EVERY SPOKEN WORD
145 min read · 29,400 words- 0:00 – 0:46
Intro
- DPDavid Puts
... why is it necessary to have an orgasm? Why would selection have favored having an orgasm sometimes and not others? Why does it happen so infrequently? We measured several variables related to the masculinity and dominance of their partner, including taking photos of the guys and measuring objectively how male typical the face was, how masculine it was or how feminine it was. Having those faces rated by unfamiliar people. We found that those things correlated pretty well and that women whose partners were more masculine, that those women took less time to have an orgasm during sex and more likely to have an orgasm.
- CWChris Williamson
David, I want- I wanna talk about the female orgasm. I feel like that's what everybody's come to hear us talk about. The female orgasm, a massive mystery. You've done some really, really interesting work on it. W- why does the female orgasm exist?
- 0:46 – 7:26
Why Does the Female Orgasm Exist?
- CWChris Williamson
What's the, what's the function of it?
- DPDavid Puts
That's a great question. Um, and I would say, uh, it's about 10% of the research that we do in my lab, but about 90% of the interviews that I do are (laughs) about- and, you know, I guess I should start by saying we don't know. Um, eh, i- but if I had to sort of put my money on a hypothesis, it would be that it functions in mate choice, and, um, and, you know, whether- and it- that could be in a couple of ways. I mean, it could be that it functions to, um, to choose mates of high genetic quality that will make females' offspring healthier and, um, and more fit themselves, or it could be that it functions to choose, um, long-term investing partners, or it could be some of both. I mean, there's some evidence that, um, that orgasm increases the probability of conception, um, and so, you know, it makes sense then that... I mean, it could be for ei- either function. It- you know, if, if mate- if orgasm functions to choose males of high genetic quality, then it would make a special sense- especially sense that, um, it would be more likely, um, to increase the probability of fertilization, but, um, but, you know, there's also lots of evidence that when women feel closer to their partners and have an emotional connection, that orgasm is more likely as well. So, um, I could talk about some of the evidence that, you know, sort of bears on this, but, um, I guess- well, maybe I, maybe I'll stop there, or maybe (laughs) I, I could, I could actually- maybe I'll, I'll say how I got into this, um, which was I always sort of, you know, appreciated it as an interesting intellectual question, and I understood that, um, some evolutionary biologists, uh, you know, thought that it was likely an adaptation, and it makes sense that, you know, it might be. It's something that, uh, is so intimately connected to reproductive behaviors that it seems unlikely to be selectively neutral, you know, to have- ha-have been, um, irrelevant to our ancestors' reproductive success. Um, but then, you know, it's something that males are much more likely to have an orgasm when they have sex and some women have never had an orgasm, and there's not some kind of smoking gun evidence for its function, that there are plenty of other evolutionary biologists who say, no, it's, it's not an adaptation, it's just a sort of a happy coincidence, and that it's really a byproduct of selection favoring orgasm in males, that- and i- in the same way that males have nipples because of selection on females, female mammals, some female mammals, they have nipples, that selection on males to have orgasms has produced a similar trait. So- a- and, and, uh, in females. And so, you know, I appreciated that question, and then, uh, I guess about 15 years ago or so, I was asked to review a book on the topic, um, and I thought- for, for a journal, for Archives of Sexual Behavior. And I thought, okay, a great chance for me to get into the literature a little bit, read a, read a, a book that reviews the literature and, uh, and also have a publication. I was a postdoc at the time, and I- you know, the more publications, the better, I thought at the time. And, um, I- the book sort of took a strong, uh- it- ostensibly, it was, um, sort of more neutral, but I came away- y- y- it's- anyone reading the book comes away thinking that the author really supports the byproduct hypothesis, that orgasm is not functional in human females. And I came away from the book feeling that the author was more likely to be wrong, um, than when I started the book. You know, that it just seemed to me that, you know, you could pick away at any bit of evidence and say, "Well, it's an imperfect study. This doesn't show for sure." But every bit seems to support the hypothesis that, that women's orgasm functions in choosing mates, um, and that it's unlikely to be simply a byproduct, that, you know, it should be reduced, for example. But byproducts, like, men are bigger, but their nipples are smaller, because when, when selection doesn't favor a trait, um, and- it favors it in one sex and not in the other, then it tends to be vestigial or rudimentary in the sex where it's, uh, not an adaptation. And if you think about the sort of phenomenology of female orgasm, if anything, it's bigger than it is in males, less frequent, but that could be e- it makes complete sense if it's, um, functions in choosiness.
- CWChris Williamson
I had Carol Hooven on the show a little while ago, and she was explaining about what happens when people take testosterone and transition from female to male, and then some people detransition and go back. And she spoke about sexual desire and sex drive and stuff like that.
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
But she also spork about s- uh, spoke about subjective orgasm quality, and spoke about-
- DPDavid Puts
Oh, that's interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
... the difference between, uh, natal women, as she calls them, and the sort of full body, uh, s- m- much longer lasting so- sort of warm feeling, than taking testosterone, transitioning to being a male, or a man, at least, not transitioning (laughs) to being a male, uh, transitioning to being a man, and then having a more sort of localized higher peak, less duration-
- DPDavid Puts
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and then detransitioning back and going, "Oh my God, I've seen both sides of the, the fence here."
- DPDavid Puts
That is fascinating and I would love to talk to those people. I've, you know, I've sort of, um, also have some anecdotal evidence from just, you know, sort of, uh, yeah, talking to people. And, and one account was that, um, this was also a, this is secondhand I got this, that, um, so friend of a friend, um, transitioned, um, you know, female to male and started taking testosterone and said, "Before I started taking testosterone, I could masturbate. After I started taking it, I had to." (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- DPDavid Puts
It was just like a necessity. Um, so anyway, yeah, that's interesting, um, thinking about the sort of, you know, physiology underlying some, some sex differences. Um, and I'm sure that some of, some of it is sort of d- some of the differences in sexual desire, response, and so on are sort of direct effects of sex hormones acting on, on the brain, including patterns of gene expression in the brain. And then some of it, of course, is also, uh, the effects of those sex hormones on anatomy, right? I mean, uh, you know, penises and clitorises are, are aroused in different ways and, you know, so yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So previously, I think the, when I first started getting into evolutionary psychology, the first explanation
- 7:26 – 16:53
The Purpose of Released Hormones after Sex
- CWChris Williamson
I had beyond it just being a byproduct or some vestige of it being a, uh, uh, the orgasm being a byproduct of the man, was for bonding, was the fact that there's this flood of hormones that gets released after that. Uh, how, how much, uh, contribution do you think there is with regards to the oxytocin and the feel good and the closeness and stuff that females have after sex?
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. I, I... Go ahead.
- CWChris Williamson
After orgasm, after sex.
- DPDavid Puts
Right. Right. Yeah. So that is an interesting... I mean, we really don't know a whole lot about, um, this hormone that's released, uh, in the brain from sexual arousal and also especially after orgasm. But oxytocin does in, in experimental, you know, laboratory mammals, it does have an effect on sort of bonding, pair bonding behaviors in, um, in socially monogamous rodents. And s- and there's some evidence in people too, although it's just harder to do, uh, a well-designed experiment in people. Um, but, um, but I, I think that it, it must have some kind of an effect like that to make, uh, women feel more emotionally close to their partner. And then also, there have been a couple of studies that have, um, treated women with oxytocin and looked at, um, what happens to a, a sperm-like fluid, a semen-like fluid. It was the same viscosity as semen and radio labeled. And, um, so some women were happy to participate in a study like this, but it was treating women with oxytocin and looking at what happens to this, um, this semen-like fluid after oxytocin treatment. And the answer was that, um, it's always brought into the, um, uh, it, it's always brought into the uterus. But the question is, does it go up into a fallopian tube? Because that's where fertilization takes place, right? When the egg is released from one side, from one o- ovary, then there are generally sperm waiting there. Uh, uh, if, if fertilization is gonna happen, then there'll be sperm waiting there, um, sort of embedded with their little heads embedded in the epithelium there. And then, and then they can, you know, f- one, one of them can fertilize the egg. So you have to get sperm there. And sperm swim but a little bit. You know, it's just like they have a little, they're tiny and they can't get very far on their o- their own. The way that they're, they move up toward the egg is through peristaltic muscular contractions of the female reproductive tract. It's the female tract that's moving them, um, upward. And these, uh, the, this fluid was moved toward the in- into an oviduct. And the closer that the women in the study got to ovulation, the bigger their, um, follicle was, the, so closer to bursting and releasing an egg, the more transport you had just into the oviduct where an egg was gonna be released. And this was just after oxytocin treatment. So that's kind of, to me, that's kind of strong evidence that, um, if you, if you do an experiment and you treat some women with the hormone that's released especially after orgasm, it, and its effect is to move sperm or a sperm-like fluid toward and up the oviduct where an egg is gonna be released, and the closer you are to ovulation, the more fertile, the more of that transport just goes up into that oviduct. I mean, that suggests that orgasm also has that function, because why else would oxytocin play this role, you know, this, this hormone that's released, um, during sexual arousal, but especially after orgasm.
- CWChris Williamson
The, the, the price that people pay for science. Those women-
- DPDavid Puts
Right. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... that were happy to have a semen-like substance put inside of them, then be treated with oxytocin, then have it tracked to see-
- DPDavid Puts
Right. Right
- CWChris Williamson
... whether the cilia waving it along and getting it into the right fallopian tube. Dear God. Um, but how do we not know... If that's the case, how do we not know that female orgasm is not just a mediator between the act of sex and the release of oxytocin?
- DPDavid Puts
Um, how do we know it's not a mediator? I mean-
- CWChris Williamson
It's That, that that's not just the only function for it. All it is, is just like a gatekeeper that says oxytocin is what's to go, it's got nothing really to do with anything else. All it is, is just we're releasing oxytocin, that's gonna improve fertility.
- DPDavid Puts
Oh, it could be. But then the question is, um, I mean, at a sort of... I think that's the hypothesis is that it, it plays that role, but then the question is, um, why, why do... why is it necessary, um, to have an orgasm? And why does it happen sometime... You know, like, in other words, why would selection have favored having an orgasm sometimes and not others? Why, why does it happen so infrequently?Um, you know, if, if selection just said, "Look..." Uh, natural selection, that is, said, "Look, um, it's im- you know, what's favored by selection is having more offspring." Then you would expect to have or- an orgasm every time with sex because that increases your chances of, of fertilization. That increases the number of offspring. But if it was more like, well, but having, g- being pregnant all the time is not a good i- good idea if the mates are of differing quality. Then, you know, select ones that are more investing, more caring, more loving, more ... H- have better genes for your offspring, whatever. Then it makes sense to have this mechanism that increases the odds of fertilization be dependent upon those characteristics. You know, be dependent upon-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DPDavid Puts
... the, uh, the quality of the male. And we know for sure that it's not necessary. Like women, plenty of women ha- y- you know, have kids and have never had an orgasm in their life. Um, so I think if anything, it's just, um, increases the odds. And given that it's something that doesn't happen all the time, and there's also s- some evidence that measures of male mate quality increase, you know, affect the probability of women having an orgasm, um, it seems like, it seems like it has that function to me. But, um, I want more evidence. Uh, you know, I, I can imagine a, a study where I ... So I gave you circumstantial evidence that orgasm increases the odds of conception, but what would be really great is to do a study. Like we have some idea of the fertile window, um, because people have participated in studies where they recorded when they had sex with their partner, and then, um, later found out when they, when they got pregnant. And then you can sort of model that and say, okay, so um, these are the days that are fertile, the day of ovulation and it looks like the five days before. If women had sex during those days, they had a non-zero chance of, of conception. So you can sort of say these are the probabilities of conceptions on different days of the cycle. You could do a study like that, um, but also have participants record whether they had an orgasm with their partner and then see how that influences the sort of daily conception risk. Um, and that, that would be strong evidence that orgasm increases the odds of, of conception. But that kind of research, I, I would love to do it someday. I've just got so many (laughs) , you know, uh, whatever irons in the fire. Uh, I, I haven't sort of taken steps. So what I do is when I, whenever I talk to somebody about this, I say, "This would be a good study. Somebody should do it." I don't know if I'm gonna do it, but, um ...
- CWChris Williamson
So you, what you would be able to do there is split test, uh, sex from orgasm and non-orgasm to see wh- just how much of a, uh, fertility tool ... Yeah.
- DPDavid Puts
Boost or something. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It is, it is to do that. Okay. So t- talk to me about the relationship between dominant men and orgasm success.
- DPDavid Puts
Well, uh, so we published one study, uh, about 10 years ago where we, um, had women in their... Uh, he- heterosexual women and their male partners, um, participated as couples, and they ... But they answered all the questions separately about, you know, sexual response and that sort of thing. Um, then we made sure that, you know, they were ... They understood when they were going in that they were not gonna find out the answers that their, that their partner provided. Um, and we found that women whose partners... who rated their par... We sort of measured several variables related to the masculinity and dominance of their partner, including taking facial, uh, photos of the guys and measuring objectively how male typical the face was, how masculine it was or how feminine it was, having those faces rated by, um, unfamiliar people, having women rate their partners on sort of, you know, dominance and masculinity. And we found that those things correlated pretty well, and that women whose partners were more masculine, that those women, um, uh, had been ... earlier orgasm or more... You sort of ... It took less time to, to have an orgasm during sex and, um, and was more likely to have an orgasm. And so we sugge- you know, we thought, well, there's a lot of literature that suggests that traits that require high levels of sex hormones to produce, um, that those are indicators of underlying genetic quality. And so our prediction was, well, if female orgasm functions in part to recruit good genes for your offspring, then women should more easily orgasm and, and have earlier, you know, earlier timed orgasms with, um, with putative good genes males, in this case sort of more masculine and dominant. And that's what we found. Um, you know, I'm, I'm happy with the study, but it's ... I, I'd like more data, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Is it-
- DPDavid Puts
One study doesn't prove anything, but ...
- 16:53 – 22:19
Is Too Much Dominance Bad?
- DPDavid Puts
- CWChris Williamson
Would it not be possible for men to overshoot dominance? I've been, I've had a bunch of conversations about ancestral leadership and stuff like that.
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And it seems like the, the tyrant dominant male actually ends up being killed pretty quickly because people don't like that in a, a small tribe of 150 people. So did you find dominance topping out at all? Is there a way to overshoot on dominance?
- DPDavid Puts
That is a great question. And, um, I think... I don't recall looking at it, although our sample size... You know the ... So when you're starting to look at both linear and curvilinear effects, then, um, you'd like ... Uh, sort of the more effects you look at, the bigger sample you'd like. And I, and I, I just... Now I'm wondering if we still have those data. I don't think we looked at that, but that's a great possibility and I think you're absolutely right about that. And in fact, um, I think that that's something that characterizes other primates too, but might be especially true in, in humans that, um, we've sort of ... Uh, so in our ancestors, our males probably competed via contest competition by, you know, threats of aggression and actual physical aggression and won mating opportunities that way. But we engage in a lot less, a lot less frequent, um, fighting than say, our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. I mean, human males are more likely, whether they're boys or men, more likely to fight and get, you know, get ...
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Puts
... engaged in some kind of physical altercations, um, than females. But it's about 1% as frequent as it is in chimpanzees. And I think a lot of that has to do with exactly what you said, that, um, maybe around two million years ago, one and a half million years ago and around Homo erectus that we, um, got really good at killing, including each other and predators. We, we became sort of hyper predators around that time probably. Um, there's evidence of sort of, uh, increased carnivory, increased brain size, changes in sh- in shoulder, uh, structure that would suggest throwing. Um, and that once we became very deadly, um, then it became important not to get out of hand with your, you know, sort of dominance because anybody could kill. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, because you can easily escalate a, a small disagreement to one that becomes lethal.
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. Despots can be can be killed by anybody. Um, and so it's more impor- you know, and, and then of course there's also coalitional aggression in, in humans and in chimpanzees, but it t- you know, warfare is something that it seems to have happened throughout human evolution. And that requires some sort of, um, you know, uh, group cooperation and, and competition against other groups as well. So anyway, I, I, I'm sure that you're right about that, that, um, that, you know, there's a lot of emphasis in human groups on prestige, which is freely conferred social status that you, you get social status by conferring benefits to the group. Um, and, um, and, you know, you have to be careful with the dominance, with coerced, um, status, because we're, we're, we're deadly.
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, I tell you what would be an awesome study to be able to do, to look at the, uh, local ecology of the situation that the particular tribe is in, if the tribe was in a time of more stress, i.e. potentially there are, um, external tribes that are going to war with them, there is more male aggression between tribes, that is a time, it seems like, anthropologically, where it is useful for a more dominant leader rather than a prestigious leader. People want the person that's going to just get shit done, the more psychopathic traits may be a little bit better. I wonder if that would be reflected in female orgasm rate and mate choice.
- DPDavid Puts
Great idea. Yeah. (laughs) That's a, that's a I- it's a completely simple- superbly simple study to do obviously. Um, yeah, I could imagine doing it. A big- it would be huge, right? Cre- big cross-cultural study, um, hopefully getting some data from sort of non-Western societies as well.
- CWChris Williamson
How cool would that be to work out whether female mate choice w- uh, weigh in w- sort of, uh, swings between prestige and dominance, uh, preference based on what's going on situationally?
- DPDavid Puts
Uh, I think you could do a study like that, um, both with sort of stated preferences, you know, you could ask people what they're after, but also, um, yeah, looking at, at orgasm as a potential mate choice mechanism as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- DPDavid Puts
I think that would be, yeah, that'd be a pretty cool study. Um, I, I've, you know, we're, in my lab we've recently done some cross-cultural work and it is, if you want to get a good representative, you know, set of societies, it's a ton of work, but, uh, it, I think it's well worth it. I, I think mostly what people are interested in human evolution want to know is sort of, uh, about humans broadly, not American undergraduates or British undergraduates or something. And so it's nice to sort of look at how some of these mating, mate choice, mate competition patterns are similar across societies, how some sex differences are similar in how they, how they change as well. What are, what are some of the socio-ecological variables that, that predict those differences and can you, can you predict those things based on, you know, evolutionary theory like you're doing now? So, yeah, I love it. Good idea.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, okay. So you, you mention there about
- 22:19 – 28:36
How Sexual Selection Occurs in Humans
- CWChris Williamson
contest competition, and this was the first time that I ever got introduced to the idea of it, was reading your work. And when we think about sexual selection, a lot of the time we consider sort of the ornaments of sexual selection, right? Sort of the peacock's tail type thing. But when it comes to humans, there are a bunch of, and also other animals as well, but when it comes to humans, it seems like there are a huge number of other types of competition that are going on. So what, what do you think have been the primary mechanisms of sexual selection when it comes to humans?
- DPDavid Puts
Okay. Um, so, right. So when people who study sexual selection, which is the kind of natural selection that favors traits that win mates, um, when they think about that they, they sort of tend to categorize into different modes or mechanisms, right? Ways that you could win mates. So there's contest competition, which favors, uh, you know, s- size, strength, aggression, weapons. It's, it's the use of force or threat of force to, to win mating opportunities. There's mate choice which favors, you know, uh, ornaments and sexual displays, but there's sperm competition. Sometimes, uh, two males mate with the same fertile female, and then the male who produces more sperm or more viable sperm or more motile sperm is more likely to fertilize. Um, and sexual coercion is another one. Uh, that happens across many animal species that, you know, males can use force not just against each other but also against potential mates to win mating opportunities. And if I had to sort of rank, um, mechanisms of sexual selection operating on human males over recent evolutionary history, let's say in the past, you know, couple 100,000 years, I'd say probably contest competition then mate choice and then, uh, I'm not sure between coercion and, and sperm competition. But, uh, but, uh, between those first two, um, contest competition and mate choice, um, when I, when I started studying this stuff in grad school, the literature, everything I was r- reading pretty much talked about how male traits, like if we, if we talked about say beards or deep voices or f-... me- facial masculine or anything like that, it would have sort of talked about that trait as if it were a sexual ornament for attracting females. And I started doing research on the voice. Um, I can remember sitting on a bus in Pittsburgh thinking about, "What am I gonna do for my, for my dissertation?" I wanted to have one of at least two characteristics. Either it has some obvious sort of utility in helping humanity, like it has some medical relevance or something like that, or, and/or it opens up sort of a new area of research that ha- hasn't kind of been done yet. And it just, I think I was... I remembered sort of having that debate with myself about, you know, what, what should my dissertation be and, and what characteristics should it have? And I thought back to, um, doing some holiday shopping at a mall in Pittsburgh and hearing two guys behind me who seemed to be competing to talk in a, in a lower voice pitch with one another. Um, you know, like this. And so like, it's like, "What is going on?" And I turned around and noticed, oh, there was a cute young woman near, near them and they were probably, you know, trying to show off. I went, "Ah, yeah." And so then I'm sitting on the bus thinking about this and I thought, "You know, voice has to be a sexually selected trait," right? I mean, it's like the deep voices of human males, um, were, uh, you know, a little bit bigger than females, but our voice, our voices are way lower than you'd predict. Like, human males are about 7 or 8% taller, so their vocal folds then should be about 7 or 8% longer, but they're 60% longer. They're like 10 times as mu- as long as you'd predict, um, based on the size difference. And voice pitch, you know, it's, it's half the fundamental frequency is like an octave lower in males. It drops at puberty when, when sexually selected traits tend to appear. They don't sort of, you know, antlers don't grow on a deer until they can do some, they have some function. They're not competing for mates when they're, when they're juveniles. But when they achieve sexual maturity, then they start competing and then the, those costly traits can sort of pay, pay for themselves in terms of winning mating opportunities. And so anyway, I just thought, thought about voice and I thought, "Yeah, that's gotta be sexually selected." And I kind of went into that thinking based on the literature that I'd been reading, it must be about female choice. Like, it's gotta be a sexual ornament to attract females. And once I started doing research on it, I, I discovered that sure, women prefer, um, deep voices a little bit lower than average. But the effect of the same pitch manipulation, when I manipulated sort of the masculinity of a voice, the, the effect of the same manipulation on other men's perceptions of a guy's fighting ability was 15 times as big as the biggest effect that it had on women's preferences. The women kind of cared a bit, but it was, just had this huge effect on perceptions of dominance. And I thought, you know, form follows function. Like, we can sort of infer ancestral selection pressures by looking at the traits those selection pressures design. And men's voices look like they're much better designed for intimidating other guys than they do at attracting women. And then I started thinking about other traits and the, and the literature on them. And I, you know, every study, sometimes it's kind of swept under the rug in the paper, but, um, i- in studies that look at, at say they're manipulating the same trait like facial hair on women's pre- preferences and appearance of dominance, it always has a much bigger positive effect on perceptions of dominance, um, than, uh, attraction to women. And so that, that got me thinking about sort of me- the, the design of men's phenotypes, their, their male phenotypes. And I just, uh, kept finding out sort of more studies and more evidence that men's phenotypes really look like they were designed primarily to either win fights or intimidate, uh, their same-sex competitors more than to attract females. We, we don't look like sort of peacocks with sexual ornaments as much as we look like a typical mammal, and really a typical, um, ape. I mean, if you look at all of our closest relatives, you know, males fight each other for mates and they, they don't really have any clear sexual ornaments, but they have large bodies and aggression and, you know, long canine teeth. What are-
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- DPDavid Puts
... what are some of the other,
- 28:36 – 37:55
Unique Traits of Male Development
- DPDavid Puts
uh, differences? What are some of the other ways that males have developed in a, a, a unique pattern that gets explained by this conte- contest competition? Uh, okay. Let me think here. Well, we, there are many traits. And I mean, if we go back to say traits that we sh- that have probably been around for a couple of tens of millions of years that we share with, you know, all of the other great apes. Um, large body size. Um, you know, males, human males have about, say, 35% more fat-free mass, um, and about 60% more muscle mass. Um, and their skeletons indicate a, a, a primate that's about maybe, um, 45 to 50% larger than, than females. Um, and, uh, aggression. You know, I, I mentioned that there's less frequent, um, aggression in human males than there is among, say, chimpanzees, our closest relatives, but it's equally lethal. And so that means that, you know, if human males fight each other, uh, 1% of the time, then it's a hundred times as, as lethal, um, a- among humans. Um, weapons. So the, the typical weapon in, in primates is long canine teeth. And, um, and you see that even in socially monogamous like gibbons and siamangs. They have long canines because it's useful to have a weapon to use against conspecifics, same-sex competitors, um, but predators as well. And then, um, we lost our long canine teeth. And that, you see that in the first hominins. Um, so the first bipedal apes about seven million years ago that there's a reduction in canine size, um, with the evolution of bipedalism and adaptations of the hand that look like they're, it's good for gripping something. So, um, there's a ton of sort of speculation and-... theorizing about this among anthropologists, but to me, Darwin was probably right, that we, you, you know, evolved, uh, bipedalism to, to use tools and, um, and that once we did that, we, our primary weapons became not canine teeth, but, you know, rocks and wood or whatever for millions of years until we developed more sophisticated, um, weaponry. So-
- CWChris Williamson
But why, why try to bite someone? Why, why have to get your head so close if you can just-
- DPDavid Puts
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
... put a rock in your hand and smash them over the face with it?
- DPDavid Puts
That's right, yeah. Like, we, we don't have the typical primate weapons, but we have way, way better ones.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- DPDavid Puts
Uh, and-
- CWChris Williamson
Have you read, uh-
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... Bill von Hippel's work on this?
- DPDavid Puts
Uh, oh, I, I'm sure that I have. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
The book came out about three or four years ago. He's really, really great. He just, he, he says the same thing. He suggests-
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that it seems like a really, really cool insight I got from that was that if you give toddlers a playground, and on the playground there's a couple of appropriately sized rocks-
- DPDavid Puts
Right. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... there is something in them that drives them to go over and just pick it up and practice throwing.
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
I was like, "That's so fucking interesting."
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah, that i- ... So there's another, right? Um, now, there are big differences in throwing, and, um, so there's about a one-and-a-half standard deviation male advantage in targeting, um, that seems to exist w- even if you control for differences in practice. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Hang on-
- DPDavid Puts
And then there's-
- CWChris Williamson
... hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There is a one-and-a-half standard deviation in accuracy-
- DPDavid Puts
Y- yeah, targeting accuracy.
- CWChris Williamson
... of throwing-
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... even if you have the same-
- DPDavid Puts
That's-
- CWChris Williamson
... level of training between men and women?
- 37:55 – 43:28
Are Male Traits Only Developed for Survival?
- CWChris Williamson
thing about the- the male-male aggression and how much that's driven sexual dimorphism in the- the traits that we see in men and how they're different in women, how do you separate out the traits that men have that have been developed to be effective at whatever dominance and aggression toward other men rather than just straight up survival, or, uh, ornaments, or, like, wilderness, uh, yeah, wilderness survival?
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah, um, you know, you can't in many cases. And the- the reality is that for any trait of any organism, there are often many selection pressures operating on it simultaneously, and sometimes those pressures work in opposition, like, um, for stature, for height in human males, um, probably there's sexual selection favoring a taller height than a- than is the average, and there's ecological selection or survival selection favoring a shorter height, you know, because it's costlier to produce this, uh, you have to have more resources to produce and maintain that kind of phenotype. And so those are, you know, sort of body size is one of those traits that- that probably sort of ordinary natural selection or ecological selection and sexual selection are working in opposition, um, but any trait has, um, you know, sort of multiple selection pressures operating at the same time. And so that's true of sort of typical masculine characteristics in human males, that there's almost certainly been female mate choice, male contests, and ecological selection at a minimum operating on it, and so it can be really hard to say how much of trait X is because of male contest. But if you, you know, do careful experiments and you look across societies and see similar patterns and say, "Wow, um, you know, this trait looks like it functions much more efficiently at function X than it does Y or Z," then that- that suggests that, you know, that's been a stronger selection pressure. And- And when you look at human male traits, it just that they look like they function better, and the experiments that have been done and- and also sort of correlations with and sort of more, um, uh, naturalistic type studies, correlations with outcomes as well, it just looks like male traits function better, um, in- for contest competition, and- and, you know, many of these things existed way before there was, say, specialized hunting in humans. Like, you know, our- all of our closest living relatives have male-male competition and fighting and stuff, so large body size, muscularity, aggression, those things have existed probably for tens of millions of years in our lineage way before there was anything like, you know, specialized hunting, so, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I heard that the brow ridge, the increased brow ridge that men have would maybe be one of these particular traits, that as soon as you have hands, especially amongst men, bigger hands that can be balled up into fists that you can punch each other in the face with, it is adaptive for you to have basically an extra little bit of armor that runs-
- DPDavid Puts
Right, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that runs- that runs across here. Is that something you've come across?
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah, um, it- it is, and I- I know that I suggested it in a paper in 2010, and I don't remember if I was plagiarizing somebody. I hope not. (laughs) And I know that a guy, Dave Carrier, um, has- has published more on it and sort of talked about the evolution of- of hominin skulls in that- in that light. Um, we- so human males have a more prominent, um, supraoccipital torus is the name for this, um, uh, supraorbital torus, is that it? Yeah, supraorbital tor- occipital, what am I talking about? Um, and, uh, and- and more robust mandible, and, um, it makes sense that those would provide some protection against fractures of the- of the face and the- and the mandible. Um, they're fairly gracile. They're much less robust than they- than were on our ancestors, you know, um, a million, two million years ago, um, but- but still the sex difference, yeah, I mean, it makes sense to me that, uh, a slightly larger brow ridge could protect eyes from punches or hits from other things too, you know, a rock or a club or something like that, um, and same thing with the jaw. I mean, that's like, you know, young males get way more jaw fractures than anybody else, and it's u- it's the most commonly reported, other than car accidents which are evolutionarily novel, um, across studies the most common cause is, um, you know, uh, hit with a blunt, uh, fist or blunt object, you know. So that's how they get these, despite having a thicker mandible. So it makes sense that in our ancestors if you broke your jaw...... the w- you couldn't have your jaw wired shut and feed through a tube. That would just possibly be catastrophic, right? I mean, life, life-ending. Um, and so it makes sense that selection would favor a bit more robust, um, skulls. That said, uh, there has been a sort of reduction in y- overall skull robusticity in the, over the past few million years, and I wonder how much of that has to do with, um, changes in our weaponry going more toward, um, cutting and puncturing, um, than-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. A big-
- DPDavid Puts
... than-
- CWChris Williamson
... thick brow makes very little difference if your-
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. Like, it would've made a lot of sense to-
- CWChris Williamson
... opponent's got a knife.
- DPDavid Puts
... yeah, to hominins, you know, five, six million years ago when they were only bashing. (laughs) Um, and there, and there was huge sexual dimorphism in the shape of the skull as well back then, so...
- 43:28 – 54:47
How Does Male-Male Aggression Attract Females?
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to talking about this male-male aggression that we're discussing here, how does that help men get mates? Surely there's still the female that is an element of this. I understand how it helps you win a fight, but it, it's not necessarily apparent how it would make you better at getting a mate.
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. Uh, that's something that I've, I've wondered about a lot because, you know, for one thing, we're not a species like elephant seals where, um, males fight for a piece of real estate on a breeding beach, they exclude all other males, and then, um, the, the beach master, the dominant male has exclusive sexual access to, um, all the females in the spot of real estate that he's been able to, to defend. We're not like that. We live in multi-male, multi-female groups. And, um, and there's almost certainly been lots of scope for mate choice. And so, you know, how does dominance competition translate and into mating opportunities? And there are a few ways. One of them is coalitional aggression which is something... So I, I mentioned that, like, in small scale societies y- you, probably, you know, people who've studied this would still call it warfare. Um, it, this happens in, in our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, as well, that groups of males will attack other groups or especially single individuals from other groups, um, and, um, and ab- take females from those groups. And that's something that seems to, you know, in the historical records, and there's even archeological evidence, um, that that's something that has happened in human groups over time, that sort of m- males attacking other groups, killing some enemies and, and abducting, um, females. Um, so that's one way that male-male aggression could result in mating opportunities. Um, there's, within groups, um, fights over, you know, when two males are after the same female. Um, you know, Frank Marlow was an anthropologist who studied the Hadza. They're one of the last hunter-gatherer groups in, in the world, um, and, um, only about 1,000 of them left. And he talked about, um, how in the Hadza it's free mate choice unless two guys are interested in the same woman, and then one might kill the other one with an arrow, which kind of constrains the scope for, for mate choice. Um, but that's something that happens. And, you know, male aggression often occurs when two... When male aggression happens, it often occurs when two guys are interested in the same female. Um, and also defensive mates, um, is another way. Um, and N- Napoleon Chagnon was an anthropologist who studied the, the Yanomamo, who are horticulturists from, um, South America, and he talked about how when one male suspects another one of trysting with his wife, then he can ch- sort of challenge him to a fight. Um, and that sometimes results in death as well. But there, sort of, you know, a way of fighting translating into r- retaining a mate. But then really, I think the threat of all these things, you know? That like, like I mentioned, that human males are not unabatedly at one another's throats fighting all the time, but there's the sort of potential for it. And that th- the threats of those things, um, can deter rivals from trying to win the same mate that a male is gonna try to get or to, uh, to, you know, cheat with another guy's wife or, or mate or something like that. So, um, but then also it's the case that, um, across species when males compete through contest competition, females often evolve preferences for dominant males or males of high status and the traits that win status. Bec- and when you think about it, i- it's, for females, if they just let males duke it out, males are imposing strong selection on one another to see who's the fittest or whatever. And so females can sort of then just sit back and say, "Oh. Well, that guy must be successful." So, um, that happens in, in many species, and it, it could be the case too that, you know, uh, social status is highly attractive, and you could sort of let males decide who's, who's high status among themselves and then pick that, you know, the winners. So.
- CWChris Williamson
I had a conversation with Rob Henderson, uh, last week, and he talked me about this study that had been done where, uh, men and women reported, uh, based on the faces of the people that they saw, the relative attractiveness and dominance. Uh, and so the men judged the dominance, and the women judged the attractiveness. And they found that over the next year, all of the men whose photos they used then self-reported the number of sexual partners that they'd had. And the men that were judging the dominance were more accurate at rank ordering the faces based on how many sexual partners they would have. Dominance was a better predictor of sexual partners than attractiveness from women, so it seems like the men were better able to predict the number of sexual partners that the men would have than the women were, despite the fact that women are the market for what these men were going for.
- DPDavid Puts
That is an awesome study. And at first, I wanted, I wanted to know, is this a study that he did? Because it also-
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- DPDavid Puts
... it sounds like one that... Okay. I think it's one that I did. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It very well-
- DPDavid Puts
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... might be your study.
- DPDavid Puts
I think, I think you're describing a paper that we published in Evolution and Human Behavior a few years ago where we had, um...We wanted to study this phenomenon and to try to understand, um, whether, um, success in male-male competition was a better predictor of mating success than success under female choice. And so we said, look, um, what this would have looked like over most of human evolution was probably not a whole bunch of strangers rating strangers' faces and voices and whatever. It'd be like people mostly knowing each other. And, um, so why don't we get a bunch of guys who know each other to assess the prestige and dominance and so on of guys that they know, and then have women who know the guys based on everything; their sense of humor, their intelligence, how nice they are, but also whatever, that, you know, how good-looking, how dominant, what, um, uh, how attractive they are. And then, um, use that information to predict guys' number of sexual partners. And what we found was that, um... Oh, and what, what do we, how do we do this? Um, we recruited, um, two of the largest, um, social fraternities, um, at, at Penn State, and then their, their socially affiliated sororities, um, to participate in this study. And, and we found that, um, guys were able to... that their, their sort of average rankings of guys' dominance, um, predicted guys' number of sex partners. Um, and when we put those in a statistical model with how attractive the women who knew the guys said the guys were, that, that, the attractiveness ratings didn't explain any additional variation in number of sex partners beyond-
- CWChris Williamson
You're kidding me.
- DPDavid Puts
... beyond dominance. And, you know, it's funny, I just lectured on that, um, and I took it out of my lecture, um, this year because I'm behind on things and I thought, "Oh, it's, you know, it's one study in the, in American undergrads and, you know, I can cut it out." Um, but I often... You know, when I do... In past semesters when I talked about that particular study, I sort of presented to the classes like, uh, how does this happen? Because doesn't it feel like what's really determining, uh, a guy's sort of mating success is whether women find him attractive? I mean, doesn't that really ha- don't, don't you have that strong feeling in this society that's the pri- primary determinant? And I'm not sure exactly, but it could be things like, you know, in, um, uh, bars and parties and wherever the sort of mating relationships are formed, that dominant males, um, are not challenged. If they're trying to attract a female, subordinate males or guy, you know, guys who are clearly wimpier would never enter- impose themselves and, and, and inject themselves into that conversation and say, "Oh, no, no, talk to me." Um, whereas a dominant male would have no compunction about, you know, um, getting in the middle of... He, this wimpy guy is talking to this really good-looking woman and have no problem just, you know, yeah, out of the way. And, and so I, I don't know, that's one possibility. But, um, I'd love to study sort of the, the actual causal connection there. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I would also be very interested to find out how online dating, uh, in the modern world is changing this.
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, how easy is it to show dominance or prestige really, uh, over a Tinder profile or an Instagram account?
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, what, what cues is a high follower count and a blue tick? What do they give off? Does that show prestige? Does it show dominance? Is there a way that you could construct a bunch of fake Instagram accounts and the kind of photos that were being taken and the kind of language that was being used and the follower count, uh, i- i- is there a way that you would be able to work that out?
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Because, you know, the environment now of whatever you're talking about here, like, almost mate guarding in a way or potential mate guarding, uh, when you're chatting somebody up in a party, that, that doesn't work anymore. Anybody can message anybody on Tinder.
- DPDavid Puts
That's right. Yeah. And, and my, my guess is if you did a study like that, I mean, just based on the, the sort of research that's already been done, I just don't think that very dominant appearing guys are gonna be attractive. I mean, I, I just think that, you know, women tend to prefer sort of somewhere close to the male average for traits, you know. Like, a little taller than average, but not too tall. A little more muscular than average, but not too muscular. The faces that manipulate facial masculinity, some find that on average women preferred a little bit to the feminine side of male average. Some a little bit more masculine, but it's around the average. Same with voice pitch. It's like too low is kind of weird sounding, but, um, but so a little lower than average probably. Um, but I, I, I really think that yeah, if you made a guy seem very dominant, he would seem, I don't know, scary, antisocial, something. And, you know, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Think about it this way. Think about the fact that your study was able to look at what women said that they wanted. That was what... that was the stated preference, right? Of this person is the most-
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah, we had them rate on sort of how attractive a guy would be for a long term committed relationship, um, and also for just sex. And-
- CWChris Williamson
But if, if the men... if the dominance element is somehow influenced by the presence of other men and then you take those men out of the equation in online dating-
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... what are you left with? Well, I wonder whether the, uh, subjective ratings of attractiveness from women are now less encumbered somehow whether or not they're able to take less heed of other men's cues of this guy is dominant or not dominant.
- DPDavid Puts
I think you're right. I think that's, I think that's what you would see. And so my suspicion is that these... that the sort of dominant traits and dominant behavior, um, is functional in a setting where there are male competitors. And that, you know... And for sure, um, when women have been asked to rate behavior, like videos of males, they're, they might like dominant behavior directed toward other males, but they certainly don't like dominant behavior directed towards females. So-... um, yeah.
- 54:47 – 1:04:26
Is there a Difference Between Male & Female Mental Capabilities?
- DPDavid Puts
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So, what about the difference in male and female mental capabilities? We've spoken just there about the ability to throw. I know that, on average, IQ s-
- DPDavid Puts
How much trouble are you trying to get me into? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I know. (laughs) I- yeah. Maybe. We've already talked about trans sports. Um-
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... but I, I read something about, um, men are better at spatial rotation and women are better at remembering directions, or something?
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What is it? W- what are some of the different capabilities?
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. So, um, there are... I mean, if, if you measure overall cognitive function with, like, an IQ test, there's, uh, no difference. Uh, male, males and females have the same average. Now, that's by design because IQ tests have similar or are composed of similar numbers of the types of questions that women tend to do better at or females tend to do better at, and, and some, and, and other ones that males tend to do better at. Um, most cognitive traits don't show a very big sex difference. The biggest ones are in spatial cognition, and they're, they're not huge, but about one, uh, one standard deviation sex difference for the biggest ones. And, um, on average, males do better at mental rotation. So, if you're shown w- the sort of most sort of gold standard test, or the most common test, is, um, to take... to be shown a two-dimensional picture of a three-dimensional block figure. It just looks kinda like, you know, something like that, like one of those, um, three by three by three cubes that you ha- you take apart and have to put together again. Like, it looks exactly like one of those pieces. Um, and then you ask which of these... which two of these four th- other images are ju- is just that thing rotated in space. And, um, and if you have a bunch of males and females do this, um, then you get about, uh, 0.6 to 1.0 standard deviation, um, male advantage. You get a bigger male advantage when you make the test harder, um, so if you give them less time to do it, for example. If you give a... If you give people all the time that they need, then eventually most people can, can do it. Um, and then there's a female advantage at object location memory, um, and one, one test that's been, that's been, uh, published is the memory game. You know, with the cards you flip o- you have a bunch of cards face down, and then you flip them over in pairs. And I can remember doing that. Before I knew about a sex difference like that, I remember doing that with my, with my girlfriend in college and, um, just, like, sweating bullets as she was destroying me, and I was trying so hard to, to, to concentrate, and she w- seemed to do it effortlessly. And then later, you know, I found out that there's a pretty good-sized sex difference and, um, a, a female advantage there. I was like, "Ah, okay, I mean, but that's, that was going on."
- CWChris Williamson
You should have told, you should have told her to come to the pub and play darts so that you could have evened it up.
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, right. Um, but anyway, um, so those are the biggest sex differences, uh, in spatial cognition. And, um, a- also, if you... there's a test that is... that rodents are put into called a Morris water maze. It's a, a pool of water filled with some opaque, um, substance like, um, powdered milk so that you can't see, and there's a... underneath the surface, and there's a little platform just underneath the surface. So, if you put rats in this thing, um, just put 'em in the maze. It's a, you know... I don't know how big. About 10 feet across or something like that. And you put them in, um, then they would like to not be swimming. They'd like to find the platform and climb up on it and stand on it. Um, and so what you can do is measure and put them in different places in the maze each time, and you can see, like, how, how quickly they learn the location of that platform under the water that they can't see or smell.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, they cre- create a, a abstract map of what it actually is like.
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and so, you know, there's a sex difference in that, um, that males tend to learn it faster. They, they tend to find that platform. And so the latency between when you put them in the pool and when they get onto the platform, um... and, and it isn't to do with swimming ability or motivation or something. You know, that those things have been tested. Um, uh, but if you mess with the cues, like the landmarks within the maze, right inside of, you know, sort of marks on the, on the border of the maze itself, that messes up females more. And if you mess up... if you, if you manipulate extra maze cues, like things that are better for gauging distance and direction, that's, that messes up males more. Um, so it suggests that they're using sort of different information to navigate. Um, and it's testosterone dependent. If you treat females with, early in life with androgen, they solve the maze like a male, and if you castrate males they solve it like a female. And this difference seems to characterize species where males have a bigger home range, that they have to travel over a larger area to locate females. Because, you know, both sexes are about the same size and they have a range that... they, they range over the same geographic area just to get food, but then if males are also polygynous and trying to mate with multiple females, then they range over a bigger area, then they need sort of different spatial cognitive abilities, including ones that rely less on local landmarks and more on direction and distance. Um, and so, anyway, the se- the sex differences that we see probably existed, like, you know, ancestrally in mammals a long time ago, but then, um, were subsequently shaped by other things like, um, possibly male... you know, targeting, uh, different foraging strategies, more male hunting, um, ranging over a broader distance to, to track prey and, and hunt versus, um, foraging which is closer to home. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
What does the-
- DPDavid Puts
... and also targeting. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What, what does the ability to remember cards, uh, like, ancestrally... What is that related to?
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. The idea is that, um, it's related to remembering where food resources that are stationary in the environment are located. And that's kind of a stretch, um, but there was a cool study by, um... Steve Gaulen was the senior author, um, at UC Santa Barbara that had-... recruited participants in a farm- farmer's market, and, um, and had participants at the end, after they'd spent time in the market, come back and say, "Okay. Point me in the direction of the honey. Point me in the direction of the lettuce," or whatever, and what they found was, um, a female advantage in that, um, the, uh, higher the caloric returns, the bigger the (laughs) sex difference, I think it was. Um, so, you know, it's like, the, uh, the attempt there was to be more ecological to say, to show a sex difference in object location memory that was more like foraging, you know, remembering the location of food in the environment. Um, pretty cool study. Um, so that's, that's the reasoning. But it could also just be that if you're ranging over a smaller area, you don't have to travel over such a, uh, a large area to get animals or to find mates. Um, then you ... A different sort of navigational strategy makes more sense, um, using landmarks.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm gonna say something incredibly sexist here. Um, I wonder whether this plays into the women are able to, uh, be more organized and tidy when it comes to a smaller area like a house, and men are better at, when it comes to longer, um, uh, greater distance organization like driving. Like, d- I know it's like a total meme, right, to talk about how men-
- DPDavid Puts
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, how men are, men are better at being able to remember locations and, and to be able to get directions-
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and stuff like that. But I do wonder whether this would map across ... And I have tons of male friends that are absolutely useless behind the wheel, so I, I'm an-
- DPDavid Puts
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I'm an N-of-one here, right? This is the-
- DPDavid Puts
And I ask for directions all the time. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, precisely. But-
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... I do wonder if you would be able to look at, um ... It, it, it would suggest to me that women would be better able to organize stuff within a smaller location. That's what we're talking about, right? Um, uh, w- does this mean that men more often lose their keys than women do?
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Does this mean that, uh, women more often take the wrong route to some place without using satellite navigation-
- 1:04:26 – 1:18:06
Telling Someone’s Personality From Their Voice
- CWChris Williamson
you've done all of this work as well about, um, vocal pitch and, and, and what-
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... what the v- voice pitch, uh, can do.
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Did you do study that looked at you can tell someone's personality from their voice?
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. I was a, a co-author. I, I can't claim credit for that. I provided some data and helped with, um, the writing of it, um, but it was really a study out of Lars Penka's lab at, he's at University of Göttingen in Germany. And, um, and one of the results that stuck out to me was that there was a relationship, um, between the sort of dominance characteristic of personality and, and voice. But, um, yeah, I can't really claim, claim credit for that study, um, but it's cool and it looks like it's bei- it's being, you know, cited pretty highly too. (laughs) So that's kind of a nice thing. Um, we've definitely looked at this idea i- in our lab. This has been one of the sort of interesting questions driving our recent research is, um, why we would pay attention to voice pitch and other characteristics of the voice like vocal timbre, which also shows a, a big sex difference. Uh, males have a, uh, our, our larynx descends a full vertebra lower at puberty in the vocal tract, so that our vocal tract sounds longer than it is. I mentioned that males are about 7 to 8% taller, so their vocal tract should be about 7 or 8% longer, but it's, it's 15% longer, so twice that, um, because of this descent of the larynx at puberty. So, really, we have these exaggerations of size. Like, male's voices look like they've evolved to make male seem big and scary. And so then we've asked, "Yeah, but if that's the case, then why do we pay attention?" If it's just kind of, um, you know, a deceptive signal to say, "Look at how big I am," why do we, why, why has selection favored continued attentiveness to this? Why do we continue to defer resources, mates, whatever, to males with huge-
- CWChris Williamson
Ah. Because we shou- we should have discounted-
- DPDavid Puts
If, if, if, if-
- CWChris Williamson
... for the fact that it's-
- DPDavid Puts
It costs you guys.
- CWChris Williamson
... already small at the end.
- DPDavid Puts
Because it doesn't-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. If it, if it doesn't advertise anything. So that's been something we've looked at with personality, but also things like, um, you know, body size. Well, there's a weak relationship, but it's not, not, not a strong one. But, you know, larger males have lower pitch in timbre. Vo- testosterone seems to be a bit stronger relationship there, and especially if you look at cortisol, which is a stress hormone. So guys who have both-... um, low cortisol, a low stress hormone, and high testosterone have especially deep voices, and that's a kind of a stronger relationship. It's not super strong, but it's, you know, it's there and it's one of the stronger ones. Um, we've looked at, like, fighting ability, so we looked at MMA fighters to see if their voice pitch predicted their, you know, success in, in fighting and that sort of thing. A little bit of evidence that basically bigger MMA fighters and ones who have more fighting experience had lower pitched voices. And, um, but that's been a really interesting question about sort of, um, why do we continue to defer to this trait, you know? Does it actually advertise... Is there a kernel of truth? Does it advertise something relevant about the sort of competitiveness of a, of another male?
- CWChris Williamson
That's really, really interesting. I wonder how much of the lowered voice is because they've been punched and choked out a lot. I wonder whether you can, uh, just... If you get-
- DPDavid Puts
Oh, so you get... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
If you get someone in a rear naked choke enough that... I don't know, it hypertrophies the vocal chords somehow.
- DPDavid Puts
Well, then you, you'd have a relationship in the opposite direction that, um, you know, a, a low, low voice, lower voice, less success. And then...
- CWChris Williamson
If you've been choked out too many times, yeah, that's a good...
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah, yeah, confounding. Like we have two effects that... Yeah. Um, so... A- and, you know, it's not, it's not really... Um, when, when we first started doing this, um, I thought, uh, the guy who proposed the study, I thought, "That is the coolest study." Because, you know, you know, we're never gonna get data like this in the lab. You can't get a bunch of guys to come in and fight each other and then you, you measure their voice and see whether, um, you know, voice pitch predicts fighting success. And so I thought, "That is a really cool way of sort of looking at natural variation in fighting ability." But the reality is that MMA fighters are not typical, right? They're, like, the best fighters. And as... MMA is that... I don't, I don't know. I don't remember all the details about... You know, you can do this kind of fighting, but then the ones that we measure were, like, the professional fighters who... So they're, like, you know, the top fraction of a percent or something like that. So there is some issue there with, like, there's really low variation in fighting ability basically.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, also, I imagine that there are a lot of different ways to win a fight, especially when it comes to MMA.
- DPDavid Puts
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
It's not simply the most dominant man that goes in there. It can be selected for all sorts of things. Conscientiousness, uh, industriousness, like, openness to be able to try new things. There's like a, a-
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... huge number of different ways that you could be. And every... You see this in fighting, right? Everybody knows, "Oh, that's the tactician, the person that sits back a little bit more." Or, "That's the guy that... He's a brawler. He's the sort of all-out testosterone guy."
- DPDavid Puts
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And what you've actually seen, if you were to track something like UFC over the last 30 years since it started, you've moved more away from the Chuck Liddell, Anthony "Rumble" Johnson style of just a straight-up brawler to now someone who is much more of a, a, a hitman.
- DPDavid Puts
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Somebody that's incredibly technical with their skill. Okay, well, what does that... What's that selecting for? I mean, there'll be some-
- DPDavid Puts
Mm-hmm.
- 1:18:06 – 1:18:53
Where to Find David
- CWChris Williamson
up to date with those studies and this stuff that you're working on?
- DPDavid Puts
Um, well, if- if it's published studies, Google Scholar is always a great place to go. Um, you can ju- search for, you know, an author's, um, Google Scholar account and you'll see everything that's published recently. Um, some studies we might talk about on my lab, um, website at Penn State, um, but most of the time, we- we don't really say much about a study until we're- we've published it, so. (laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
All right, David. I appreciate you. Thank you.
- DPDavid Puts
Thanks, Chris. Good talking to you.
- CWChris Williamson
(upbeat music) What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.
Episode duration: 1:18:53
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