Category: Uncategorized
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“willpower and intelligence are two of the strongest predictors of coalitional value according to Coalitional Value Theory (CVT), but they are not the only ones. According to the theory: Coalitional value = how much a person marginally improves the success and fitness of a group. High coalitional value leads to prestige (freely given deference), status,…
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Coalitional Value Theory: an Evolutionary Approach to Understanding CulturePublished: 08 May 2020Bo Winegard, Amanda Kirsch, Andrew Vonasch, Ben Winegard & David C. Geary Abstract In the following article, we forward the coalitional value theory (CVT) and apply it to several puzzles about human behavior. The CVT contends that humans evolved unique mental mechanisms for assessing each other’s marginal value to a…
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I am taking a deep dive into Darwin, Sex, and Status by Jerome Barkow.
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“Presumably, however, we tend to choose partners whose attributes would, back in our hunting-and-gathering evolutionary environment, have enhanced our inclusive fitness.” Jerome Barkow
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Beauty fades. Personality remains.
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When you look at YouTube, you find countless pop-psychology or dating-guru explanations about what men desire and what women desire in a partner. But if you truly want to examine these preferences in depth—if you want solid, evidence-based knowledge about them—you could read The Evolution of Desire by David Buss. Over countless millennia, humans evolved…
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~”You shall know a man by the company he keeps.”
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The central question of the book is:What constituted adaptive behavior in ancestral environments? A related question follows naturally:What constitutes adaptive behavior in modern environments? I will shortly provide a comprehensive summary of the entire book. I have already shared summaries of all ten chapters.
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I think the final chapter is a thoughtful and fitting conclusion to the book. It reiterates several essential facts and observations developed earlier and, beyond that, expresses a sense of wonder at the uniquely human capacity to form long-term bonds: “Men and women have always depended on each other for transporting their genes to future…
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This chapter explores sex-specific trajectories in mate value and their behavioral consequences. Changes over Time An alpha male can lose dominance over time: “Although there were four adult males in the troop, Yeroen was responsible for nearly 75 percent of all matings when the females came into estrus. As Yeroen grew older, however, things began…
