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Social role vs. evolutionary theory

Social role vs. evolutionary theory

Social role vs. evolutionary theory

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Evolution & <strong>Social</strong> <strong>role</strong> <strong>theory</strong>


<strong>Social</strong> Role Theory<br />

• Sex differences caused by<br />

– Each sex’s physical attributes and related<br />

behaviors—especially women’s childbearing and<br />

nursing of infants and men’s greater size, speed, and<br />

upper body strength and<br />

– Contextual factors represented by the social,<br />

economic, technological and ecological forces<br />

present in society (e.g., division of labor)<br />

• Also shaped by the formation of gender <strong>role</strong>s,<br />

expectancy confirmation, and self regulation<br />

(e.g., learning)


Evolutionary Perspective<br />

• Sex differences emerged from an asymmetry in<br />

the sexes’ parental investment and mating<br />

strategies<br />

– Women must invest more in offspring so they are<br />

choosier about potential mates than men<br />

– Women who cared for babies couldn’t get their own<br />

food so they needed men resources<br />

– Men competed with other men for sexual access to<br />

women and thus men evolved the dispositions that<br />

favor aggression, competition, and risk taking<br />

– To increase paternity certainty and gain fitness<br />

benefits from investing resources in their biological<br />

descendents, ancestral males developed a<br />

disposition to control women’s sexuality and to<br />

experience sexual jealously


Evolutionary Perspective<br />

• Men – to solve mating and reproductive<br />

problems men developed the masculine traits<br />

(competence, leadership skills, dominance, etc.)<br />

• Women – to solve mating and reproductive<br />

problems women developed feminine traits<br />

(nurturance, friendliness, submission)<br />

• Simple societies should most closely match the<br />

<strong>evolutionary</strong> adaptive environment


Evolution <strong>vs</strong>. <strong>Social</strong> Role<br />

Theory<br />

• According to <strong>evolutionary</strong> <strong>theory</strong>, in very simple societies<br />

we should see<br />

– Men controlling women (sexually and otherwise) and being<br />

jealous<br />

– Female preferences for men with resources<br />

– Men having greater power and aggressiveness<br />

• According to SRT, we should only see the above<br />

– In non-egalitarian complex societies<br />

– In complex societies where societal practices imbue child<br />

bearing with economic implications for men (e.g., warfare is<br />

necessary, economic gain requires travel and mobility)<br />

• That is, sex differences should be smaller or non-existent in very simple or<br />

egalitarian societies


Which <strong>theory</strong> has more<br />

support?


Wood and Eagly (2002)<br />

• Failed to find any universal or nearuniversal<br />

patterns across cultures in<br />

support of the sex-specific psychological<br />

tendencies that <strong>evolutionary</strong> psychologists<br />

assume evolved in relation to sexual<br />

selection pressures in ancestral<br />

environments


Sexual Control<br />

• In simple societies there is less control over women’s<br />

sexuality<br />

– The evidence suggests that women’s extramarital relations are<br />

socially sanctioned in a substantial percentage of non-industrial<br />

societies<br />

– Indices of patriarchy (patrilineal inheritance, patrilocal residence,<br />

importance of private property) predict male jealousy<br />

– Rape: In a sample of 80 societies, rape was more prevalent in<br />

societies with certain attributes—specifically, a greater incidence<br />

of warfare and interpersonal violence, a stronger ideology of male<br />

dominance, lesser female political and economic power<br />

– Reiss (1986) found that rape was correlated with macho attitudes<br />

and belief in female inferiority<br />

– These macho attitudes and ideologies were associated with<br />

indicators of patriarchy, such as the extent of agriculture, class<br />

stratification, the power of male kin groups, and greater<br />

segregation of men and women


SRT: Division of labor matters<br />

• In societies where women make economic<br />

contributions<br />

– Shlegel and Barry (1986) found that in<br />

societies in which women made substantial<br />

contributions to the food-based economy,<br />

evaluations of girls were more favorable,<br />

premarital sexual permissiveness was greater<br />

for girls, and the incidence of rape was lower


Mate Preferences<br />

• Men’s preference for young fertile women and women’s<br />

preference for wealthy men nearly disappears when<br />

equality/egalitarian attitudes are taken into account<br />

– Wood & Eagly reanalyzed the mate selection data of Buss’s<br />

(1989; showing gender diff. in mate preference) 37 cultures<br />

study by relating men’s and women’s reports of mate<br />

preferences with societal-level indicators of the extent of sexual<br />

equality in those countries<br />

– In patriarchal, traditional societies, women tended to prefer older<br />

mates and mates with resources, and men tended to prefer<br />

younger mates and mates with housekeeping and cooking skills.<br />

– The sex differences in mate preferences were less pronounced<br />

in more egalitarian societies


Evolutionary Perspective<br />

• Wood and Eagly’s research points to the<br />

possibility that <strong>evolutionary</strong> psychologists<br />

have reasoned from modern social<br />

conditions

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