Sunny's AP Psychology Blog

Our Cheating Hearts

1. This article details the relatively new discoveries and theories which suggest that human beings are not a monogamous species. It explains much of the supporting data from an evolutionary perspective and concludes that women are subconsciously influenced by the need for material support in raising children and the preference of successful mates in order to pass on good genes to their offspring and men are influenced by the urge to propagate numerous viable offspring. However, the article does not suggest that we should cave in to our natural urges, but that we should understand our own nature and work to raise ourselves above the base level of animals and be moral beings.
2. Men and women use different strategies to ensure their genes pass onto the next generation. Since women produce a limited number of eggs, they have to choose their mates carefully, and in order to ensure that their offspring have a good chance of survival, tend to choose highly successful mates. They also tend to choose successful mates in order to ensure sufficient material support for their children. Sometimes, however, a woman will acquire a mate who will offer material support but is not possessed of especially desirable genes, and take a lover with desirable traits in order to produce like offspring. Women may also take several lovers so that they will be likelier to treat their offspring kindly. This is not to say that women have sex for the purpose of having healthy, well-provided offspring only, but that subconsciously the motives for the above strategies are there. Men are less selective in prospective mating partners than women. Since males produce sperm more or less continuously, they can afford to be so – it is more advantageous for them to spread their genes as widely as possible. This can lead them to loose interest in a mate after several years, after their offspring are somewhat independent, and go seek a new one. This disinterest can be mutual, but women may feel the need for continued support for offspring, and so conflict arises.
3. The article draws to the conclusion that monogamy, difficult to begin with as it is not a natural state, is harder to achieve in today’s society because of economic inequalities and the relative ease of divorce.
4. People may be tempted to use the evidence of our evolutionary status as polygamous animals to succumb to natural impulses, but we should use that knowledge to understand our own natures better and be moralistic.
5. I feel that, though illuminating from a scientific point of view, the article doesn’t really make much of an impression on ethics – the morality of a person has always depended on choices and self-control.
The article was somehow very funny because of it’s frankness and lack of prudishness – I found it refreshing and amusing.

posted by 미카 @ 8:56 AM