Men become more jealous of dominant males when their female partner is near ovulation, researchers at the University of Liverpool have found.
Previous studies have found that women's preferences for male physical appearance vary according to their fertility status. During ovulation women tend to find masculine looking men more attractive and prefer their voices and odour. During this fertile phase women are more likely to have an affair with a masculine-looking man, as their features are linked to high testosterone levels, demonstrating good genetic qualities that can be passed on to offspring.
New research at the University has found that men sense this preference shift in their female partners and find masculine men more threatening during their partner's most fertile phase. Rob Burriss and Dr Anthony Little, from the University's School of Biological Sciences, also found that men only behave in this way if their female partner does not use oral contraception – and is therefore more fertile.
Images of male faces that were either high or low in dominant features, such as a strong jaw lines and thinner lips, were shown to male participants who provided ratings of dominance for each image. A dominant person was defined as someone who looked like they could 'get what they wanted'.
Participants were asked to provide information on whether or not their female partner used oral contraception and the date of her current or previous menses. Male participants whose partners did not use oral contraception and were near ovulation rated masculine faces more dominant than those participants with partners who did use oral contraception and were not near ovulation.
I think of Ray Davies and the Kinks singing "I'm an ape man, I'm an ape ape man, I'm an ape man. I'm a King Kong man. I'm a voodoo man. I'm an ape man". Do not be fooled by all the technological civilization you see around us. We are still primitive products of natural selection.
By Randall Parker at 2006 April 24 10:15 PM Brain Sexuality | TrackBackBut the times have changed perhaps, because a very muscular and dominant looking man who has an IQ of 75 has almost no chance of graduating from college, and his success in life would be rather limited. Additionally, his monosyllabic thought patterns would also be inherited by his offspring if a woman choses him. Are you sure that a woman would even unconsciously want to have a child from an unintelligent man who looks dominant and muscular? On the other hand, a very skinny and not dominant man who has an IQ of 160, who went to the Harvard Medical School, with a gentle voice and meek appearance, might be quite desirable to women who want a child. Any comments? I believe that if awoman discovers during the first 5 minutes that the muscular and dominant man she saw is mentally retarded, then I believe that the attraction would instantly vanish.
I can say, without a doubt, that except for with relatively smart people, this is all TRUE. I used to work at wal-mart... lets just say my co-workers weren't exactly choice cuts of humanity. They constantly acted out their apish behavior for all of us to see. Not only were they constantly gossiping, but every week just about the girls would have circulated around, forming new networks of hookups. Threats of fights were rampant.
Could have made a nature documentary about it.
Kind of ironic that this is the type of behavior which selected us to be the most powerful species.
Also want to add something to wolf-dog... While it's possible for people to overcome their nature through intelligent thought and self examination, most people don't. Saying that that masculine looking man is retarded is just a way to make the woman believe this person is of low status, which as we all know is a natural turn off for them.
People will always be attracted to whoever their brains tell them to be. This doesn't meant that smart women will be unable to manipulate their own psychology to be attracted to say, that gentle lawyer rather than the trailer pig when they realize that the lawyer will give them a better life (that is, given that in her native culture a lawyer wouldn't neccesarily be highly respected, which would be the reason she'd need to ignore the trailer man in the first place... the analogy is admittedly somewhat flawed).
I have to agree with Anonymoose...I have seen many otherwise smart women go after masculine losers, only to be hurt over and over again. Eventually they wisen up (most of them anyway) and go for men based on more practical things than just lust and excitement...but this usually comes after being abused physically, emotionally, or verbally by one or several of these men.
Well, how about the rest of the lyrics?
Something like,
"I'll be your Tarzan, you'll be my Jane
I'll keep you warm, you keep me sane
Sit in a tree and eat bananas all day
Cuz I am an ape man"
thanks for the blog, A reader