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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