Oh never talk again to me
Of northern climes and British ladies;
It has not been your lot to see,
Like me, the lovely girl of Cadiz
--Lord Byron, "The Girl of Cadiz" (1809)
Part I here. A little background: I graduated in spring 2003, spent 3 months teaching English in Barcelona, came back due to being broke (only had a job for those 3 months), worked to save more money, went back in summer 2004 and stayed until February 2005 (again due to being broke). I've been working here since then, and I'll likely return this year in July -- thank christ! I plan to get a more advanced diploma for teaching English, which I hope will open more options for teaching & training new teachers.
Now, I wouldn't be much of a nerd if I didn't have some sort of quantitative data analysis to establish my case, so let's get it out there first. The data are from David Buss' seminal 1989 cross-cultural survey of mating preferences (pdf here, Ctrl F "bbs"). The sample size for the Mainland US data set was N = 1491 (639 male, 852 female, mean age for both ~20); for Spain it was N = 124 (44 male, 80 female, mean age for both ~23). Buss had the respondents rate how important various traits were in a mate, from 0 (not important at all) to 3 (essential), and then averaged the responses of each culture.
Admittedly, the best way to show where different cultures stand would have been to calculate their z-scores using huge data sets, but 1) the worldwide distribution would be unfairly dominated by larger cultural data sets in Buss' survey, and 2) I'm not interested in precisely how much more or less concerned one culture is w/ some traits vs another culture. As I'm more interested in who is more or less concerned w/ some trait than who else, I just made a rank-ordering, again admittedly to be taken w/ a grain of salt in the finer details, though the rough patterns are clear enough. For example, here are the rankings of the 37 cultures for how important to females are "Good finanical prospect," "Ambition / Industriousness," and "Good looks," from least to greatest emphasis (lists are up to the Mainland US data point):
Good financial prospect
(Rank) (Mean rating of trait) (Culture)
1 0.94 Netherlands
2 1.14 Zulu
3 1.16 Great Britain
4 1.18 Finland
5 1.33 Italy
6 1.36 Belgium
7 1.39 Spain
. . .
27 1.96 US
Ambition / Industriousness
1 1.41 Netherlands
2 1.56 Finland
3 1.59 Great Britain
4 1.66 West Germany
5 1.69 Spain
. . .
31 2.45 US
Good looks
1 0.88 Zulu
2 0.99 Finland
3 1.09 Japan
4 1.21 Netherlands
5 1.22 S.Africa white
5 1.22 Ireland
5 1.22 Colombia
8 1.24 Spain
8 1.24 Australia
. . .
28 1.67 US
So what do Spanish girls care about? Beyond "personal chemistry," I'm not sure, but level of culture plays a larger role there than here. Now, many folks here believe that reflects Olde Worlde elitism, but it's actually the opposite -- raising your level of culture through willpower is much more feasible than raising your level of riches (largely determined by IQ, itself beyond conscious control), ambitiousness (mostly extraversion on the Big Five personality inventories, also not really under conscious control), or good looks (muscle level is under control, but not the two features girls actually give a damn about: height and facial features). Not unrelated: the only gain in the Head Start programs was in literacy, not IQ or other IQ-related life outcomes.
In my experience, they also want a guy who has a passion for something -- here, that usually means a thirst for power (as in the "Ambition / Industriousness" trait), but in cultures civilized enough to rise above alpha-male polygyny (a quagmire into which the rad fems have unwittingly led their sisters), "passion" means engaging in some activity that activates the psychological state of flow, whether that gets you rich or not. They want a guy who isn't so busy that he doesn't have time to enjoy the things that make life worth living for a Mediterranean -- succulent food, keeping in touch w/ family members, taking in beautiful architecture, enjoying a meandering chat w/ friends over coffee or a nap at home during the long lunch break, and staying out all Saturday night and not sleeping until Sunday afternoon!
That still leaves a large role for chance (chemistry), and isn't that unsettling? Not really: the randomness of personal chemistry is at work everywhere, except here you have to score highly on a battery of elite tests just to earn a ticket to enter the head-over-heels lottery. No thanks. I'm of course leaving aside the elephant in the room -- that, to me at least, the average prize in one lottery behaves and looks orders of magnitude better than in the other lottery.
As for personal anecdotes to put a face on the numbers -- first, I'm 5'8 and 130 lbs, so I haven't been to the beach in the US since I was a kid. I couldn't suffer them staring at the scarecrow. But when I went to the beach at Barcelona, I actually noticed some (cute) girls looking at me -- I thought for sure the skin on my back must have been stained by sprawling splotches of sunburn! I found out they don't prefer Viking Warrior types but Adolescent Greek Boy types. Second, I taught English, and a (cute) student of mine came on to me when our class went out clubbing. (I didn't respond since I didn't want to spoil the student-teacher dynamic.) Third, the only hot girl who's ever more-or-less propositioned me was a Catalan friend of an English teacher friend, when a group of us were at a karaoke bar. (Nothing happened since I tried to play it cool rather than ruin the chance by appearing too eager -- but she thought I was uninterested or gay, dropped me like a hot potato, and started hitting on another guy in our group. How on earth are you supposed to be not too eager but not too nonchalant anyway?)
Well, there's plenty more to say about them, but I'll leave it there and come back to this topic as other ideas pop into my mind. Till then, the final lines of Byron's poem:
In each her charms the heart must move
Of all who venture to behold her;
Then let not maids less fair reprove
Because her bosom is not colder:
Through many a clime ’tis mine to roam
Where many a soft and melting maid is,
But none abroad, and few at home,
May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz.
Hello agnostic,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog from your posting at Alas (good luck there; I've already gotten lynched there in the past several times).
I'm glad you are talking about mating preferences, because I think they are a very important subject that is not adequately understood in our culture because of misinformation and superstition. I would go so far as to say that there is a moral imperative for people to be accurately educated on the mating preferences of the opposite sex.
It's common for people to act as if human mating is this magic process that we must not attempt to understand, lest we spoil the "magic." This view seems related to metaphysical notions of mating as a connection of two souls. Yet mating is a materialistic process based on biology, which has been shaped by evolutionary forces. For me at least, understanding this process doesn't detract from the "magic" or emotional experience at all; actually, understanding how things work has been the only way I've gotten anything to happen at all, because in the past I would just bumble around and get nowhere.
The other common fallacy I see about mating is the notion that "everyone wants something different." In one sense, this is true, but so trivial that it's really just a cop-out. There are also massive similarities and patterns in what humans want, yet many people either cannot see those patterns, or they don't want to see those patterns, or they pretend that those patterns don't exist.
When these patterns are admitting to exist, they are often given socio-cultural explanations. Often, even the possibility of biological explanation cannot be acknowledged. The biggest culprit in this area is, of course, feminism. It isn't politically correct to even suggest that mating preferences may have evolutionary roots, because that would been seen as somehow justifying male objectification of women, etc. Check out this fascinating thread on BDSM and power dynamics in sexuality: http://alephnul.livejournal.com/2285.html . The possibility is never even explored that there may be some evolutionary component in the sexualization of power dynamics; it's totally chalked up to culture.
But I'm sure most of this is old hat for you. Now for your specific points:
---- Now, many folks here believe that reflects Olde Worlde elitism, but it's actually the opposite -- raising your level of culture through willpower is much more feasible than raising your level of riches (largely determined by IQ, itself beyond conscious control), ambitiousness (mostly extraversion on the Big Five personality inventories, also not really under conscious control), ------
I agree that extraversion and ambitiousness are both important, but I'm wondering what the connection is that you see between them.
Btw, I think a good question is: which girls *don't* go for extraverted guys? Although I've seen a few girls with introverted boyfriends, the majority of girls my age seem to be the most attracted to extraverted guys. Ever since I trained myself to act more extraverted, more girls started showing interest in me. Here are some random ideas for the cause of these tendencies:
1. Extraversion is simply more attractive to females, and introversion is a disadvantage. The only reason that introverted males exist is because they have bad genes, they got screwed by prenatal hormones (which influence temperament, right??), or they inherited the trait from their mother (because introversion is not such a disadvantage for females).
2. The majority of women are themselves extraverts, and for some reason, they want guys who are like them (perhaps because it is too easy for an extraverted woman to dominate an introverted man? perhaps a similar temperament is better for building a pair-bond?).
3. Extraversion is an advantage in the early stages of an interaction because of how male-female interaction is structured. Hence, introverted males are more likely to get passed over, because they aren't socially proactive enough, and because they cannot get their foot in the door conversationally. In this case, the issue is not that extraversion is more attractive to women; it is simply more useful in the beginning of an interaction.
4. Extraversion is an attractive characteristic in short-term mates, while introversion is more attractive in long-term mates. In this case, a female preference for extraversion could reflect a female preference for short-term mating strategies (and it would make sense that college females are more likely to favor short-term mating).
5. Introverted/inhibited males are commonly bullied by their more extraverted/aggressive peers during childhood and adolescence. Hence, introverted males are likely to grow up low in social status and confidence, which makes them less attractive to females.
Btw, I have some interesting references on temperament and mating, if you are interested.
----- or good looks (muscle level is under control, but not the two features girls actually give a damn about: height and facial features). -----
Some minor improvement of height is available through good posture, and dominant body language ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1347701,00.html ). Also, deficits in height and facial features can be compensated for through other methods of displaying dominance (i.e. verbal dominance, and dominance communicated nonverbally through body language and voice tonality). These types of behavioral dominance are much easier to change. (Note: I am accepting here that female attraction to males is something to do with dominance/status, but that's a whole different discussion.) That is why although it is easier for females to attain small/moderate gains to their attractiveness, males can potentially make very large gains, though it requires a massive behavioral makeover.
----- In my experience, they also want a guy who has a passion for something -- here, that usually means a thirst for power (as in the "Ambition / Industriousness" trait), but in cultures civilized enough to rise above alpha-male polygyny (a quagmire into which the rad fems have unwittingly led their sisters), "passion" means engaging in some activity that activates the psychological state of flow, whether that gets you rich or not. ------
Good point! I know about girls going after guys who have a "passion," and I know about flow, but I had never but those two things together. I wonder what the reason for this is.
What do you mean by "a quagmire into which the rad fems have unwittingly led their sisters"? This sounds interesting.
----- That still leaves a large role for chance (chemistry), and isn't that unsettling? -------
Wait, I don't think chemistry has anything to do with chance, but perhaps I'm not understanding what you mean. As far as I can tell, when a female talks about having "chemistry" with a guy, it means sexual attraction that is based on his "charisma," which seems to mean the influence his body language, facial expressions, and voice tonality have on her emotions and limbic system. That is why females can feel no chemistry for good-looking males.
------- As for personal anecdotes to put a face on the numbers -- first, I'm 5'8 and 130 lbs, so I haven't been to the beach in the US since I was a kid. I couldn't suffer them staring at the scarecrow. But when I went to the beach at Barcelona, I actually noticed some (cute) girls looking at me -- I thought for sure the skin on my back must have been stained by sprawling splotches of sunburn! I found out they don't prefer Viking Warrior types but Adolescent Greek Boy types. -------
Interesting. I wonder whether there are biological differences between Spanish women and the women who want Viking Warriors, or if they are following different mating strategies, or whether cultural differences are enough (I'm not sure the correct way to phrase this question, but I think you can tell what I mean).
------ Third, the only hot girl who's ever more-or-less propositioned me was a Catalan friend of an English teacher friend, when a group of us were at a karaoke bar. (Nothing happened since I tried to play it cool rather than ruin the chance by appearing too eager -- but she thought I was uninterested or gay, dropped me like a hot potato, and started hitting on another guy in our group. How on earth are you supposed to be not too eager but not too nonchalant anyway?) ------
This is an example of what I mean by the inadequacy of the information that is supplied to people on mating in our culture. It's astonishing that amount of males especially that aren't equipped with the information and skills to have positive sexual romantic experience with women, even when women throw themselves at those men.
The problem here is that:
- There are invariances in female mate selection criteria
- Males are not educated about female mate selection criteria in any useful manner
- Not all males find courtship behavior easy or "natural," because males vary in temperament and attractiveness. The way courtship is structured will feel more natural for extraverted, dominant, aggressive males who aren't stressed out easily, and feels less natural for males without those qualities.
Our culture cannot admit any of these points. If it became socially acceptable to explore mating preferences, and figure out their implications, everyone would be able to have more positive sexual/romantic experiences.
I'm worse than you in the height department. OK facial features, but things don't look so promising.
ReplyDeleteYou ever check out the literature on picking up women? Some interesting stuff.