EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,022 words- 0:00 – 0:53
Intro
- RHRob Henderson
There was one study, they showed a series of women videos of men, and then at the end, they asked these women, "How sexually attractive is this man?" Then they showed a group of men the same videos of these same guys and asked them, "How likely is it that this man would win a physical fight with another man?" Then the researchers tracked those men in those videos and had them return 18 months later and asked them a bunch of questions, including, "How many sexual partners have you had over the last 18 months?" The correlation between how sexually attractive the women found these men and how many partners they had was zero, but there was a strong and significant correlation between how intimidating or formidable men rated them and how many sexual partners they recounted over the last 18 months. And so essentially, how tough a guy looks to men is a stronger predictor of his sexual success than how attractive he looks to women. (air whooshing)
- CWChris Williamson
You just defended your PhD thesis. What's that mean?
- 0:53 – 9:30
Rob’s PhD Thesis
- CWChris Williamson
- RHRob Henderson
That's right. So a PhD thesis, it's called a dissertation in the US. They call it a thesis here in the UK. It's just a, it's a culmination of the work you do throughout your years of study in a doctoral program. So at least within the field of psychology, typically, you write, uh, you know, a handful of papers, maybe three or four papers, and it's all supposed to build towards some overarching, uh, hypothesis, some kind of framework, and you run a series of empirical studies and, you know, hopefully you get the results you're looking for. And then that sort of, you know, it sort of builds towards, you know, here's, here's what all, all of this means. Here's how it contributes to the research, to the literature more broadly. And, uh, it's supposed to be this sort of original piece of scholarship. It doesn't necessarily have to be empirical either. Sometimes it can be theoretical. Uh, and I'm s- sure there's, like, a whole other set of, uh, criteria for the humanities, but yeah, it's a, it's a huge relief. I mean, when people say, uh, "Oh, when you finish your PhD thesis, you're gonna be so happy, you're gonna be so thrilled," and I was just, like, relieved, you know? Afterwards, I was just like, "Oh, thank God it's over." Like, "It's done." It's, you know, even though it went well, you know, I got the outcome I wanted, uh, it was still just, um, you know, it was still more just like this burden is lifted rather than just feeling, uh, elated or something, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
What's the thesis?
- RHRob Henderson
So the title of my PhD thesis is Physical and Social Threats Fortify Moral Judgments, and I got really interested in this, uh, when I was in undergrad. So I was taking, uh, classes by this experimental philosopher, Josh Knobe, who, uh, that's where basically I learned that you can use the tools of empirical psychology and social science to test people's moral intuitions. And morality generally has been kind of the wheelhouse of philosophy, you know, armchair philosophers, you know, pondering, what is morality? You know, what does it mean to be a moral person? What is moral character? And with, you know, some, some of the, uh, the instruments in psychology, you can come along and say like, "Well, what do people actually think about morality? What does the average person think about it?" And, you know, maybe some of your listeners will know about, you know, like, administering the, the trolley problem to people. Would people flip the switch? Would they not? That kind of thing. And I was taking classes with, with Paul Bloom too, uh, when I was in undergrad and learned about the sort of developmental origins of morality, and while I was there, I learned about this interesting link between disgust and morality. And many people think of disgust as this emotion that people experience, uh, in response to, uh, you know, contamination, illness, infection. But there's a lot of interesting work indicating that it overlaps with our moral, uh, judgments as well, that people who are very sensitive to disgust also tend to condemn wrongdoers more harshly. Uh, if you induce disgust in people, show them some disgusting images or, uh, get them to smell some repulsive, uh, odors, subsequently their moral judgments become intensified. And so I was, I thought to myself, you know, when I was reading all of this and when I came to Cambridge, I was wondering, is there, (clicks tongue) you know, are there other forms of threat beyond contamination? You know, contamination is a threat to your survival. It's a, it's an evolutionary threat. Are there other kinds of evolutionary threats, challenges to your survival and, and potentially your reproduction, um, (clicks tongue) that could also, uh, intensify your moral judgments? So I did some stuff on, you know, people who were worried about COVID in 2020 were also, uh, stricter in their moral judgments for a variety of different kinds of, uh, moral violations. Not just things like... You know, I, some of the items I used were, uh, (clicks tongue) you know, using a stranger's toothbrush. How wrong do you think that is? And of course, like, of course, people who are worried about COVID will also say, like, "Using a toothbrush that doesn't belong to you is, you know, that's, that's horrible." But it was also things like, uh, you know, betraying a family member or stealing from a store. You know, kind of deception, betrayal, subversion, things that are unrelated to contamination. People who were worried about COVID were, uh, stricter with those kinds of violations. Similar to social threat as well. Similar to age. The age one was the most interesting to me. Um, (clicks tongue) I'm, I'm working on, on this paper, trying to get it published. I think you and I might have talked about this offline before too. Uh, that essentially, uh, there's an, there's a, a direct association between as people grow older, their moral judgments become stricter, and this is controlling for, uh, political orientation, it's controlling for income, for education, you know, so these kind of demographic variables that you would assume. You know, oh, when older people, you know, as they, as they age, they become more politically conservative and that's why they ha- adopt these sort of moralistic attitudes. But even when you control for that, uh, there's something going on here about a- the aging process, and I suggest it has something to do with vulnerability, risk perception. As you grow older, um, the threats around you appear, uh, to be especially formidable, and I suggest this is also potentially why, um, (clicks tongue) there are these interesting moral judgment differences between men and women, such that women are more, uh, strict in their moral judgments relative to men. And some of that can be explained with, um, just the reproductive, uh, differences between men and women. Women have historically been, uh, more at ri- you know, more at risk, uh, for when they're pregnant, when they're carrying young children. They should just be extra alert to potential dangers. Uh, but I also suggest that if you control for certain things like muscularity, uh, height, BMI, all of these other kinds of things, I would bet that the moral judgment differences and disgust sensitivity would actually shrink. I just think that if you're a sort of a, a strong, young, robust, and healthy person, the world just looks less dangerous to you. And, and this includes moral wrongdoers. You think like, "Oh, that guy's doing something bad, but I can, I can take him." Uh, this is sort of the, the, the, the punchline of, of what my thesis is about.
- CWChris Williamson
Very interesting. So, I think we spoke about this last week, that w-... a lot of evolutionary researchers think that morality is basically just rule- adaptive rules for human survival, uh, given more fluffy and philosophical language.
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, interesting. Uh, I mean, I wouldn't call them even, even rules really. I mean, these are, at, at least, you know, the best versions of, I think, evolutionary psychology and social science research. It's supposed to be descriptive, right? It's sort of here's how things are. Evolutionary psychology it's about here's how things were in the ancestral environment. A lot of people get those confused, right, where they think, um, oh, we evolved to, to do X because that's, um, you know, evolutionarily advantageous, but it's actually evolutionary advantageous in the, uh, ancestral environment, right? We're, we're, what is it? We're Stone Age beings in, in the, in this sort of Space Age or something along... You know, we're, we're in the modern environment. We didn't evolve to live in a world with, you know, limitless calories, endless entertainment, you know, drugs that can stimulate the dopaminergic system in your brain. Like, all of this stuff, right? But 100,000 years ago, you know, there were, there are certain mental adaptations that helped us survive in that kind of environment. And so they're not really rules necessarily and in fact, you know, there's... A lot of the, the, the psychological mechanisms that we have, they actually sort of evolved to, to counteract other people's psychological mechanisms as well. You know, like, there was, uh, there's debate right now, I think, about, you know, age differences in, um, in relationships, for example, where women might shame men for being interested in younger women, and some men will, uh, you know, they'll, they'll say something like, "Well, we, we evolved to be attracted to young women." And that's true. Men did evolve to be attracted to younger women because, you know, in the evolutionary environment younger women were more fertile, and so on. However, women evolved to use... And, and, well, people in general, but in this context, women evolved to use moral norms to shame men so that they in turn can, uh, uh, eh, be, eh, exploit an advantage there as well, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-huh.
- RHRob Henderson
Such that they can ex- um, sort of shame high-status men into not dating younger women and date them instead, and that in itself is an evolutionary mechanism. So you have all of these sort of competing modules and mechanisms and processes, and each person is trying to, uh, uh, obtain an advantage sort of at the level of the genes, right? And so, you know, we can, we can lob evolutionary mechanisms at each other. "Well, I, I evolved to do this, you evolved to do that." You know what I mean? So, so I think, uh, that, that's also important to keep in mind when, when people sort of use evolutionary explanations as an excuse for this or that behavior. It's, you know, people are going to use their own sort of evolutionary prerogative to, to undercut that as well. You know what I mean?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I mean, intrasexual competition has been one of the most fascinating things that I've learned about this year. Uh, I had Cristina Duranti on talking about it and then I've got, uh, Joyce Benenson, uh, toward the end of this year-
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, she's great.
- CWChris Williamson
... yeah, who's just gonna be such money. She's the one, I think maybe the last episode of this year, and I can't, I can't wait to have her on.
- 9:30 – 17:45
The Male Warrior Hypothesis
- CWChris Williamson
But you, uh, you sent me an article that you've got that's just come out called The Male Warrior Hypothesis. What's that?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, the Male Warrior Hypothesis, uh, it's funny. So, so Joyce Benenson has written about this, uh, as have others, and it's a hypothesis within the evolutionary psychology research, uh, basically suggesting that men and women evolved different psychological mechanisms to deal with within-group and between-group conflict. And so, you know, based on a series of different studies, uh, as well as sort of combing through the anthropological and archeological record, researchers have suggested that essentially men are, uh, more hostile within their groups to one another, uh, especially overt hostility. Uh, you know, so there's research indicating, you know, early on, it was, it was considered basically undisputable that men were more aggressive to one another, um, but then when researchers sort of expanded this definition of aggression, they actually found no differences, no significant differences, once they accounted for indirect aggression. Things like rumor-spreading, ostracism, either ending a friendship or threatening to end it. Those are sort of these, uh, indirect aggressive acts, and so in those cases, um, there's no difference. But the overt hostility, uh, that men show one another is, is definitely more pronounced relative to women. Uh, however, researchers have also found that, um, that men are more likely to suppress their hostility toward one another when they encounter, uh, another group of men, uh, say, a group of outsiders. And they hypothesize that this is because in the evolutionary environment, when men are, especially young men, most of this is going to be in the context of young men, when they're within a group, say, uh, uh, an evolutionary band 50 or 100,000 years ago, uh, it's in their interest to sort of one-up one another, mock one another, tease one another, and look good in that community, especially because they're trying to impress, uh, young women. Uh, but men also evolved to band together and to either defend their community from, uh, uh, hostile outsiders and invaders, and they evolved to be those hostile (laughs) uh, invaders, and go, uh, uh, capture resources and women and territory from other groups as well. And so essentially men are, are simultaneously more hostile and more cooperative, whereas women, uh, their, their aggression is expressed indirectly and verbally and sort of in this roundabout way, and yet when they, uh, compete with other women, it's, uh, it, it appears that they're less likely to suppress that, uh, that, that hostility that they show one another. And there was a, there was a study that came out, uh, this year. Joyce Benenson was an, was an author of, of this paper, and they were looking at, uh, high school and college athletes. And they basically found that, uh, you know, they, they asked these athletes questions about how they interacted with one another when they're on the team and how they interacted when they were competing against other teams, and they found that, generally speaking, especially for acts of overt aggression, male athletes reported more from their own teammates. You know, name-calling, fistfights, shoving each other. Like, I think one of them was, like, spitting on me, uh, you know, getting shoved in a locker. Like, all of the kinds of stuff that, that, that happens, uh, in, in male sports teams, right? And, you know, men reported more of that happening between one another...Uh, but then when they, when they asked the, the male athletes about how they competed with one another against another sports team and how much hostility they showed their own teammates, it was, it was very low. Uh, and essentially it seemed like the, the hostility they, they typically directed toward one another suddenly became hyper-focused on defeating the other team. Whereas for the female athletes, uh, they reported, uh, you know, a relatively high amount of indirect aggression, rumors, ostracism. One of the items was, uh, you know, have you, what, have you ever been left out when the other teammates went out, uh, w- went to dinner without you, things like that, going out to eat without you. Um, and there were relatively high levels of that, and then they asked these, these female athletes, uh, about their experiences playing with their teammates against another team, and, and again, like the, the, the rates of, of intra-groups, so within-group hostility, were actually still relatively high. Uh, you know, w- women relative to men were less likely to pass the ball to one another or shun one another or like, you know, maybe whisper something to another girl. Uh, things like that. And so, um, so the overall idea of this male warrior hypothesis is that, yeah, guys, uh, are, are sort of extra hostile, uh, in, in basically every single context, but in a sense they're actually more cooperative as well in that, you know, when they're up against another group, another team, perhaps another army or an invading force, uh, they can sort of let those tensions go and, you know, c- uh, come together with one another. (sniffs) And, you know, I, I think this, this distinction between indirect versus d- direct aggression is important and it's interesting because, you know, so, so I, I'm ... In that piece that, that I, I sent to you about the male warrior hypothesis, I, um, discussed this excerpt from this book, uh, called Yanohama, and it was recommended on Twitter by, by the great David Buss, who I know you've had on this show. And this is an amazing book. This, uh, so it's this Spanish girl, this European girl in the 1930s gets kidnapped by these, uh, these Amazonian ... In the book, you know, the book was, came out in the 1960s, so they referred to them as Amazonian Indians. Um, and she's kidnapped as a young girl, and one of the, one of the stories she tells in her recounting of what happened to her throughout this experience, um ... And she lived with them for decades, uh, through, with, with various bands of, of Yanohama, uh, tribes. Yanohama is this sort of overarching name for, uh, a whole series of foraging communities, uh, in, in South America, and they're constantly at war with one another in conflict. I mean, they, they were sort of like modern-day hunter-gatherers essentially. And so Helen Valero says that when she arrived in this new tribe, there was a, a, a girl there who didn't like her, you know, a, a girl who was roughly the same age as her, and gave her this packet of, of folded leaves and said like, "Here. Here's a snack for you. You must be hungry." And Helen takes this snack and she smells it and she's repulsed by the, the, the odor, and so she sets it down somewhere. And then, uh, a, a few hours later a little boy in the, in the tribe falls deathly ill, and he says he got this, uh, this little leaf packet from, from Helen Valero. H- he said, "You know, she gave it to me." And the whole entire tribe turns on her and they're like, "Why did you try to poison this boy?" Like, "Who is this outsider girl who's trying to poison us?" Like, "Why are you doing this to the children?" And they ostracize her and banish her, and she, she like literally is running through the forest while several of the men are, are shooting arrows at her, trying to kill her, and they're, th- yeah. S- so, so, so this was an interesting example of, of kind of this indirect aggression, right? I mean, it's not like this girl like, you know, went up to her and bashed her head with a rock or something. She gave her a snack knowing that two things could happen, right? Because, by the way, when she gave her the snack she said, "If you don't like it ..." 'Cause she saw Helen smell it and say, "I don't, I don't like the smell." And she said, "Well, if you don't like it, you can give it to someone else." So she knew two things could happen. Either Helen eats this and dies (laughs) , or she gives it to someone and is responsible for the death of someone else and gets ostracized. So that's a win-win situation, and this is an act of indirect aggression. But if Helen were to die in this situation, you know, this, this girl Helen Valero, um, the girl who gave her the snack would not be counted as her murderer, right? Like, the, the sort of steps between the snack and the death of Helen Valero are, you know, there, there are steps involved such that the girl would not be blamed for this, and I think this is a sort of a, a, a extra interesting example of, of indirect aggression that is, you know, often more perpetrated by women relative to men. And, you know, I, I, I write in there that, you know, if, if, if this had been a, a situation among men where like this new outsider male comes in and the other guys don't like him, they're not like, "Hmm. How can I like, you know, kill this guy directly?" It would be like, you know, like basically stepping up on him and be like show me what you're made of, and just like shove him, or they'd, they'd organize, uh, a way to kill him in his sleep. You know, it would be a for- a, a very sort of direct and forceful attempt to put this, this, uh, newcomer in their place, and so this to me sort of gets at this, this difference between, um, you know, this sort of overt male aggression versus covert female aggression.
- 17:45 – 23:05
Are Men the Cause of Tribalism?
- CWChris Williamson
Why do you think it is that women don't seem to band together against, uh, an out-group foe in the same way that men do?
- RHRob Henderson
It's an interesting question. One, one possibility and, and perhaps the, the most, you know, the, the more, the more sort of, uh, convincing possibility to me is, you know, sort of riffing on this, this quote from the evolutionary psychologist, uh, John Tooby, uh, he was a sort of a pioneer of the field, and he had this line. It was something like, you know, cultural vary ... Like, I'll, I'll believe that cultural variation is responsible for, uh, uh, you know, the, like human nature if you show me a, an example of a tribe in which women band together to capture men as husbands. And, you know, there's, there's literally no example in the human record of women ever doing that, and there's a, there's another story from the, uh, the anthropologist, uh, Napoleon ... I, I don't know if I'm getting his name, his last name right. It's like Chagnon. C-H-A-G-N-O-N.... and he talks about how... So, he, he would spend time, he actually spent time with the, with the Yanomamö, uh, in South America. And his belief, as was the belief of many other anthropologists at the time, is that, you know, the, the reason why men in these small-scale tribal societies go to war is over resources. It's... And especially over meat. You know, capturing territory, finding good grounds for hunting and those kinds of things. And he, uh, you know, he floated this idea to these, uh, to, to, to these, uh, uh, Yanomamö tribes, and they laughed at him and they were like, "That's not why we go to war, man. We go to war over women." Like, "That's the reason we..." Like, w- uh, like, "We like meat, but we like women a lot more," was actually a direct line that he put in his book. Um, and so that is probably the reason, right? I mean, throughout this book, uh, that David Buss recommended on the Yanomamö, it, there are just countless cases of men, like, you know, getting into conflict both within the groups, uh, uh, to, to say, like, you know, "Who's going to marry this young woman?" Or, you know, "Who's, who's, uh, you know, who's going to come together to, to take, to take out the other, the other, uh, tribes around them?" And there's just constant male-on-male violence and conflict, and it's almost inevitably, uh, subtle, uh, s- surrounds this idea of, um, you know, who is going to marry who, or who's going to have children with who, or who's going to have more, you know, more sexual partners. And, you know, men have a, you know, stronger sex drive, they have more interest in variety. They have, uh, a sort of a, a, a reputational concern to demonstrate how tough they are, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- RHRob Henderson
... whereas women don't necessarily have those same set of concerns. And also because, you know, women are the more valuable sex biologically, so they don't want to (laughs) get, get involved in physical conflict.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Okay. Yeah. Tha- uh, it is interesting to me that the tribalism that we see amongst everybody, smeared across society, seems to-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... fall apart at least a little bit when men aren't in the picture. Uh, and it's-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, you're n- you're talking about basically women banding together against an out-group less than men would, on average, right?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Especially the sort of overt hostility, right? So, so a lot of the research supporting the male warrior hypothesis, you know, it indicates that, that men show, you know, higher levels of, of, uh, preference for the in-group, more, like, xenophobia and more sort of, uh, deni- denigration of, of, you know, generally the, the out-group. Whereas for women it's, it's less overtly expressed, right? It's, it's more sort of fear and avoidance. You know, like if there's this sort of strange force, let's just avoid it, stay away from it and, and don't cause any trouble. Um, yeah. So, so that is a, uh, you know, there is a sex difference there.
- CWChris Williamson
The interesting thing, I suppose, is that it suggests that human cooperation is a consequence-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... of human competition. Like, that one of the main reasons-
- RHRob Henderson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... that cooperation exists is simply because human competition was so high.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, there's, there's some interesting, uh, research on the... You know, they've done some sort of mathematical modeling where they pit, um, you know, these, these sort of computerized simulations of, well, you know, what if, what if one group cooperates all the time versus some of the time? And, you know, what if one group always competes? And so on and so... But basically, they find that these two things tend to arise simultaneously, that you can't really get the kinds of high levels of cooperation that you see with humans without high levels of competition as well. I mean, humans are, like, by far the most cooperative species on the planet. I mean, we, like, literally can coordinate millions or, or even billions of people across the globe. Whereas, um, we're also the most sort of deadly species as well, where we'll get into sort of mass-scale killings and conflict and genocide and all those things. But in order to pull off a genocide, you actually have to be an extremely cooperative species is the kind of irony of that, right? Richard Wrangham has written about this and others is, like, you know, that sort of, uh, there's that double-sided aspect of our nature is that cooperation can lead to sort of incredible levels of, of mass conflict and, and competition.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, yeah, because the cooperation enables you to be able to deploy that competition at scale and leverage it in increasingly vicious ways. Didn't...
- 23:05 – 29:23
Chimp Aggression is 100x Human Aggression
- CWChris Williamson
I seem to remember you wrote about people presume that humans have got more aggression than other animals, and that we're totally undomesticated and that the wild is perfect without us. But chimps show a 100 to 150 times the amount of aggression than humans do, and the peace-loving bonobos show less aggression than the chimps, but still way more than any human society ever recorded.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, I wrote about that when I was discussing, uh, Richard Wrangham's book. He's the, uh, the Harvard evolutionary biologist. He wrote a great book called The Goodness Paradox. And yeah, some of the findings that he, uh, unearths and discusses in that book, one of them was this... You know, there's this general belief like, you know, if, if, if, like, if someone is behaving, um, you know, es- ex- especially violently like a serial killer or something, we're like, "Oh, he's, he's inhuman." You know, "There's something wrong with him." Like, "Where's his humanity?" Uh, and yet Rich- Richard Wrangham points out that like, actually, you know, the, the ability to kill, like, at scale, large numbers of people, that is uniquely a human ability, right? Like, there's no chimpanzee who's committed, like, mass-scale genocide against their own species the way that humans have. And yeah, I mean, the, the, the figures were, were stunning. So, so it was, um, it was 150 to 500 times... Uh, so, so chimpanzees specifically, within their own groups, right? Like, there's, he's not even talking about inter, inter, intergroup conflict among chimpanzees. Just among their fellow group members, their peers, they're 150 to 500 times more violent than, uh, human hunter-gatherer, uh, coalitions. Um, and, and bonobos are roughly half that violent. So, you know, what, what is that? Something like 250 times, uh, more violent than, than human beings. So yes, they're, they're, uh, they're half as violent as chimps, but still far, far more, more violent than human beings are. And so yeah, there's, uh, the whole self-domestication idea was, was fascinating to me. This idea that, you know... A- and you actually see a, a small-scale version of this among chimps, but human beings even more so, where...... part of the reason why humans are relatively docile and cooperative and can follow norms and all of these kinds of things and build societies is because we care deeply about what other people think about us. We sort of have this built-in social anxiety, you know, some, some researchers have called it the sociometer, uh, where we sort of monitor how we appear in the eyes of others. And the reason why we have all this is because in the ancestral environment ... This is actually before the ancestral environment. So, Richard Wrangham suggests this was maybe s- five or 600,000 years ago this started occurring, what he calls the execution hypothesis, which is that whenever an especially aggressive or hostile male appeared within a community, uh, and started monopolizing resources or taking the other men's wives and so on, it was around this time that, that humans started to form the ability to speak. So, language evolved, the ability to use tools and weapons had evolved, and the sort of, uh, uh, weaker and less formidable men were able to form this sort of whispering consensus of like, "Hey, this guy is a problem." Like, he, you know, he took my wife, he took your wife. Like, you know, what's going ... you know, so how do we get rid of this guy? And so they'd wait for him to fall asleep, or they'd, um ... There's one example that he points out in the book of, uh, of this hunter-gatherer group. There was a, there was this sort of bullying male that the others didn't like, and so I think they, they dared him to climb up this tree to get some, some, you know, particularly appealing fruit. And so the guy sets his weapons down, he's like, "You know, I'll show you guys. Let me get this piece of fruit up in this tree," and he climbs up the tree, and when he comes down the guys just, you know, they take his weapons that he had left and just start stabbing him and, you know, problem solved. And so, so the, the guys who cared, uh, who, who had no, um, or, or little to no, uh, um, sort of concern about their reputation or how they appeared of like, "I'm just gonna do what I want and just be this sort of bad boy alpha male," um, if they weren't able to, to cultivate allies and to, uh, sort of develop a reputation as a useful person in that group, then the others would just kill them, right? And so we are the descendants of the humans who didn't die and who did sort of develop over time this concern about, like, you know, any, any kind of ridicule, criticism, any sort of stinging comment, uh, that, that lingers with us because, you know, in, in the ancestral environment, you know, e- every single negative comment could have potentially life-threatening consequences.
- CWChris Williamson
Life is too difficult ancestrally for people to get through on their own, which means that inevitably you need cooperation. That means that you need to temper down the aggression, the dark triad traits that you've got, all of that stuff. You need to bring that down to a level which is, uh, perhaps sufficiently high that it means you are more effective than your competitors, but not so high that it crosses the threshold where you get your weapons taken away from you while you're up a tree and get stabbed on the way down. That's the balance-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's ...
- CWChris Williamson
... people are, are trying to strike.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. That's a neat kind of a ... Yeah, that's, that's like a, it's a sort of a, it's a neat way to tie that in, what you're saying, with you, with the male warrior hypothesis, where you need a little bit of that sort of, uh, aggression and that callousness, uh, because, you know, i- if you had none of that then you would just be overrun by a more aggressive community. Uh, but if you had too much of it, then the whole community would start to fall apart and people would be h- hostile and suspicious to one another.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Also, I suppose the males ancestrally that would have been a little bit more aggressive would have been seen as more useful.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, they would have been formidable, uh, foes and useful allies for people to have. And again-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's pushing that too far. It's, it, it's the, I've, I've really, really enjoyed some of the conversations I've had about psychopaths recently, and, uh-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... Kevin Dutton, he's the, uh, uh, head of the communication of science for Auckland University in, in Australia, or Adelaide maybe, uh, and he was talking about this, saying it's adaptive to have a couple of psychopaths in your group because it means that if you've got to go and do some really messed up stuff, you can just send them in there. They're the special forces, they're the berserkers, they're the Vikings going to raid Lindisfarne or whatever. And it's useful to have them, but as soon as you start to get too many, it makes for a, a very unstable society. So, you can't hold onto that.
- 29:23 – 47:35
Why Women Liking Dad-Bods Offends Men
- CWChris Williamson
Speaking about-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... some of the, uh, secondary sex characteristics and the male com- competition stuff, I had this idea about dad bods after I saw a competition online. So, there was a video (laughs) , I saw a video go up about dad bods, and I noticed in the comments a lot of male accounts really, really upset. They seemed to be very triggered, very, uh, discounting. It was a woman that was talking about why she likes dad bods and why dad bods are superior to guys that think that they're in shape, and a lot-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... of guys in the comments telling this woman that she doesn't know what she's talking about, which, you know, is just, i- is the internet for you.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And you don't know, I don't know how much this woman was posturing, how much she was doing it as a massive troll, whatever. And it got me thinking about why it is that guys seem to have such an aversion to women specifically praising, and the press and the media, sort of upholding dad bods as some sort of, um, uh, pedestal that men should try and attain. And I think that there's a lot of things going on here. The first, most obvious one is that guys that train don't want their efforts that they've put into their own physique to be in vain, right?
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
That makes, that makes a lot of sense.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
They have decided that this is something which is worthy of getting. There is almost no guy on the planet who would be able to say with a straight face that they're going to the gym and training hard without it including in that, "I'm doing this to make myself more attractive to women," uh, or-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... whoever it is that they're trying to be attractive to. So, th- that's the, that's a first one, but I don't think that that really accounts for anywhere near the kind of effect that we're seeing here. I think another element is that most men, even if they're not the sort of ones who go to the gym and train, would look at the body of a man that does go to the gym and train and respect it. And I think that-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... one of the concerns that they see there is that they value something which is now being undermined by someone that they presume their model of the world is supposed to be able to understand.... "Hang on a second. I thought I understood what it was that women wanted. I kind of want this thing, I don't want it sexually, but I want it, uh, in a way of, I, I think it's something that's admirable." And, you know, the secondary sex characteristics that suggest that men actually get bigger and go to the gym more for formidability than for attraction, th- that, that plays into this-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... pretty perfectly. (laughs) Another element, I think, is if you roll the clock forward one more step from there, it might be a little bit of internalized homophobia from men, that they look at another guy-
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... who is in good condition and they say, "I bet that guy slays puss. I bet that all of the women want him. I value his body. I like that body in a, uh, uh, a way that makes me th- Why am I looking at this guy's body so much?" Or, well, it's because I wanna model it for myself and, you know, it's like, it's a, it's me doing it for women.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
But then to be told, "Hang on a second. All of this that you're doing from a woman doesn't make any sense at all. We're not, I'm not concerned about that," might make you think, "Oh, holy shit. This might mean I'm gay. Ah, ah, ah, ah." And then there's a let-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... off valve. Do you understand what I mean?
- RHRob Henderson
I do. That one seems... The other ones I, I kid, I, th- those make sense. This one's a little too, I don't know, maybe.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm rolling the dice. I'm rolling the dice here.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay? But what-
- RHRob Henderson
No, no, I, I like it. I think it's, uh, it's, I, I like that there's sort of the creativity of it. It's, you know, there's like a Freudian element to it. I think it's, you know, it's interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe. I don't know.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah.
- 47:35 – 54:58
Is Formidability in Men More Attractive Than Appearance?
- CWChris Williamson
mean to say that masculine traits amongst men seem... and secondary sex characteristics, seem to be more about formidability than attraction? They are antlers rather than peacocks' tails because it seems like men judging other men's formidability is more accurate at, uh, estimating the number of sexual partners that a man has, so how successful he is with women, than his attractiveness is. How... given the fact that women say they're not attracted to it, and yet the men that have these things are the ones that are the most successful, does that not just mean that women don't know what they're attracted to?
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Revealed versus stated preferences?
- RHRob Henderson
Uh, I... Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a good point. And I'm, I'm, I mean, I'm inclined to say that like th- they... I think they, they would acknowledge that those things are like more attractive than, than the average or maybe not having those things, but they would state, you know, this other kind of preference of like, "Yeah, I want a guy who's muscular, but not too muscular," or something like that. Um, but yeah, there, there is this... I mean, for, for human behavior in general, right, there's often this mismatch between what people say and what people do. And yeah, stated versus real- revealed preference, and I think there is, uh... there's something like that going on here too, where... like it... for, for men, what, what is like the, you know, more so than for women, a strong predictor of your sexual success, your romantic success is your status, right? And status is this sort of amorphous, unc-... like y- you can't like... you know, you can't look at status under a microscope or something, right? It's something that, that exists in the minds of other people, and people have to agree that you have it, right? Like you don't get to decide if you have it, other people do. And in this instance, um, throughout evolutionary history, it seems that men have been the ones to confer status on other men more so than women. And I know that Jordan Peterson has made this point too about like how, you know, there are sort of these, uh, dominance or competence hierarchies and women sort of use those... you know, they sort of, uh, could b- use this as a sort of cognitively outsourced, this burdensome task of picking a, a, an attractive partner, and sort of let the guys find it out.
- CWChris Williamson
Just filter the guys off the top of the, the hierarchy.
- RHRob Henderson
Exactly.... and they don't, like ... O- oftentimes women don't even know or care what the contest is, right? I make this point in, in, in that article, uh, about how, like, women, a lot of women don't even, uh, like, they, they don't like sports or they don't watch sports, but they still find athletes attractive, right? They're like-
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, he-
- RHRob Henderson
... "I don't know what you're doing out in that field, but I love athletes." You know?
- CWChris Williamson
How, how fucking good, how good would it be to create some sort of competition between men where the outcome was completely arbitrary? Let's say that it was-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... um, correctly picking the tosses of a coin, right? And you have this huge-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... pool of men, 100 men over time, and it's like a round robin type scenario, and then it's knockout stages all the way to the top. And then get the women to rate the attractiveness of the men over time, and maybe run the co-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... run that a bunch of different times and run different women through and see if the guys that won a competition which was completely based in look are the ones that are given more attractiveness. And if you can have someone ... You could have to control it somehow where you had attractiveness before and attractiveness after. How much does winning a completely arbitrary game improve your attractiveness to women?
- RHRob Henderson
It's a, it's a good question. I think that ... Uh, so if you were to carry out that, that experiment, you would need to have, you'd need to introduce an additional, uh, element, which would be, uh, other men, uh, respecting the winner. I think that's a key component here.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yes.
- RHRob Henderson
It's like, it's not just winning the contest, it's winning a contest that matters to, to men in particular, right? Like if, if, if you win the, the, the coin tossing contest or whatever and you have a bunch of other guys being like, "Oh, that was incredible man. That was awesome." You know, high fives and taking pictures and everything.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, yeah. You need to, you need to observe them being competitive.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Pedestalizing the person that won.
- RHRob Henderson
Ex- yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think that is the, uh, that, that would actually be, be the key here for, for women, sort of, uh, what, like, their, the variability of their attractiveness ratings would shift somewhat based on that. Um, and I think, like, basically, like, uh, uh, there, there's just, like, interesting papers on this about, like, how, you know, so, so the sports competition is one where maybe women aren't particularly interested in sports, but yet they find athletes attractive. Uh, historically, um, you know, a lot of women, even educated women were, were illiterate, and yet they still found, uh, uh, uh, well-known authors to be attractive. Uh, you know, like, they, they find painters and artists attractive, you know, even if they may not necessarily understand what's going on with the art. But they see that the, the respect and prestige that the artist accrues from the art community or from the sort of, uh, the, the, the class of people that they're around, those kinds of things. And so, I mean, you can see this with ... I mean, to me one of the more amusing examples of this is like, uh, guys who play video games on YouTube get groupies. You know, like, they're just like, uh, uh, this guy, like, playing games and, like, uploading a live stream and commenting on it, and they have a million subscribers or whatever. And, uh, and I've seen, like, n- news coverage and media articles about like, "Yeah, he's a, a 19-year-old kid who plays video games all day, and he's getting love letters and, you know, uh, girls messaging him on Instagram," and all this stuff. And it's like, if he was just a dude sitting at home playing video games, he wouldn't get a single love letter, right? But the fact that he has a, a million other nerds out there (laughs) like, saying like, "Oh, I love you man. You're, you know, you're my number one." Whatever. Like, you're very ... Yeah, so.
- CWChris Williamson
We've preselected this as the king of our group. Well yeah, it's so funny because-
- RHRob Henderson
The king of the gamers.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. The same accusation that's thrown at men as them retreating from society and not being a viable mate for women, video games in the basement, spending too much time on screens. If you just tune that up to high performance and everybody else says-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... "Yeah, I know that he's doing the thing that people say is the antithesis of being attractive to women, but he's the best at it," you go, "Oh, yeah."
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"Well, now he's super attractive."
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's, uh ... I think that, like, those, like, there's something about, um, like, winning the contest but then also accruing respect and esteem and prestige of, of other people, right? I mean, there's ... If, if you look at the research on, like, uh, um, the happiness, uh, psychology research. Um, you know, sociometric status is a stronger predictor of happiness than socioeconomic status, and sociometric status is respect and admiration from your peers. That is the thing that is actually a stronger predictor of happiness than how much money you have or your, you know, sort of occupational status or something like that. And, uh, and oftentimes, I mean, the reason why people work so hard to obtain so much money is to actually, uh, uh, obtain the sort of affections of other people, right? Like, that's sort of ultimately what, uh, people are, are, are, are striving for. Both, both men and, and women as well. Uh, and so, so that, that aspect of, of, um, mating psychology about how, like, yes it matters how you're viewed by the opposite sex. But to me the interesting part of, of sort of I guess the male mating psychology aspect or, or what females sort of ultimately choose is, like, it, it matters at least as much what other guys think of you. You know, that sort of is a, is a more strong predictor than what the women think of you.
- 54:58 – 1:01:11
Are Women More Attractive the More They Are Respected?
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that this preselection for mates works in reverse? Do you think that men are more attractive, uh, more attracted to women that other women think are impressive or high status or whatever?
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm. I, I think that it would, it would probably ... The answer is probably yes, but th- the effect would be much smaller than the effect of, of being, you know, a high status or prestigious or something, in terms of, like, how you appear, how a man would appear to a woman. You know, there was a, there was a fascinating study indicating that women are ... What was it? It was like women are a thousand times more sensitive to a man's, uh, income or socioeconomic status than men are to women. And so, in a positive direction, right? Basically the more, you know, high socioeconomically you're doing in life, the more attractive you are to women. And so, you know, that (laughs) that indicates that, like, yes, there's a positive effect for men but it's one-one thousandth of the size-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
... of the effect. So there's something there, but it's not a lot. There was, uh, uh, you know, there was, there was, there was some research on, uh, on Tinder, you know, indicating that if you're a man with a master's degree you get twice as many matches as a man with a bachelor's degree, and a woman with a master's degree gets ... I think it's eight or 10% more matches than a woman with a ba- So there's, like, these small effects.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
Like yeah, you'll get a little more ... Your, your status can help, but not to the, not to the same extent. I mean, it's, it's interesting. Even with, uh, with, like, your friends and your peer groups, you know, like, what, what men choose as far as, like, uh-... and this may sort of tie into the warrior hypothesis too, the male warrior hypothesis, is that like men ... If you ask men what kind of friends they like, you know, what, what, what, uh, characteristics would you desire in a male friend, um, men are much more likely than women ... young men are much more likely than young women to say they want a friend who's a creative, intelligent, ambitious, socially connected, all of the s- sort of qualities that are proxies for status, right? And I think the reason for this is that becau- because status looms so large in male romantic prospects, and, you know, basically some of that status can actually rub off, right? Where like if you are a-
- CWChris Williamson
The trickle-down effect.
- RHRob Henderson
... ex- (laughs) yeah, exactly. What is that? Like, like trickle down, like the entourage trickle-down effect or something where like if you're just friends or like a, like a, a, a hangar, hangar on of like some rock star, you're going to get probably more attention than if you're just a random dude, right? Whereas for women, it doesn't quite work in the same way where like status ... You know, it, it's, it probably being friends with like a female rock star or celebrity, you do get some benefits, but in terms of like being friends with them and attracting, uh, uh, more men or a higher, uh, higher quality mate or something like that, the effect is probably much weaker for them.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, absolutely.
- RHRob Henderson
So it's just ... Yeah, it's just different, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Think about the sort of changes in lifestyle that you would have. Yeah, you can fly around the world with your bestie, but it, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be surrounded by good potential mates. Whereas if you manage to befriend Dan Bilzerian, then you, you, you-
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... can expect the kind of life that you're in for. So speaking of this, the, um, I'm thinking about the reversal again of this, where women who pre-select men, uh, Pete S- Davidson that was w- in a relationship with Kim Kardashian and now appears to be slowly running through every hot chick in Hollywood, uh, Dan Bilzerian as well, it's just, you know, the, the epitome of pre-selection.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Other women find this man attractive, therefore other women downstream from that woman will think ... They've outsourced again their status-seeking, uh, radar to other women and gone-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... "Ah, that is a man that's potentially of high status." I mean, it's like commonly held wisdom when it comes to your dating profile online that at least one of the photos should have you with other women in it, and the other women should be quite attractive-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... because it suggests that you are the kind of man that spends time around attractive women, which is pre-selection. I wonder whether the reverse would be negatively correlated for women, if you were to see a woman regularly around different good-looking guys, that that would be disincentivizing to other high-status males that may be considering pursuing her.
- RHRob Henderson
So I've seen research on this. This was before the Tinder era. I think these papers were probably like around 2010. David Buss might have actually been an author on one of them, where they, they basically did this sort of pre-selection studies where, you know, they'll, they'll show women participants, you know, a guy alone, a guy with a group of guys, and a guy with a group of women, and invariably, the guy with the group of women, they found him more attractive. Um, and they did the study with, uh, with men where they showed a woman alone, woman with female friends, and woman with male fr- ... and they showed the w- that the woman w- surrounded by males, they found her, I think, she was the least attractive (laughs) to the men.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
So it does, it does sort of, you know, the ... Your prediction here was, was, was right. Um, but I have seen research on dating apps where the effect, it's, it's more complicated, where women will at least, you know, they'll say, um, that if they see a man with, uh, with lots of women, they rate him as less attractive or less desirable. And the reasoning there was that they basically think that this guy is not serious, right? Like, "If this is the kind of picture you're going to put on your dating profile of you surrounded by a bunch of hot chicks," it's like, "This guy is ... he's, he's not, he's not a serious person. He's just gonna use me," something like that. Um, so, you know, the ... and that's, that's the, sort of the ... The, the finding was they find him less attractive. And as far as like, what kind of ... like, the actual success of such a guy, that's a different kind of story, right? But I, I think, like, probably the safe bet for that would be, um, like having a mixed, mixed-sex group, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- RHRob Henderson
But make sure that like the women in the mixed-sex group are-
- CWChris Williamson
Attractive-
- RHRob Henderson
... attractive and at least one of them is actually standing next to you.
- CWChris Williamson
... and maybe closer to you than the ... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yep. Yep.
- RHRob Henderson
Exactly.
- 1:01:11 – 1:12:25
The Male Monkey Dance
- RHRob Henderson
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me about the male monkey dance. This is probably my favorite article from your Substack that you've written this year. It was my ... I've shared it to way too many friends. So break down what the male monkey dance is for me.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. So the male monkey dance was, uh, written by this guy Rory Muller in a book called Meditations on Violence, and in that book ... So he worked in law enforcement and he compiled interesting research and, you know, shared his observations and his findings in this book. And basically, the male monkey dance is, uh, it's a sort of a ritualistic conflict between two males, typically two males who don't know each other, and it's a sort of a set, a set of steps that, that, that gradually escalate. And so it's like, you know, step one, it's this sort of hard stare. Step two, this, uh, this sort of verbal, uh, sort of a verbal conflict of like, "What are you looking at?" Or, "Do you got a problem, bro?" Or like, "What's going on?" Or like, you know, "What's your problem?" That kind of thing. And then step three, if it escalates is, you know, chest-on-chest, sort of chest bumping and maybe like the arms extend, right? I remember you had, uh, Adam Hart on your podcast, the biologist, and he suggested that, um, the reason why guys extend their arms out is to, uh, increase the perception of body size. And this is also likely the reason why during weigh-ins for boxing and MMA you always see these guys sort of expand their arms and like, you know, flare out their traps and their muscles and really to sort of broaden their shoulders and everything is to increase the perception of their size, uh, and look more intimidating.And so guys will do that, too. When they do the chest bump, you know, step through the Monkey Dance, chest bump, arms go out, like, "What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do about it?" That kinda thing. And yeah, then step four, if it, if it continues to escalate, is a dominant hand roundhouse punch, and then it sort of escalates from there. And the observations that, that Miller makes in his book, I mean, they're, they're fascinating. So, so he, he, um, outlined this based on, uh, his experience, uh, as a, as a police officer, you know, outside of bars and various venues, you know, especially when young guys are drunk. Like, this, these kinds of things are, are, uh, pervasive, right? And I, I... It wouldn't surprise me if... Maybe not every guy gets to step four where a punch is actually thrown, but it wouldn't surprise me if more than half of guys have gotten to step three of that Monkey Dance. Um, and so, so what's, what's interesting about it is that, uh, is the sort of the, the, the commonality of it across different kinds of people, and also who is involved in the Monkey Dance. Like, who do we choose to get into the Monkey Dance with? It's always, or almost always, two young men who are roughly the same age and roughly similar in physicality, and it almost never occurs between a man and a woman. Uh, it doesn't occur between, you know, a man and a young child, or between, uh... You know, so, so a man wouldn't in- get involved in a Monkey Dance with, uh, someone who's obviously high on drugs or crazy. Uh, it, it typically only occurs when there's some question about who would actually prevail in this physical contest. If these two guys were to get into a fight, we actually don't know who would win. And it's funny, you know, I, I remember when I first read this in the book, uh, a story came to mind where I was, uh... You know, it, it was a story from when I was in college. Uh, I was walking through, uh, uh, downtown with a couple of my, my college friends, and suddenly this very short... And he was young, but he was a short and very disheveled and very, um, just, you know, uh, dirty, homeless guy comes up to my friend and grabs his hand and he's like, "Hey, do you have any money?" And my friend pulls his hand back and he's like, "Oh, don't touch me." And this, this homeless guy, like, starts reaching, like trying to, like, get into his pockets, and my friend is like, running around. And he's like... I could tell he's extremely confused because on the one hand, he could... I mean, it, it was pretty clear that he could take this guy in a, in a... in, like, a physical fight. But on the other hand, this guy was so, uh, dirty-looking that he just didn't want to, to get physically entangled with him. And so he's, like, running, but at the same time, trying to demonstrate that he was willing to fight him, so he was like, backwards-running, his hands were up, but he was still, like, running. And then my other friend gets involved and, like, tries to, like, separate them, but then the homeless guy starts chasing him around, and my friend is... So it was like this comical scene, and I'm watching all of this, and, uh, and I'm just laughing at it 'cause like, you know, I didn't wanna get involved because I didn't want him to touch me (laughs) . So I'm just watching this, and, uh, and, and so that story came to mind of like, okay, so, you know, that was a case of like, uh, uh, a Monkey Dance that was, that was thwarted, right? Like, something
- NANarrator
(unintelligible)
- RHRob Henderson
... here where like, they, they weren't afraid of running because it was clear who would win the fight, and so they didn't feel like they had to stand their ground. But there was also this part of the male psychology of like, "I don't wanna look like I'm weak, like I'm, I'm gonna, like, turn my back and like, start sprinting away from him." Um, and so, so, so the Monkey Dance is like, you know, two guys. Who would win? We don't know. Usually between strangers. Uh, Monkey Dances very seldom rise between, uh, like friends in, in, in a group in which the sort of, uh, the relationships are established, uh, guys roughly know where they stand, those kinds of things. Whereas, um, in environments in which people don't know who would actually prevail, uh, you know, oftentimes people will encourage fights. They'll encourage them to see. They want a, a rough and accurate estimate of what each person is, is made of, and whether or not they can hold their ground. You know, when, when you see two guys fight and you see how they handle themselves, you yourself get a sense of like, "Could I take this guy too? You know, who would I do better against?" Um, and interestingly, some, some recent research, um, I wanna say from Aaron Sell, I hope I'm getting that right, uh, about the, the evolutionary psychology of the concept of a fair fight. And this appears to be, uh, an evolved psychological mechanism of like, across different cultures and throughout soc- you know, different societies, uh, people have strong feelings about cheating in a fight. Which is actually... I mean, it's kind of funny that you'd have that because it's like, two guys trying to beat each other up and potentially, you know, inflict, uh, physical harm on, on one another and disfigure each other and whatever. And still, you know, it's like, certain things you shouldn't do, and if you do do, like, you'll be judged in some way. And the idea that they propose in their research is that the reason is because people want this, this estimate. Not only do people want the estimate of the fighting ability, but people themselves involved in those kind of altercations want to, uh, to signal their capacities, right? Like if they rapidly escalate and, and suddenly, you know, kick the other guy in the balls and, and gouge his eyes out and do all of these things, you know, pull out a weapon, then they actually don't get to signal anything about their strength, their endurance, their, their speed, their capacity, all those things. They're, they're really just signaling, like, they're a violent and crazy person, which, which can be useful to signal that in some instances. But if you really want to impress people and potentially impress men such that they will confer status on you and you can get women, you know, pulling out a switchblade and, and using dirty tactics isn't going to, to get you that, right? It's going to be like, slow escalation, Monkey Dance, fair fight, uh, you know, don't, don't cheat. You know, don't cheat in, in any, uh, uh, fight. In a way that's fair and that's honorable. Um, and I think you can see this with, uh, with, with sporting contests, of course. Boxing and MMA have very strict rules about, about what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do. And you can even see this with like, like young, young, young boys when they're roughhousing and, and, and playing with each other. Uh, they can sort of intuitively grasp that like, yeah, maybe you can slap someone, but you shouldn't hit them with a closed fist. So these kinds of things are, are kind of like, you know, built in, and they're... You know, I think in, in itself it's an interesting adaptation and the Monkey Dance is a sort of a, uh-... it is a, a ritual around which people can, can display and, and also to observe, uh, men's formidability and, and willingness to, to prevail in a fair fight.
- CWChris Williamson
And if you don't continue to play fair, the effectiveness of that matchup at judging who is phys- more physically formidable goes out of the window because it's no longer about you being more physically formidable, i- i- it's about you being prepared to be more wild or more crazy. I wonder whether this would tie in, I'm thinking, like, ancestrally with regards to maybe, um, contests for leadership and stuff like that, that you would get prestige from winning in a fair fight but you might get dominance from winning in a rapidly escalating fight, that you would rule through fear if you were the guy that was completely crazy but you might rule through respect if you were the guy that did things in a more fair manner.
- RHRob Henderson
That's interesting. So you might get ... Yeah, so, so yeah, the idea of, of prestige where people freely confer status on you versus dominance where you sort of impose costs and instill intimidation. That would make sense to me. I mean, I think in that moment it might actually work, right? This sort of rapid escalation, uh, you know, using dirty tactics. In that moment it's probably ... Yeah, people, people would fear you and be intimidated by you. But if the ... You know, it depends on, yeah, what, what your sort of, uh, short-term, long-term evolutionary goals are too. It's like, yeah, you may get dominance, but if you don't get the respect and the sort of admiration of, of those guys then-
- CWChris Williamson
You're a tree-
- RHRob Henderson
... you know, as a consequence, everyone, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and everyone's taken your weapons and they're stabbing you on the way down.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Well, I, well, there's that and then yeah, they, they, they don't, uh ... Like, yeah, you don't have the, the status necessary to be attractive to, to women later.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, a good, a, a good example of this, I suppose, uh, to try and think about in a, uh, situation in which a fight would happen and a man would choose to not play by the rules on purpose might be if he was outnumbered by a bunch of men. You often see this in movies, right?
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
If you've got one protagonist versus a gang of five, and he takes the first person that comes at him and curb stomps him and totally fucks him up, why does he do that?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Why does he decide to break those rules? It's because rapid escalation is a threat that shows I am prepared to go beyond the level that you guys are prepared to go to, uh, and it-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's a scare tactic. And the reason that he does that is long-term respect and prestige is not something that he's optimizing for in that fight.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. (laughs) Right, he's optimizing for survival-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- RHRob Henderson
... right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- RHRob Henderson
And so in that case ... Well, yeah, yeah, I've seen that too. I mean, in, in, uh, fights where one person is clearly bigger than the other, uh, I've noticed that people are more lenient as far as how harshly they'll judge the smaller combatant, like if they-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, you're allowed to kick the bigger guy in the balls.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, you're allowed to kick him in the balls or maybe you're allowed to, like, bite him or, or something like that, right? Or, uh, uh, you know, if, if there's a, a weapon, uh, that isn't too dangerous, that you're allowed to use that too. And so yeah, I mean, yeah, on the one hand you are, um, like y- you're optimizing for survival over, uh, you know, prestige or status. And yeah, you're also, um ... At the same time though, people are perhaps, you know, depending on the, on the context, they are still willing to confer prestige on you if you're, you know, a, an especially small person up against someone who's much larger than you-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
... or if you're one guy up against five and you still manage to prevail. You know, even if you bent the rules a little bit, it's still like, "Okay, that was still impressive regardless," and therefore, you know, the, the, the sort of the, the status penalty isn't, isn't quite as
- 1:12:25 – 1:19:56
Insights on Male Aggression from the Bourne Movies
- RHRob Henderson
severe.
- CWChris Williamson
I liked the insight that you gave around, uh, not the Minority Report. What's that m- what's that fucking movie where there's, like, five of them? Uh ...
Episode duration: 1:21:29
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