tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post1096548449400779823..comments2024-03-26T01:10:13.720+00:00Comments on Teach Me Tonight: The Evolution of the Alpha MaleE. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-8612285864806444612010-08-28T10:07:47.907+01:002010-08-28T10:07:47.907+01:00I'm not much of a geek woman (I like the term ...I'm not much of a geek woman (I like the term beta-sexual though!) but I've discovered that Blogger has set up a new spam detection system and since they didn't send out an email to notify blog owners about it, your message was sitting in a new spam folder I didn't know we had.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-611120825757026302010-08-28T06:01:06.163+01:002010-08-28T06:01:06.163+01:00Yeah. I thought maybe it got lost in moderation be...Yeah. I thought maybe it got lost in moderation because I included a hyperlink in it?Angelhttp://mswyrr.livejournal.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-48522956350903480842010-08-28T01:10:40.982+01:002010-08-28T01:10:40.982+01:00Angel, did you leave a comment this afternoon whic...Angel, did you leave a comment this afternoon which has now disappeared?Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-52509840523796566892010-08-27T21:02:40.471+01:002010-08-27T21:02:40.471+01:00According to Psychology Today, that non-peer revie...According to Psychology Today, that non-peer reviewed <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/evolutionary-psychology" rel="nofollow">Evolutionary Psychology loving and popularizing</a> magazine of infernal nonsense, Evo Psych practitoners struggle to explain the existence of lesbian and bisexual women: <br /><i>In the third edition of his textbook Evolutionary Psychology: the new science of the mind, Professor David Buss (University of Texas / Austin) asserts that "1 to 2 percent of women" are lesbian or bisexual ("What about lesbian sexual orientation?" Box 4.1, p. 137 in the Pearson International Edition, 2009). He implies that this figure has been generally valid over time, a finding which he acknowledges poses an as-yet-unsolved mystery for evolutionary psychology. Popular accounts of homosexual behavior often suggest that these behaviors make evolutionary sense because the people practicing these behaviors make better aunts and uncles than heterosexuals do, a theory first advanced by E.O. Wilson back in the 1970's. However, studies published in the past twenty years have provided little support for this hypothesis, and have often directly refuted it, particularly for male homosexuals</i> (<a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sax-sex/201004/why-are-so-many-girls-lesbian-or-bisexual" rel="nofollow">Source</a>)<br /><br />If only I could figure out what label they'd apply to us geek/beta-sexual women, I could then observe their pitiable confusion over us, too! Unfortunately, I think they've opted for erasure in our case, since a geeky girl with a geeky boy can be considered a pairing of the unfortunate losers of the mating race rather than an expression of genuine preference.Angelhttp://mswyrr.livejournal.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-33526894055809588502010-08-27T11:28:18.525+01:002010-08-27T11:28:18.525+01:00"Nobody wants someone without attractive char..."<i>Nobody wants someone without attractive characteristics, it's just that different characteristics are attractive to different people.</i>"<br /><br />You may well think so (and I'd agree with you), but from what I can tell (and I admit my reading of evolutionary psychology is very limited, and has been confined to articles about the romance genre), the evolutionary psychologists seem to focus on a particular set of characteristics which they think are deemed attractive by most women. I'm not sure what conclusions they'd draw about women who don't find that particular set of characteristics attractive.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-50959730487610571252010-08-27T07:24:32.968+01:002010-08-27T07:24:32.968+01:00*Antryg
**Yeah, the Doctor can be an asshole in ...*Antryg <br /><br />**Yeah, the Doctor can be an asshole in a very Geekboy sort of way, too. I suppose I find that kind of jerkishness more tolerable in much the same way that a reader who likes "masculine" strengths is willing to put up with masculine weaknesses (like having a dude with awesome abs who's also non-communicative and has no clue about feelings)Angelhttp://mswyrr.livejournal.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-72063200229569624272010-08-27T07:17:35.916+01:002010-08-27T07:17:35.916+01:00"Alpha male" is so nebulously defined th..."Alpha male" is so nebulously defined that I have trouble parsing discussions about him because I'm not quite sure what people mean when they use the term. <br /><br />I can get pretty far by assuming first that alpha male = man of strength and second that the strength(s) being referred to are ones currently coded as masculine within mainstream American/European culture. I.e. financial security, athleticism, competence with violence, competence with weapons, sexual dominance and endurance. In some cases, as mentioned above, sometimes characteristics like bullying, pushiness, callousness, vanity, and "overly inflated self-esteem" are (imo, inaccurately) considered signals of strength. To me, those are signs of the kind of weakness of character that produces abuse. Especially if they're paired with a strong body.<br /><br />To use a bad metaphor: the doggie that barks at everyone and must *constantly* make threats and bluster is not a good doggie. It's an insecure/crazy/badly socialized doggie that will maul you one day.<br /><br />For a long time I conflated the two groups of characteristics (strengths considered masculine and insecurities considered strengths) and <i>hated</i> the Alpha. I've figured out two things since then, though. First, that I can rationally see the appeal of a hero who has characteristics that our culture(s) consider signs of masculine strength, as long as he doesn't have the insecurity shit. Second, I <i>do</i> like men with strength, I just really am not moved by the strengths associated with masculinity traditionally. <br /><br />I like emotional resilience, verbal dexterity, insight, commitment to justice, empathy, loyalty, intelligence, sexual openness, care-taking skill, someone who's mature enough to be unashamed of enjoying life and being silly, etc.<br /><br />Taking a good, hard look at myself I really like a sort of... Alpha Geek character in my fiction. Like the Doctor from Doctor Who. Someone who has excellence but succeeds through their non-gendered wits and humanism rather than their masculine gendered gunplay or their overwhelmingly muscled body or whatever.<br /><br />So, yeah. Nobody wants someone without attractive characteristics, it's just that different characteristics are attractive to different people. And so... placing all that one finds sexy in the Alpha box and everyone else in the Loser box (or hating on the Alpha, as I have done) is just... very narrow and absurd. <br /><br />So I've dropped my knee-jerk dismissal of all Alphas, but the Alpha still doesn't do anything for me, because he's strong like "a man." And the sort of strength I want to see is... well. It's ((waves hands)) around. In Megan Whelan Turner's pairing of Eugenidies and Attolia and Barbara Hambly's Antrgy and Joanna, and all the fantastic (relation)shipper hetfic about the various Doctors and companions. And <i>Fringe</i>'s Olivia/Peter. <br /><br />Hm. Now I just wonder how to get more of that in Romance. <br /><br />Oh, well!<br /><br />((goes back to reading Donna/Tenth Doctor fics))Angelhttp://mswyrr.livejournal.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-69523480145293005482010-08-01T23:38:12.265+01:002010-08-01T23:38:12.265+01:00"Sorry if both of those points are simplistic..."Sorry if both of those points are simplistic or off-topic"<br /><br />I don't think they're either. In fact, I'd be very more likely to suspect that any system with "a tendency to divide men (or people) into just two classes" is simplistic.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-78238311193222966272010-08-01T18:26:59.790+01:002010-08-01T18:26:59.790+01:00I don't think I dare say much here without doi...I don't think I dare say much here without doing a lot more background reading than I am in the mood for at the moment, but at the risk of stating the obvious, there are a just couple of things.<br /><br />Probably it's just me, and my general interest in other species, but I had always thought of the 'alpha' concept much more in terms of ethology than human evolutionary psychology. This was why I was always so irritated by the application of the term 'alpha' to fictional heroes who were merely rude, overbearing and arrogant in American 1980s category romance, because vanity and inflated self-esteem does not, in my mind, equal 'alpha'. The alpha individuals in many non-human communities are better classified as having charisma, being the ones entrusted by others with leadership because of their superior qualities, usually including some degree of age and experience. <br /><br />And the second point: do I sense a tendency to divide men (or people) into just two classes in some of these sources? 'Alpha' and 'wimp'? There are an awful lot of individuals who are neither! There is a hierarchical continuum, not from alpha to beta, but at least from alpha to somewhere around pi, rho or sigma... And the position of people on that alphabet of status does not depend solely on innate strength or intelligence, but can and does change according to age and condition.<br /><br />Sorry if both of those points are simplistic or off-topic.AgTigressnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-4974364311924726822010-07-28T23:47:53.363+01:002010-07-28T23:47:53.363+01:00I'm really glad you've commented, Heather....I'm really glad you've commented, Heather. I sympathise with you on the length problem. I have a tendency to write rather long essays, posts, and comments precisely because I can't bear to cut out details. Having to cut 50 pages sounds very painful.<br /><br /><i>Anyway, do I believe that my own argument in this essay is a conclusive “fact”? Not really. It’s my best interpretation of the patterns I see.</i><br /><br />As I said, I think the existence of the Mills & Boon Alphaman strengthens your argument that the "alpha" as a type was shaped by a particular scientific tradition, and that the novels therefore can't be taken as "clear, transparent, unmediated view of our true selves, untainted by culture." In addition, the implication of the story McAleer relates is that Boon, who was male, was enforcing these preferences on his female authors, which again makes it problematic to see these texts solely as products of female desires and instincts.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-544609486056955262010-07-28T17:36:55.528+01:002010-07-28T17:36:55.528+01:00Hi! It’s really gratifying to see my essay review...Hi! It’s really gratifying to see my essay reviewed on Teach Me Tonight. I love this blog. <br /><br />You are absolutely right that I don’t offer a very thorough history of the romance novel. Pamela Regis and others have done such a good job that I couldn’t hope to do better, and I didn’t try. Rather than focus on "firsts,” I wanted to hit some of the key players and major moments. For instance, while it’s true that Romance Writers of America is a newcomer compared to the Romantic Novelists Association, RWA is huge. And their reach extends well beyond the romance writing community, influencing readers and academics; I mean, not only do they read the research on romance, they fund it. <br /><br />One of the challenges with the essay was length. Over 50 pages got cropped from the final draft. Granted, it’s much better for the rigorous editing, but the process was painful. The section discussing the alpha hero in historicals bit the dust. The paragraph describing chick lit got the axe. Many of the things you mention were points I agonized over cutting. However, you also put your finger right on a mistake I made: I left out the Mills and Boon Alphaman. I was rereading Natural History of the Romance Novel shortly after sending in the final proof of my essay and belatedly spotted Regis’ discussion of this. Argh. <br /><br />Anyway, do I believe that my own argument in this essay is a conclusive “fact”? Not really. It’s my best interpretation of the patterns I see. And for every romance novel that demonstrates some given trait, there will probably be a dozen others that don’t. Romance writers are a complex, multi-faceted bunch, and they write every imaginable approach to the love story. I mean, Laura Kinsale wrote over 500 pages featuring a hero with brain damage! J. R Ward killed her heroine!!! Who would have guessed they could get away with that?Heather Schellhttp://gwu.academia.edu/HeatherSchellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-76437009033625536002010-07-28T17:28:37.823+01:002010-07-28T17:28:37.823+01:00Perhaps this shows that the ideal mating outcome f...<i>Perhaps this shows that the ideal mating outcome for men is that their beloved die...</i><br /><br />If one's determined enough to make something fit a particular theory, one can usually manage it. Your fact is problematic: it doesn't appear that this type of fiction depicts a great mating strategy, since dead women aren't going to be able to look after offspring.<br /><br />However, one could make this fit the theory if one allows for some cultural influence. In <a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kruger/KJF_DC_HN.pdf" rel="nofollow">the paper that Fisher co-wrote with Kruger and Jobling about "British Romantic literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries"</a> it's stated that there are two kinds of men:<br /><br /><i>Cads are designed to maximize their reproductive success by having many short-term relationships without parental investment. Dads, on the other hand, maximize their reproductive success through long-term, monogamous relationships with women and parenting (Dawkins 1976).</i> (306)<br /><br />In order to explain the problem of the dying love interest, I will first of all have to decide that such novels are written by/for "cads" who aren't really interested in "long-term, monogamous relationships."<br /><br />The "sex-specific mating interests" of these cads involve having sex with lots of different women, so the man has to move on from each woman, leaving her pregnant. Cultural pressures make it somewhat difficult for a man to do that without looking like a heartless Don Juan, so the fantasy solution is to have the beloved die spontaneously, leaving the cad free to move on to the next woman.<br /><br />Maybe an evolutionary psychologist would come up with a different answer for you, but since I'm not one, I'm just doing my best to use their theory.<br /><br />Incidentally, I think the research in that paper about eighteenth and nineteenth century heroes sounds like a scientific version of what's described in the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bridget-Joness-Guide-Comic-Relief/dp/0330488570" rel="nofollow">Amazon product description</a> of <i>Bridget Jones's Guide to Life</i> as<br /><br /><i>a parlour game entitled Shag, marry or push off a cliff. The rules? "Each of the players suggests three names. The person on the player's right must then decide, if they absolutely had to shag one of them, marry another, and push another off a cliff, which it would be. It is usually best to pick three which are similar in some way."</i><br /><br />In Kruger, Fisher and Jobling's version they ask the women to <br /><br /><i>read descriptive passages (200–300 words) of prototypical dads and cads assembled from British Romantic novels. Waverley, from </i>Waverley<i> (1814) by Walter Scott, and Valancourt, from </i>The Mysteries of Udolpho<i> (1794) by Ann Radcliffe, represented dads. George Staunton from </i>The Heart of Mid-Lothian<i> (1818) and Clement Cleveland from </i>The Pirate<i> (1821), both by Walter Scott, represented cads.</i> (311)<br /><br />Then, "In a forced-choice section, participants indicated which character they would be more likely to go with on a three-week road trip and a formal date, have sexual relations with, marry, and prefer to see engaged to their 25-year-old daughter" (311-312).<br /><br />-----<br />Kruger, Daniel J., Maryanne Fisher and Ian Jobling. "Proper and Dark Heroes as Dads and Cads: Alternative Mating Strategies in British Romantic literature." <i>Human Nature</i> 14.3 (2003): 305-317.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-24676490309514713572010-07-28T16:24:23.062+01:002010-07-28T16:24:23.062+01:00I, more often than seems reasonable, read books wh...I, more often than seems reasonable, read books wherein the male authors kill the love interest.<br /><br />Perhaps this shows that the ideal mating outcome for men is that their beloved die...Marianne McAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-57416477336259011012010-07-28T11:46:44.160+01:002010-07-28T11:46:44.160+01:00As you suggest, Julia, fiction may reflect fantasi...As you suggest, Julia, fiction may reflect fantasies rather than what people would prefer in real life, and readers don't have to worry that the rake will stop wanting to "invest time and resources" in his plain, plump bluestocking after the initial challenge has worn off, they don't have to worry about lack of resources since heroes are (a) fictional and (b) often rich.<br /><br />Another thing I think's worth mentioning is that from what I can tell (having read comments readers have made on romance blogs/websites) many readers change their mental picture of the hero's appearance to suit their own personal preferences.<br /><br />"<i>Personally, I find evolutionary theories instinctively quite persuasive - but the unwarranted assertions about the romance genre are irritating</i>" <br /><br />I'm certainly not ruling out the possibility that biological factors play a part in attraction. However, the research I've just mentioned from the face lab seems more persuasive to me because (a) the researchers have looked at people from a range of different cultures, rather than, as in the case of Fisher and Cox's analysis of romances, extrapolating from the preferences of a group of American women and (b) it seems more nuanced, and suggests that people's preferences are shaped by personal factors as well as by a range of social, environmental and biological ones.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-54313163986558640572010-07-28T11:33:32.932+01:002010-07-28T11:33:32.932+01:00Very often, the alpha male is attracted to and mar...<i>Very often, the alpha male is attracted to and marries heroines contrary to what evolutionary principles would indicate he should.</i><br /><br />In the article <a href="http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/2010/05/harlequin-and-evolutionary-psychology.html" rel="nofollow">I analysed</a> Cox and Fisher "propose that the books appeal to women because they address evolved, sex-specific mating interests" so they'd no doubt say that this is why the books show an ideal of success for women, even if it isn't the ideal mating outcome for men.<br /><br /><i>Despite Auer's cave bears, what possible evolutionary advantage led to romance?</i><br /><br />I don't know, but the same question could be raised about many modern leisure activities.<br /><br /><i>What do evolutionary biologists have to say about superheroes?</i><br /><br />I don't know, Julia. It would perhaps be interesting to see if superheroes aimed at men "address evolved, sex-specific mating interests" that men are presumed to have. Not that the target audience for superhero stories is all male, but I have a feeling that there's a perception that that's historically been the case. Certainly I've seen action/adventure novels described as the masculine escapist reading which is the counterpart of romance (which is seen as feminine escapist reading). Of course, there are male readers of romance, and female readers of action/adventure novels, and I'm not sure how those are explained by evolutionary psychologists.<br /><br />The ongoing research into what women actually find attractive is interesting and suggests preferences are affected by a variety of factors:<br /><br /><i>Penton-Voak et al. (1999) found that women who were not using oral contraceptives (i.e. ‘the pill’) were more attracted to masculine male faces during the phase of their menstrual cycle when their fertility is highest (i.e. around ovulation) than they were at other times. In other words, when women are most likely to be able to conceive they appear to become more attracted to men who will father particularly healthy offspring (i.e. masculine men). At other times, however, women appear to be more attracted to ‘caring and sharing’ men who will make good long-term partners. Little et al. (2001) also found that women who consider themselves to be particularly attractive show stronger preferences for masculine men than women who consider themselves to be relatively unattractive do. Little et al. (2001) suggested that this link between women's own attractiveness and their preferences for men who are generally perceived to be unwilling to invest time and resources in their partners and children may occur because masculine men are more willing to invest time and resources in highly attractive women.</i> (<a href="http://www.faceresearch.org/students/notes/masculinity" rel="nofollow">Face Research</a>)<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.facelab.org/Publications/abstracts?id=279" rel="nofollow">abstract of a recent paper</a> from some of the the Face Researchers states that<br /><br /><i>Recent formulations of sexual selection theory emphasise how mate choice can be affected by environmental factors, such as predation risk and resource quality. Women vary greatly in the extent to which they prefer male masculinity and this variation is hypothesised to reflect differences in how women resolve the trade-off between the costs (e.g., low investment) and benefits (e.g., healthy offspring) associated with choosing a masculine partner. A strong prediction of this trade-off theory is that women’s masculinity preferences will be stronger in cultures where poor health is particularly harmful to survival.</i>Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-70963677061699226342010-07-28T10:09:49.631+01:002010-07-28T10:09:49.631+01:00Fascinating post. I don't have any additional...Fascinating post. I don't have any additional info re the use of the term 'alpha' vis-a-vis romance but it seems unlikely to me it was first coined as recently as 1992? Personally, I find evolutionary theories instinctively quite persuasive - but the unwarranted assertions about the romance genre are irritating.Joanna Chambershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11008683032460114886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-18588368199572669582010-07-27T21:52:08.703+01:002010-07-27T21:52:08.703+01:00Your post is fascinating. Evolutionary biology as...Your post is fascinating. Evolutionary biology aside, I suspect the appeal of romance lies in the fantasy aspect of romantic literature. An attractive, sexy male - one who can take on all comers - hard on the outside yet soft on the inside when involved with one special woman, the heroine, or, in the imagination of the reader...the reader herself (or himself).<br />In my mind, a romantic fantasy is not much different from a work of science fiction or mainstream fantasy. Any story that transports us out of our daily life/routine is appealing, and for me, seems to stimulate the same arousal centers in my brain.<br />What do evolutionary biologists have to say about superheroes? I view them as an extension of, or another branch stretching off, the alpha romance hero tree. <br />Just like men fantasize about their version of a perfect woman, women fantasize too...that doesn't mean they believe the perfect vision of a romance hero exists IRL, nor does it mean they will search for that fantasy man, forsaking all others.<br />In my opinion what women want is an intelligent, interesting, kind, competent man. Does an alpha hero possess these attributes? Yes, but these attributes are not unique to him. It's a bit of a chicken and the egg kind of argument.Julia Rachel Barretthttp://juliarachelbarrett.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-91949136649281215112010-07-27T19:13:05.181+01:002010-07-27T19:13:05.181+01:00Even though I'm convinced that romance fiction...Even though I'm convinced that romance fiction, if it is amenable to such strictures at all, is influenced by biological imperatives, I'm a bit skeptical that evolutionary psychology explains romantic fiction's use of use of the alpha male as a character. Very often, the alpha male is attracted to and marries heroines contrary to what evolutionary principles would indicate he should. In fact, I should think evolutionary psychology would have a difficult time explaining romance fiction , especially since, according to the explanations of the theories behind it that I've read, evolutionary psychologists believe that all mankind's psychological states were determined in the cave era. Despite Auer's cave bears, what possible evolutionary advantage led to romance?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com