship, the chances of them maybe cheating on you or leaving is, is prob- is probably quite a bit higher. Um, and so there's risks all round, but the higher number, I believe, associated with different risks than the lower numbers. But interesting, I'm, I'm doing a follow-up study. So this one was in, uh, the Journal of Sex Research and it was just on a UK sample. Um, so I thought, right, how can we just like inject some steroids into this thing? So I've redone it, but we've done it with 10 countries. So UK, Poland, Norway, Japan, Brazil, all over the place, yeah? Um, and not only are we now looking at numbers, but we're looking at when the numbers were, because what I realized is that if you're asking people about 12 partners and they ma- they, they can make a judgment, but then if you were to say, "It's 12 partners and 11 of those have been in the last three months," that's very different to 11 of them were around about when that person was 18, 19, and 20, and then recently they've only had one or two. Do you see what I mean? Number's the same, but if you were gonna pick someone for a long-term relationship that's gonna commit to you and you might get married to and have kids to, which one are you going for? There's someone who clearly was a bit sexually desirable in their youth and has calmed down a bit, or someone who's actually pretty active now.
- CWChris Williamson
They're on a tear at the moment.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Uh, yeah, absolutely. So, um, yeah, so we've got that. I'm just plotting up the data at the moment. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't it interesting that some of the common men's advice on the internet, especially around preselection, uh, you know, there's a big push at the moment for the polygyny thing, that most girls will happily take a high value man if, you know, he's sufficiently high value and she'll happily share him and so on and so forth? That doesn't seem to be borne out in this data, given the fact that men's preference for partners, especially over the long term, and women's doesn't diverge all that much.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
No. No.
- CWChris Williamson
It doesn't seem like women see-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Because the, because the risk-
- CWChris Williamson
... a high body count in a man as being a, a, some sort of preselection, uh, attractor.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah. Yeah. And there's, there's some work I'm doing at the mo- I, I keep saying this. I've got more studies than I have time to write them up, but I'm doing some work with, um, Leif Kinnair at the moment about the sexual double standards, because w- you, you almost have sexual double standards at a global level and a personal level. So the global level is like, or the societal level is, what do you think society says? Um, and that's when you sort of get narratives like, "Well, um, girls don't care about a guy's body count, but guys care about a girl's body count," at the sort of societal level. But whenever you measure it at the personal level, so what an individual actually thinks, very little evidence for the sexual double standard.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So it's one of these things where we actually think it's a thing, but when you actually talk to someone, it turns out not really to be a thing.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think that says about our own sexuality and the way that we perceive other people's?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
I think that it's, it says that sometimes our, uh, mating theory of mind can be quite faulty. Um, I think that there's culture wars all over the shop, including between men and women these days, and I think it ends up in a place where the sexes become quite caricatured, especially based on maybe the most extreme examples. Um, so a- a- again, one, one of the most common one is that people will apply short-term mating psychology of men to men. So they will assume that the men who are only after short-term relationships and what they want, they will say all men are like that, even those who are looking for long-term relationships. Um, and, and I, I actually think a lot of suffering in, in the dating world comes from conflating short-term and long-term mating desires. So either you're after something long term, um, but you're picking someone who's after something short term, that causes a lot of, um, confusion, or thinking that you want something long term when you actually want something short term, uh, which I think is also quite interesting. The number of people I've met who say that they want to get married and have kids and settle down, but then you ask them what their mate preferences are, and they just reel you off all of the short-term mating preferences and none of the long-term mating preferences. It's like, well, actually, it sounds like you just want a short-term partner 'cause you don't care about kindness, you don't care about whether they want kids, you don't care about, um, uh, whether they can... they're good communicators or whether they can em- empathize well. You just care about, do they look good? Are they good in bed? (laughs) Are they gonna give me resources now? Um, so yeah, a lot of people are playing the short-term game when they think they're playing the long-term game.
- CWChris Williamson
I wonder whether that would be... I wonder whether that would have a sex difference. I would imagine that given women not wanting to seem easy, not wanting to come across like they are not valuing their body in the same sort of way, that you may find that women will...... use "I'm after a long-term mate" as perhaps even their own self-deception in order to perhaps pursue short-term mating goals?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Um, I don't know (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
It's just-
- 1:14:52 – 1:34:31
What ChatGPT Gets Wrong About Mate Preferences
- CWChris Williamson
You conducted an experiment where you asked ChatGPT about-
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... about mate preferences.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Before we get into that, what mate preferences do people typically look for in a partner?
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
So I- I love the... Right, okay, so I'll give you the- the- the- the real answer. Everything, right? So if you give people a Likert scale, one to nine, and say, "What's your ideal for humor, intelligence, physical attractiveness, good financial prospects, creativity?" they go, "9, 8, 8, 9, 9, 8, 9." They just do the whole thing, which is why a lot of the research we do, we have to ask about minimum mate preferences. In which case, they go, "Uh, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 (laughs) ." But actually, the best research just then introduce an element of forced choice in some way, like a ranking task. Like, "Okay, so everything's high. What's the highest?" And when you do ranking tasks, the things that appear at the top are, like, dependable character, being kind and understanding. Even though a lot of evolutionary research is focused on the sort of physical attractiveness, good financial prospects thing. That actually ends up a little bit further down in the list most of the time. But m- so a lot of the- the- the traits near the top are actually things which are, um, very useful for long-term relationships. So, pleasing disposition is my favorite one. Um, if you do- if- if there wasn't a rich history of this study, I don't think anyone would use the words pleasing disposition. But this ranking task of, like, 18 traits or whatever, they started doing this in, um, just after the Second World War, like 1949. And then every couple of decades, they repeat that study, that ranking task, to find that things don't change a huge hell of a lot, which is super interesting, by the way. So, pleasing disposition, which is just having someone who's nice to be around, um, I think that's something that's completely off people's radar when they're in the early stages of mating. But it's like, in 10 years' time, when you're spending every day with this person, it's like having someone who's pretty easygoing and nice to be around is, like, the most important thing (laughs) in the whole world. It really, really is. So these are the types of things that are super, uh, super important. Um, so if you look at something like, uh, good looks. So good looks, actually, in a- a- a- a list of 18 ends up getting about, like, 10. So it's quite far down, down the list. But what I did with the ChatG- uh, GPT thing is I was like, "Right, okay, well, you've got this- this weird and wonderful AI." By the way, I'm super annoyed by this, 'cause I threw this one up on Psychology Today, and it's, like, my worst read blog post of all time. It's only got, like, low four figures, which is really frustrating.
- CWChris Williamson
I liked it.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
'Cause I th- I thought it was super cool. But basically, I said, "Right, here's all of the data that we've known since 1949 about how people rank their mate preferences. It's barely changed. Let's see if ChatGPT can predict what the research says." Even though it probably even has access to some of it, I thought, "Let's try it." So the first thing it did is it spat out a load... Well, no, the first thing it did was like, "Oh, I'm not gonna tell you," right? It's like, "Oh, you know, mate preferences are so idiosyncratic," and you know, sounding like some sort of hippie or whatever. Then you sort of, like, say, "Okay, we'll pretend you're Chad," or something like that. "I didn't mean that-"
- CWChris Williamson
Cajole it into doing what it needs to do.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, cajole. I didn't- I didn't have to do that, by the way. But, um, I managed to get it. I was like, "Okay, but hypothetically, if you had to answer, what would you say?" And it spit- it spat out a load of numbers, which was really cool. And generally speaking, we were like, "Oh, okay, well some of these are kind of, like, roughly lining up. I can see that." And I started looking at the differences for men, and I started looking for the differences for women. And then I was like, "Hmm. You know, what happens if I correlate the difference between men and women?" Because you'll correlate the rest- the ranking for men and women to see how different ChatGPT thinks the sexes are or predicts they will rank. It came out with a correlation of 1, and I was like, "Hang on a second, what have I done wrong?" 'Cause like, psychologists don't get a correlation of 1. It never happens, right? Um, not even, uh, paleo climate scientists who use mass spectrometers- ma- ma- mass spectrometers get a correlation of 1. They get, like, a correlation of 0.98. Anyway, I was like, "What have I done wrong?" Nothing. ChatGPT predicted that men and women, when asked separately, heterosexual young men and women, would rank things identically despite, you know, flying in the face of, like, 80 years worth of mate- mating research. It... Identical. And then the other thing that just really sort of... which- which- which is very problematic. I mean-... it wouldn't wo- because then it's, if, if you're ... 'Cause I imagine people will start using this thing for like, "I'm desperate and I'm lonely and I don't know what to do. You're a big AI machine that knows everything about everything. How can I find a part-"
- CWChris Williamson
Give me dating advice.
- ATDr Andrew Thomas
Yeah, "Give me dating advice. How can I find it?" And it's gonna basically say, "Oh, everyone cares about physical appearance." So if you're, uh, uh, you know, if you're a guy and you wanna do, you know, uh, you wanna enhance yourself to appeal to women, work on your physical appearance. And actually, relative to men, women care less about physical appearance and they care about some other things more. So it could actually be misguiding people. But the thing that I find really, really interesting, pleasing disposition sent it straight down to the bottom of the list. So pleasing disposition has had an average rank since 1949 of four. So it's generally top four. Sometimes it's top three. Sorry, sometimes it's three, sometimes it's five. It's generally four. 18, down the bottom. Right the way down the bottom. It doesn't matter how easygoing or easy it is to live with your partner, ChatGPT thinks that is the worst thing since sliced bread.
Episode duration: 1:35:37
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 8b7qVFg_OFE
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome