Sexual Selection: Fact or Fiction Essay

Clark and Hatfield helped support this by getting female and male experiments to ask male and female participants if they would like to engage in casual sex. 75% of males said yes while every female participant said no. This helps support the sexual selection theory as it shows that females have to be more careful with mating as they only have a limited amount of opportunities therefore are more likely to enter a longterm mating strategy. Males can have casual sex with little investment so are more likely to then females. This study helps to show the gender differences.

In the article the researchers were trying to challenge the sexual strategies theory. It seems as though sexual strategies theory is different genders having different preferences when choosing a mate, in the case of long and short term relationships. The hypothesis at first was that both boys and girls felt that attractiveness was important. Girls would be more inclined to date someone because of social status and that boys would be the complete opposite. They also expected that social status would only become important when the person is attractive and social status would be important no matter if the person is attractive on no for girls. The last thing that was tested was according to Ha (2009) “the potential moderator effects of

Certain factors which may contribute to honor killings stem from biology, specifically from evolutionary drives. One such drive is sexual selection. According to Charles Darwin, animals—including humans— might choose their mates based on specific traits which they find attractive. In human males, appealing physical traits involve height and masculinity. Psychological characteristics would include sexual aggressiveness. Aggression is therefore more liable to be passed down to the next generation and to modern males, making them exceedingly likely to assert their control over women (Goldstein, 2002).

Sexual Selection is a powerful evolutionary process, for those unable to attract or gain access to the opposite sex, risk being eliminated from the population (Apostolou). The theory of sexual selection was introduced by Charles Darwin in his book The Descent of Man, in which he explains, that selecting a mate is not a random process, and it is key to evolution, for it depends on which individuals have advantage over the rest of the same specie (Stanford 99). In sexual selection, males compete between one another to gain access to a mate, and females choose particular promising mates that demonstrate trait variability, so that their future offspring will have a higher chance of survival (Stanford 99). Male individuals have to demonstrate power, who can conquer the most, ability to survive and provide protection, among other characteristics that will make him the right mate for a female. And Females, must consider their options, since they want high quality genes for their future children (Angeloni 77). Therefore, as a female, I am seeking for specific characteristics in a mate, such as a lean body build, healthy white teeth, and height—he must be over 5’6. I seek for those traits in a mate to further add trait variability in my future offspring, which will help adapt, live longer, and reproduce in the future.

Sexual selection can best be described by the definition given by Darwin himself. Sexual selection is “the advantage which certain individuals have over other individuals of the same species solely in respect of reproduction” (Hosken et al, 2011). Sexual selection occurs throughout the animal kingdom, where male frogs dominate through the depth of their croak, and certain peacocks reign superior based on the colour and intricate detail on their tails. They remain superior to their lesser counterparts as they bear more admirable characteristics, from which they are chosen by females of the same species.

The objective of this study was to determine the reproductive success of the five different mating strategies used in one population of side-blotched lizards. Each mating strategy is associated with a phenotypic trait.

According to Buss & Kenrick (1998) males have developed short-term mating strategies, while women, in contrast, prefer long-term relationships as they need someone to stay with them for the pregnancy to provide resources and support. In the I’ve Noticed You Around experiment by Clarke & Hatfield (1989), 75% of male participants indicated that they would ask a woman to have sex with them after a brief introduction, in stark contrast to 0% of women participants, highlighting the social phenomenon of ___________. This social observation can be strengthened and linked to evolutionary insights. Women’s evolutionary and biological needs (gestation period, pregnancy, providing for children, higher parental investment, etc.), particularly evolutionarily before the use of contraception became viable, meant that they are less likely to engage in casual sex and often have fewer sexual

Human sexual behavior and how it arose is very puzzling to both scientist and the common people. Many human sexual behaviors have been observed to occur between generations of people, which may show an association with acquired behaviors by evolution. Scientist have tried to analyze the psychological components that constitute sexual human nature and how evolution has shaped them, therefore opening a new branch called Evolutionary Psychology (Sefcek et al., 2 ,2007). Evolutionary Psychology tries to explain how mate choice refers to both conscious and unconscious processes that can be both psychological and physiological (Miller, 88, 1998). An evolutionary approach to mate selection between males and females suggest that mate choice should

The evolutionary analysis of human sexual motivation is a great viewpoint, it is applicable to modern day ideas. This analysis states that men don’t need to do much for kids, their parental investment is low. While women carry the child for nine months and then often take care of it for years after birth, their parental investment is high.

Short-term mating, or long-term mating are two of the most important phases that almost every human on this earth would have to go through to reproduce and pass on their genes. Short-term mating and long-term mating can be studied through the evolution of human behavior. Evolution of human behavior allows scientists and researchers to look at human’s relationships, our interaction with each other from routine conversations to the most complicated of human’s interaction in a more profound approach. With movies, music, or any other type of media outlets tend to display lots of subject matter about love and sex, how the idea of short-term mating can lead to successful long-term relationships is absolutely mesmerizing to understand with sexual

Given the multitude of factors that can influence homosexuality, it makes senses that there would be many different genetic affects that influence homosexuality. Many of the genetic factors discussed in this section will be referred to as “gay genes” because it is difficult to pin point which genes are causing variations. One such “gay gene” is found to influence the reproductive fitness of its heterosexual carriers. Homosexuality is seen as a disadvantage in men, as they are not able to reproduce, but this gene is a win-win per say for both heterosexual and homosexual males. This gene, when present in abundance, will appear in individuals as homosexuality, but when carried at a lower level, it will not appear as homosexuality. It will, however, give the individual more feminine characteristics such as kindness and tenderness as well as more feminized faces that are attractive to females. All these feminine features allow the heterosexual individuals with these genes to have a greater reproductive fitness, making the burden on the homosexual individuals smaller because their genes have a greater chance of passing through when their siblings reproduce. This is one way to explain how homosexuality is still present today, because even though the homosexuals did not reproduce, their siblings with attractive features likely reproduced more to make up for them (Zietsch, 2008). To explain how this gene works, there are two different methods proposed.

For example; men are able to have offspring much easier than women can, and the “costs” of having offspring are not nearly as great for men as they are for women. Women have much more “parental investment” than men. Since the mother of the child only has a few chances to have healthy offspring, if the father leaves or is not attentive and/or caring, the woman’s chances of having healthy offspring that survive to adulthood is greatly reduced. Such for the survival of her potential offspring, and in turn her genes being passed on, it is adaptive for potential mothers to be able to select men and mate with men who will be caring and attentive enough to stick around and help care for and provide for the offspring. Some theories such as in the article “Red, Rank, and Romance in Women Viewing Men” (Francis, 2013) predict that through natural selection, women will have evolved to be “romantically attracted” to men who display these types of traits and qualities. "Women find men more attractive when they are kind, agreeable, intelligent, high in status, emotionally stable, and good-humored.” (Francis,

Darwin’s theory on sexual selection, conceptualized throughout the course of The Descent of Man, examines how inherent factors shape the structures and mental capabilities of males and females through nature and the influence of humanity’s ancestors. Darwin purports that it is biology that dictates human traits. According to Darwin, whose work was influenced by the Victorian period, the hierarchy of the natural realm, in which mankind is placed at the summit, is further stratified between the two sexes. As an underlying theme of his work, Darwin emphasizes his claim that, under the rationale of sexual selection, “[…] man has ultimately become superior to woman” (Darwin 565). In what respects, in Chapter 19, Darwin produces the following statement:

There is also a lot more knowledge and understanding surrounding the theory of kin selection, because of this the theory is beginning to be dubbed as biased and not real. There were two studies made criticizing the theory of kin selection and the work W.D Hamiliton done. One of these studies was published in 1998 (5) and another in 2002 (6) in PNAS. The theory was criticized for being biased towards sex and also it was argued that the behaviours which kin selection attempts to explain are not altruistic. An organism may favour another organism therefore attempting to enhance their

Part of the evolutionary explanation is Trivers’ parental investment theory which argues that the origin of behavioural differences between men and women lies in the different ways of achieving reproductive success. Trivers