"The more men have to offer, the more valuable they become to women as a reproductive resource," Geary said. "For this reason, men in all cultures are highly motivated to attain social status and control of culturally significant resources. The resources can vary from land to herds of cattle to large paychecks. Male-male competition is about making themselves attractive to women but the competition also can lead men to compete in lethal ways to gain control of social resources."
Female competition may include how they dress or adorn themselves in ways that enhance their traits that men find attractive. Women may degrade these same traits in potential competitors and manipulate social information and relationships to drive competitors away from potential romantic partners. Male-male competition may explain factors, such as greater male mortality, risk-taking and rough-and-tumble play. Female-female competition may account for greater female emotional sensitivity and greater language proficiency, Geary said.
In 1998, Geary wrote the first edition of Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences, which compiled the research to that point on sex differences and synthesized it based on Darwin's theory.
"Since then, research on human sex differences has exploded with the emergences of new technologies, such as brain imaging techniques that allow us to understand men and women and boys and girls in ways that Darwin could have only dreamed of," Geary said.
As a result of this new research, Geary's second edition of Male, Female, includes references to nearly 2,500 studies across biology, psychology, anthropology, genetics and neuroscience.
Geary integrates sexual selection with what is known about the evolution of lifespan, primate behavior, the evolution of fatherhood, and the evolution and development of the human mind, sex differences
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| Contact: Kelsey Jackson JacksonKN@missouri.edu 573-882-8353 University of Missouri-Columbia Source:Eurekalert |