Evolution & The Modern Dating Market | Rob Henderson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 161

Men look for reasons why they wouldn't sleep with a girl, whereas women look for reasons why they would sleep with a man. So the default position for a man is, you know, "I would sleep with her unless there's some extraordinary re- reason why I shouldn't." Whereas for women, it's, "I'm definitely not going to sleep with him unless there is some particular reason why I should."

Rob Henderson in the building. How are you, man?

Good, Chris. How are you?

Yeah, great. Great to have you on here. Welcome to, uh, the UK. You're in lockdown as well, by the way.

Yeah. Yeah, it's great to be here, you know, in the middle of this, uh, pandemic, so... (laughs)

(laughs) So what are we going to be talking about today?

Yeah, uh, I thought we'd talk about some evolutionary psychology, some social psychology, and, uh, what's going on with modern dating. Um, modern in the sense of, you know, the... 2020, but also in the sense of, uh, what's going to happen with this coronavirus and how that might affect, uh, the dating scene too.

I can't wait. I love it. So where do we start?

Uh, yeah, I mean, I suppose we could start, uh, with some, some basic evolutionary psychology. So just right off the top here, I mean, you know, a lot of people have questions about, why do we like what we like? Um, how flexible are our preferences? You know, why, why does it seem like men seem to be attracted to younger women? Why do women seem to be attracted to exceptionally wealthy men? Um, and of course, there could be some cultural components, but, uh, a lot of e- evolutionary psychology focuses on sort of more innate or more cross-cultural preferences. And they basically are looking at, you know, what, what is sort of evolutionarily advantageous for human beings to pass on, uh, their, their genes? Um, and so evolution operates at the level of the gene, and so sometimes we do things that are advantageous for our genes, but they actually hurt ourselves. Um...

What like?

Uh, something like, for example, um, for men, we'll stick with men, risk-taking. Uh, so on average, women tend to be, uh, attracted to men who take, uh, risks, uh, in, in intelligent ways. Um, but things like, uh, say motorcycle riding or bungee jumping or certain kinds of sports, I mean, these are, you know, typically, uh, more attractive, and they're also extremely risky. Um, and so things like this can, can attract partners, you know, female partners, but they can also put your life in danger. Uh, but that's one of the interesting things about evolutionary psychology. I mean, one of the principles is that, you know, if you have a trait that is reproductively advantageous but harmful to yourself, that trait will still tend to proliferate.

(laughs)

Um, whereas if you have a trait that, uh, is advantageous for survival but turns off the opposite sex, then that trait will tend to disappear from the population. So say you have, um, some kind of trait that, um, promotes longevity, but I don't know, it makes you look unusual in some way or, or just turns the opposite sex off, then it doesn't matter that it's keeping you alive. If you can't find a partner, that gene is going to... or those genes are going to disappear, so... Um, something else, uh, that's important to know, uh, about evolutionary psychology in men and women, uh, is that women take on a much greater burden with child-rearing than men do. So if you think about, what does a man have to invest to have a child? Well, really not much more than a few minutes of activity, and that's-