Infidelity,jealousy, and wife abuse among Tsimane forager–farmers: testing evolutionary hypotheses of marital conflict

The role of men's jealousy over a wife's infidelity in precipitating marital conflict and wife abuse is well documented. The role of women's jealousy over a husband's infidelity has received little attention, which is puzzling given high potential costs to women of withdrawal of paternal investment. We address this gap by investigating marital conflict and wife abuse among Tsimane forager–farmers of Bolivia. We test predictions derived from male jealousy and paternal disinvestment hypotheses, which consider threats and consequences of infidelity by women (male jealousy hypothesis) and men (paternal disinvestment hypothesis). The paternal disinvestment hypothesis proposes that wife abuse is employed by husbands to limit wives' mate retention effort and maintain men's opportunities to pursue extrapair sexual relationships. Interviews were conducted among husbands and wives in the same marriages using a combination of open-ended and structured items. Spouses agree that the most frequently reported type of marital argument is women's jealousy over a husband's infidelity (N=266 arguments). Roughly 60% of abusive events occurred during arguments over men's diversion of household resources (N=124 abusive events). In multivariate analyses, likelihood of wife abuse is greater in marriages where husbands have affairs, where wives are younger, and where spouses spend more time apart (N=60 husbands, 71 wives). While we find strong support for both male jealousy and paternal disinvestment hypotheses, it is men's infidelity, not women's, that precipitates most instances of marital conflict and wife abuse. We conclude that men's aggression towards their wives facilitates men's diversion of family resources for their selfish interests.     

Menstrual cycle variation in women's preferences for the scent of symmetrical men.

Evidence suggests that female sexual preferences change across the menstrual cycle. Women''s extra-pair copulations tend to occur in their most fertile period, whereas their intra-pair copulations tend to be more evenly spread out across the cycle. This pattern is consistent with women preferentially seeking men who evidence phenotypic markers of genetic benefits just before and during ovulation. This study examined whether women''s olfactory preferences for men''s scent would tend to favour the scent of more symmetrical men, most notably during the women''s fertile period. College women sniffed and rated the attractiveness of the scent of 41 T-shirts worn over a period of two nights by different men. Results indicated that normally cycling (non-pill using) women near the peak fertility of their cycle tended to prefer the scent of shirts worn by symmetrical men. Normally ovulating women at low fertility within their cycle, and women using a contraceptive pill, showed no significant preference for either symmetrical or asymmetrical men''s scent. A separate analysis revealed that, within the set of normally cycling women, individual women''s preference for symmetry correlated with their probability of conception, given the actuarial value associated with the day of the cycle they reported at the time they smelled the shirts. Potential sexual selection processes and proximate mechanisms accounting for these findings are discussed.     

Gender‐ethnic Disparity in BMI and Waist Circumference Distribution Shifts in US Adults

While obesity has been increasing in the United States, little is known about the variation in recent BMI and waist circumference (WC) distribution shifts across socio‐demographic groups. We assessed shifts in BMI and WC distributions and compared between‐group differences over the past decade, and projected future BMI and WC distributions and prevalence of obesity and central obesity using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1988–1994 and 1999–2004 data. BMI/WC distributional shifts overall and in percentiles were compared across groups. Average yearly shift was calculated and used for projecting future distributions and prevalence. Both BMI and WC increased more in their uppermost percentile distribution, though BMI shift declined toward the uppermost percentiles among women. Heavier Americans gained more adiposity over the past decade. Ethnic (non‐Hispanic (NH) white vs. black) disparities in mean BMI and WC became wider. Over the survey period, mean BMI increased by 1.3 units vs. 1.8 units among men and women, whereas WC, by 4.2 cm vs. 4.8 cm. Young adults had the largest increase. Shift in women's WC was stable between the 25th and 75th percentiles, but gained pace at higher WC, while women's BMI and men's BMI and WC shifts increased linearly. NH black women had the largest shifts and would have central obesity and obesity prevalence of 90.8 and 70.7% by 2020. Shifts in BMI and WC distribution varied across age‐, gender‐, and ethnic groups. Future rise in the obesity and central obesity prevalence rates are expected, but would vary by demographic groups.     

Women's preferences for men's scents associated with testosterone and cortisol levels: Patterns across the ovulatory cycle

Women in the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle show an enhanced sexual preference for masculine expressions in behavioral, morphological and scent traits. These masculinity preferences may be associated with testosterone (T) levels in males and hence connote male quality as a sire. Thus, a scent preference of fertile-phase women for T is predicted. A recent study, however, found no evidence for this, but reported that women prefer the scent of men with high cortisol (C). That study had low power to detect the predicted effect, as well as other methodological limitations. We tested women's preferences across their ovulatory cycle for the body scent of men who varied in T and C, using a larger sample of men and methods used in research on cycle preferences for symmetry-related male body scent. Conception risk in the cycle positively predicted women's scent ratings of men's T; scent ratings of C or T × C interaction were not robustly related to conception risk. Conception risk is related positively to a preference for scent of men's symmetry. This preference is distinct from that arising from a preference for the scent of T. The male-emitted chemical(s) responsible for these preferences shifts across women's cycle remain unknown.     

Fertility in the cycle predicts women's interest in sexual opportunism

Research over the past decade has documented clear, robust changes in women's sexual preferences and interests across the ovarian cycle. When fertile, women are particularly attracted to a number of masculine male features (e.g., masculine faces, voices, scents and bodies) and other traits, and especially when they evaluate men's “sexiness” rather than their attractiveness as long-term partners. The current research extended this line of research by examining changes in women's self-reported sexual interests across the cycle. We asked 68 normally ovulating women in committed romantic relationships to fill out questionnaires about their sexual preferences and interests (at that time, not in general) twice across their cycles: once when fertile and once during the luteal phase. Relative to during the luteal phase, fertile women expressed (a) greater emphasis on the physical attractiveness of a partner; (b) greater arousal at the sight or thought of attractive male bodily features; (c) greater willingness to engage in and interest in sex with attractive men, even ones who they do not know well (interest in sexual opportunism). These findings importantly extend our understanding of women's fertile-phase sexuality.     

Intersexual conflict across women's ovulatory cycle

A growing literature shows that the features women find particularly attractive in men vary across the ovulatory cycle. Women furthermore appear to more frequently report attraction to men other than primary partners when they are fertile in their cycle than in the infertile luteal phase. Previous studies have shown that men are more vigilant of or attentive to their primary partners during the fertile phase compared to the luteal phase. This study had several aims: First, to replicate and extend previous findings concerning men's vigilance of partners using male as well as female reports of men's behavior; second, to examine changes in women's behavior toward partners across the cycle; third, to examine ways in which women resist men's attempts to mate-guard across the cycle. Results indicate that (a) men are particularly self-assertive toward partners when their partners are fertile; (b) similarly, women are especially self-assertive toward partners when they are fertile; (c) women report engaging in more behaviors that resist male vigilance and mate guarding when they are fertile, especially in ways that are unobservable to male partners; and (d) these effects are especially strong when women themselves report greater attraction to men other than partners when they are fertile, compared to the luteal phase.     

Men report stronger attraction to femininity in women's faces when their testosterone levels are high

Many studies have shown that women's judgments of men's attractiveness are affected by changes in levels of sex hormones. However, no studies have tested for associations between changes in levels of sex hormones and men's judgments of women's attractiveness. To investigate this issue, we compared men's attractiveness judgments of feminized and masculinized women's and men's faces in test sessions where salivary testosterone was high and test sessions where salivary testosterone was relatively low. Men reported stronger attraction to femininity in women's faces in test sessions where salivary testosterone was high than in test sessions where salivary testosterone was low. This effect was found to be specific to judgments of opposite-sex faces. The strength of men's reported attraction to femininity in men's faces did not differ between high and low testosterone test sessions, suggesting that the effect of testosterone that we observed for judgments of women's faces was not due to a general response bias. Collectively, these findings suggest that changes in testosterone levels contribute to the strength of men's reported attraction to femininity in women's faces and complement previous findings showing that testosterone modulates men's interest in sexual stimuli.     

Sex difference in travel is concentrated in adolescence and tracks reproductive interests

Sexual selection theory suggests that the sex with a higher potential reproductive rate will compete more strongly for access to mates. Stronger intra-sexual competition for mates may explain why males travel more extensively than females in many terrestrial vertebrates. A male-bias in lifetime distance travelled is a purported human universal, although this claim is based primarily on anecdotes. Following sexual maturity, motivation to travel outside the natal territory may vary over the life course for both sexes. Here, we test whether travel behaviour among Tsimane forager–horticulturalists is associated with shifting reproductive priorities across the lifespan. Using structured interviews, we find that sex differences in travel peak during adolescence when men and women are most intensively searching for mates. Among married adults, we find that greater offspring dependency load is associated with reduced travel among women, but not men. Married men are more likely to travel alone than women, but only to the nearest market town and not to other Tsimane villages. We conclude that men''s and women''s travel behaviour reflects differential gains from mate search and parenting across the life course.     

Formula feeding can help illuminate long-term consequences of full ectogenesis

Breastfeeding is analogous to pregnancy as an experience, in its exclusiveness to women, and in its cost and the effects it has on equitable share of labor. Therefore, the history of formula feeding provides useful insights into the future of full ectogenesis, which could evolve into a more severe version of what formula feeding is today: simplify life for some women and provide couples with a more equitable share of work at the cost of stigma, guilt and a daily diet of studies purporting to show the benefits of natural pregnancy. Making pregnancy an optional route to motherhood would make women's life trajectory more similar to men's and thus put pressure on women to compete with men on the ground shaped by men's preferences. Despite being a treasured experience of many women today, bearing children could become the luxury of the few, the province of the very poor and a choice working women will pay a high price for as women who choose pregnancy become stigmatized as self-indulgent or unprofessional and penalized for it in the workplace. At the same time, scarce societal resources that could be used to support pregnant women and working mothers would instead be directed toward proving to women or even forcing them to gestate children “the right way.” While not necessarily threatening on its own, when added to formula feeding, IVF, stem-cell produced ova and sex robots, full ectogenesis could diminish men's stake in women's wellbeing and even existence.     

The Social Life of Rights: ‘Gender Antagonism’, Modernity and Raet in Vanuatu

In the northern Vanuatu town of Luganville a small group of men have responded to social and legal changes engendered by women's rights activists by forming a male support group called ‘Violence Against Men’. Members of this ‘backlash’ movement argue that the insidious promotion of Western‐style ‘women's rights’ is leading to discrimination against men in divorce proceedings, child custody battles, and in domestic violence and rape cases. They directly oppose recent and ongoing legal changes aimed at protecting women from domestic violence, such as Domestic Violence Protection Court Orders, and the repeatedly tabled (but long‐delayed) ‘Family Protection Bill’. Such interventions, they argue, undermine Vanuatu's ‘natural’kastom and Christian patriarchal gender order and, in doing so, pose a serious threat to the socio‐economic productivity of the nation‐state. For other men, however, rather than opposing women's rights activism, such challenges have raised questions about how men might successfully negotiate their identities in ways that are sensitive to contemporary issues of gender equality without undermining existing paradigms. Thus, this paper addresses the value accorded to universalism and relativism in gender activism in Vanuatu, and especially in terms of the linked discourses of kastom, church and modernity. It therefore explores gender relations in terms of the contemporary entanglement of indigenous and exogenous epistemologies, and in doing so argues that the contextual analysis of ‘rights’ should consider the specific historical, political and socio‐cultural circumstances in which they are put to use.     

The Scent of Symmetry: A Human Sex Pheromone that Signals Fitness?

A previous study by the authors showed that the body scent of men who have greater body bilateral symmetry is rated as more attractive by normally ovulating (non-pill-using) women during the period of highest fertility based on day within the menstrual cycle. Women in low-fertility phases of the cycle and women using hormone-based contraceptives do not show this pattern. The current study replicated these findings with a larger sample and statistically controlled for men's hygiene and other factors that were not controlled in the first study. The current study also examined women's scent attractiveness to men and found no evidence that men prefer the scent of symmetric women. We propose that the scent of symmetry is an honest signal of phenotypic and genetic quality in the human male, and chemical candidates are discussed. In both sexes, facial attractiveness (as judged from photos) appears to predict body scent attractiveness to the opposite sex. Women's preference for the scent associated with men's facial attractiveness is greatest when their fertility is highest across the menstrual cycle. The results overall suggest that women have an evolved preference for sires with good genes.     

Regret,shame, and denials of women's voluntary sterilization

Women face extraordinary difficulty in seeking sterilization as physicians routinely deny them the procedure. Physicians defend such denials by citing the possibility of future regret, a well‐studied phenomenon in women's sterilization literature. Regret is, however, a problematic emotion upon which to deny reproductive freedom as regret is neither satisfactorily defined and measured, nor is it centered in analogous cases regarding men's decision to undergo sterilization or the decision of women to undergo fertility treatment. Why then is regret such a concern in the voluntary sterilization of women? I argue that regret is centered in women's voluntary sterilization due to pronatalism or expectations that womanhood means motherhood. Women seeking voluntary sterilization are regarded as a deviant identity that rejects what is taken to be their essential role of motherhood and they are thus seen as vulnerable to regret.     

Men's Preferences for Women's Femininity in Dynamic Cross-Modal Stimuli

Men generally prefer feminine women''s faces and voices over masculine women''s faces and voices, and these cross-modal preferences are positively correlated. Men''s preferences for female facial and vocal femininity have typically been investigated independently by presenting soundless still images separately from audio-only vocal recordings. For the first time ever, we presented men with short video clips in which dynamic faces and voices were simultaneously manipulated in femininity/masculinity. Men preferred feminine men''s faces over masculine men''s faces, and preferred masculine men''s voices over feminine men''s voices. We found that men preferred feminine women''s faces and voices over masculine women''s faces and voices. Men''s attractiveness ratings of both feminine and masculine faces were increased by the addition of vocal femininity. Also, men''s attractiveness ratings of feminine and masculine voices were increased by the addition of facial femininity present in the video. Men''s preferences for vocal and facial femininity were significantly and positively correlated when stimuli were female, but not when they were male. Our findings complement other evidence for cross-modal femininity preferences among male raters, and show that preferences observed in studies using still images and/or independently presented vocal stimuli are also observed when dynamic faces and voices are displayed simultaneously in video format.     

A sex difference in the context-sensitivity of dominance perceptions

Although dominance perceptions are thought to be important for effective social interaction, their primary function is unclear. One possibility is that they simply function to identify individuals who are capable of inflicting substantial physical harm, so that the perceiver can respond to them in ways that maximize their own physical safety. Another possibility is that they are more specialized, functioning primarily to facilitate effective direct (i.e., violent) intrasexual competition for mates, particularly among men. Here we used a priming paradigm to investigate these two possibilities. Facial cues of dominance were more salient to women after they had been primed with images of angry men, a manipulation known to activate particularly strong self-protection motivations, than after they had been primed with images of angry women or smiling individuals of either sex. By contrast, dominance cues were more salient to men after they had been primed with images of women than when they had been primed with images of men (regardless of the emotional expressions displayed), a manipulation previously shown to alter men's impressions of the sex ratio of the local population. Thus, men's dominance perceptions appear to be specialized for effective direct competition for mates, while women's dominance perceptions may function to maximize their physical safety more generally. Together, our results suggest that men's and women's dominance perceptions show different patterns of context-sensitivity and, potentially, shed new light on the routes through which violence and intrasexual competition have shaped dominance perceptions.     

Sex differences in friendship preferences

Friendships can help us solve a number of challenges, increasing our welfare and fitness. Across evolutionary time, some of the many challenges that friendships helped to solve may have differed between men and women. By considering the specific and potentially distinct recurrent problems men's and women's friendships helped them solve, we can derive predictions about the qualities that would have made men's and women's same-sex friends ideal partners. This logic leads to several predictions about the specific friend preferences that may be differentially prized by men and women. Across three studies (N = 745) with U.S. participants—assessing ideal hypothetical friends, actual friends, and using a paradigm adapted from behavioral economics—we find that men, compared to women, more highly value same-sex friends who are physically formidable, possess high status, possess wealth, and afford access to potential mates. In contrast, women, compared to men, more highly value friends who provide emotional support, intimacy, and useful social information. Findings suggest that the specific friendship qualities men and women preferred differed by sex in ways consistent with a functional account of friendship.     

Changes in salivary estradiol predict changes in women's preferences for vocal masculinity

Although many studies have reported that women's preferences for masculine physical characteristics in men change systematically during the menstrual cycle, the hormonal mechanisms underpinning these changes are currently poorly understood. Previous studies investigating the relationships between measured hormone levels and women's masculinity preferences tested only judgments of men's facial attractiveness. Results of these studies suggested that preferences for masculine characteristics in men's faces were related to either women's estradiol or testosterone levels. To investigate the hormonal correlates of within-woman variation in masculinity preferences further, here we measured 62 women's salivary estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone levels and their preferences for masculine characteristics in men's voices in five weekly test sessions. Multilevel modeling of these data showed that changes in salivary estradiol were the best predictor of changes in women's preferences for vocal masculinity. These results complement other recent research implicating estradiol in women's mate preferences, attention to courtship signals, sexual motivation, and sexual strategies, and are the first to link women's voice preferences directly to measured hormone levels.     

Introduction to Special Issue on "Familial and Peer Influences on Adolescent Substance Use"

This study examined associations between well-being and positive and negative aspects of social relationships among 128 married older adults with a best friend. Women were more depressed than men if they did not have a friend in whom to confide, but women who did have a friend in whom to confide reported lower levels of depressive symptomatology, closer to levels reported by men. Men's depressive symptomatology was not related to having a friend confidant. Similarly, women who did not have a same-sex best friend in whom to confide were less satisfied with life than women who did have a friend confidant and men in general. Having a best friend who gets on their nerves was negatively related to men's life satisfaction and positively related to women's. Thus, positive and negative aspects of friendships were related to women's and men's well-being in different ways and were more important for women. Positive and negative aspects of marital relationships, on the other hand, related to depressive symptomatology and life satisfaction of women in comparable ways as for men. Results are considered in terms of the practical implications for supportive relationships to help older people meet the challenges of aging.     

Intelligence and mate choice: intelligent men are always appealing

What role does a man's intelligence play in women's mate preferences? Selecting a more intelligent mate often provides women with better access to resources and parental investment for offspring. But this preference may also provide indirect genetic benefits in the form of having offspring who are in better physical condition, regardless of parental provisioning. Intelligence then may serve as both a cue of a mate's provisioning abilities and his overall heritable phenotypic quality. In the current study, we examined the role of a man's intelligence in women's long- and short-term mate preferences. We used a rigorous psychometric measure (men's WAIS scores) to assess intelligence (the first study to our knowledge), in addition to women's subjective ratings to predict mate appeal. We also examined the related trait of creativity, using women's ratings as a first step, to assess whether creativity could predict mate appeal, above and beyond intelligence. Finally, we examined whether preferences for intelligent and creative short-term mates shifted according to a woman's conception risk. Multilevel modeling was used to identify predictors of mate appeal. Study participants (204 women) assessed the long- and short-term mate appeal of videos of 15 men with known measures of intelligence performing verbal and physical tasks. Findings indicate that both intelligence and creativity independently predicted mate appeal across mating contexts, but no conception-risk effects were detected. We discuss implications of these findings for the role of intelligence and creativity in women's mate choices.     

Social dialect and men's voice pitch influence women's mate preferences

Low male voice pitch may communicate potential benefits for offspring in the form of heritable health and/or dominance, whereas access to resources may be indicated by correlates of socioeconomic status, such as sociolinguistic features. Here, we examine if voice pitch and social dialect influence women's perceptions of men's socioeconomic status and attractiveness. In Study 1, women perceived lower pitched male voices as higher in socioeconomic status than higher pitched male voices. In Study 2, women independently perceived lower pitched voices and higher status sociolinguistic dialects as higher in socioeconomic status and attractiveness. We also found a significant interaction wherein women preferred lower pitched men's voices more often when dialects were lower in sociolinguistic status than when they were higher in sociolinguistic status. Women also perceived lower pitched voices as higher in socioeconomic status more often when dialects were higher in sociolinguistic status than when lower in sociolinguistic status. Finally, women's own self-rated socioeconomic status was positively related to their preferences for voices with higher status sociolinguistic dialects, but not to their preferences for voice pitch. Hence, women's preferences for traits associated with potentially biologically heritable benefits, such as low voice pitch, are moderated by the presence of traits associated with resource accrual, such as social dialect markers. However, women's preferences for language markers of resource accrual may be functionally independent from preferences for potential biological indicators of heritable benefits, such as voice pitch.     

Comic woman,victim woman: Pushing gender and genre boundaries in popular Hindi Cinema

“Women's film” in Hollywood is associated both with the genre of melodrama, the “weepie”, and with female spectatorship. In the Indian context of popular Hindi cinema, first, genre analysis itself is a questionable line of inquiry since several genres, the melodrama, musical, gangster, or mystery, combine in a single film, known locally as the masala (spicy) film; and second, films are scarcely divided by a gendered viewership. Yet I identify “women's films” as a distinct category in Hindi cinema, emerging around the ‘70s. These women's films typically center on female protagonists, dramatize their victimization and vindication; by the ‘80s under a range of influences these films mutated into rape‐revenge narratives.

However, another strain emerged within the ‘70s’ “women's film,” which drew on cinema's rich visual iconographic tradition of the sight gag, promulgating the comedic/tomboy heroine figure. It favored laughing and mocking patriarchal structures rather than surrendering to them in tears. Focusing on Ramesh Sippy's Sita aur Gita [1972] emblematic of this trend I explore theoretical concerns about associating genres with gender. In keeping with recent poststructuralist theories about gender and media ‘consumption I show how the film destabilized clear‐cut gender identification and stood for a promising trend that was sadly undercut. Thus, while genre might still be a useful analytical tool for Hindi cinema, defining women's film as female‐centered narratives is a viable category as long as we appreciate the instability in gendered viewer identification.