Social Psychology - Theories of Relationships

Social Psychology - Theories of Relationships

Childhood Background and Female Sexual Strategies

Contents

Abstract .1

Introduction .2

Method .16

Results .18

Discussion .21

References .24

Abstract

Men and women have adapted through the course of time to develop different characteristics , physically and psychologically . These differences are due to facing different problems in the environment (Buss , 1998 ) Evolutionary theory provides an explanation as to why and how men and women behave adaptively . Sexual strategies theory (Buss 1994 Buss Schmitt , 1993 as cited in Buss , 1998 ) explains the

differences in men and women 's mating within an evolutionary framework At times it seems the sexes are different in their strategies , in others , they seem very similar

This will review various theories relating to the of sexual strategies in the short-term and long-term for women from an evolutionary perspective and compare it with attachment and father-absence theories . The following study will provide a valuable test of father-absence theory . In this study , predictions from the father-absence hypothesis are tested using retrospective data from a sample of women in Manitoba . The results from the future study will indicate relationship between childhood family environment and adult mating and sexual strategy among females

Introduction

Sexual Strategies in an Evolutionary Context

Sexual strategies are based in our evolution (Buss , 1998 , Darwin 1859 as cited in Buss 1998 . Males and females have faced different adaptive problems over the course of history and have evolved specific adaptive strategies to solve them . These strategies can be categorized as short-term strategies and long-term strategies (Buss , 1998 . There have been many empirical studies to assess the validity of these strategies and whether in the face of an adaptive problem the strategies differ across the sexes (Cramer Schaeffer , 1996 Buss , 1998 , 1995 Keenan Gallup , 1997 Shackelford , Goetz , LaMunyon , Quintus Weekes-Shackelford , 2004 . Both males and females employ long-term and short-term strategies . Males , however , seem to employ more short-term strategies than women . This is related to the idea of minimal reproductive investment . Women have higher minimal investment in reproduction (nine-months gestation ) whereas men 's minimal investment is the sexual act itself (Buss , 1998 . This leads women to be pickier than men in selection of a mate . It also leads men more likely than women to , engage in short-term sexual strategies (Buss , 1998 Shackelford et al , 2004 Cramer Schaeffer , 1996

One goal in evolutionary theory is perpetuation of one 's own genetic code . Since women 's gestation is nine-months , it is , not reproductively beneficial for a woman to mate with many different men , as she can only be impregnated roughly once per , year no matter how many partners she has . Men , on the other hand , stand to benefit greatly in terms of reproduction by mating with as many woman as possible in the short-term (Buss , 1998 , The basis of selection of mates for males (and females to a lesser extent ) is attractiveness (Singh , 2004

Attractiveness is defined by Singh as a low waist to hip ratio (WHR Attractiveness leads both males and females to , believe the...