Chapter 5 Why are men not bad and women not loving?

In 2008, I was in Kyoto, Japan, listening to a psychologist speak at a conference on human behavior and evolving societies.In his experiments, he concluded that some of the characteristics of what we commonly call "antisocial (routine)" may have extraordinary effects. "This one," he said, "has to do with the so-called 'dark triad' of human personality, such as narcissism, neuroticism, and unscrupulousness." The last one goes hand in hand with cunning and ignorance.It has long been concluded in the field of psychology that these characteristics often appear in one person, and are regarded as the "three dark personalities" of the three-in-one.One should not be proud of these personalities.People with such personalities are often shunned by others and have few friends. "Predictably," said the speaker, "these personalities were also unhelpful long ago. Whoever has this dark triad stamped on his forehead is left to fate, with little chance of collective support. "

At this point, the speaker's research suddenly pointed in another direction.He said: "However, narcissistic, neurotic and unscrupulous young men usually have many girlfriends and have more sexual experience than 'good' men. Their relationship duration is shorter than that of stable relationships. However, girls We all seem to like this kind of anti-social bad boy." The speaker said gloatingly.His observations lead to the exact opposite of Darwin's theory of evolution - a person who is anti-social convention is more sexually experienced, which according to Darwin's theory is not true.This conclusion made me frown.Why does this run counter to our usual understanding of human evolution?This presents an interesting conflict between traditional psychology and evolutionary biology.So I turned on my laptop and started typing this article.This also caused a little dissatisfaction with my neighbor. He wanted to sneak a peek at what I was writing, but he couldn't speak Dutch.I didn't expect meetings to be so interesting!

Short-lived romantic relationships are an interesting phenomenon that, from an evolutionary perspective, can bring certain benefits.If men use this reproductive strategy, they can produce offspring faster than those who fall in love and reproduce only with their partners.They don't have to fulfill their father's duties at all, and they don't even have to watch their children grow up.Suppose there is such a flower picker who spreads his sperm so generously that a woman conceives him every month, then after five years, he will have sixty children.He didn't realize that he had such a large amount of wealth, he didn't have to pay the children's school fees, he didn't have to teach the children anything, he didn't have to protect their lives, and he didn't even know what his own children's names were...but the children carried a lot of burdens... his genes.This is the benefit of evolution!The good father stays with the mother obediently, and can only make the mother pregnant three times at the same time.See, there is still a difference.

Of course, in reality, such a thing will definitely not happen.No matter how active the flower pickers are, they can only realize so many successful reproductions in the above examples in their dreams.Moreover, when it comes to evolution, one must think of prehistory, the stage when human behavior was naturally selected and forged 100,000 years ago. At that time, the chances of children surviving were much smaller. Human beings came to the world early because of their big brains, which is actually too early, so they need more care and protection to survive.At this time, it would be nice to have a good father, who will bring up the child with the mother for a long time, that is, in a long-term relationship between the sexes.It turns out that the single mothers of our ancestors were much less likely to raise their own children.So, most of the offspring of the super-aggressive no-nonsense guys mentioned above don't survive.On the other hand, the children of good fathers survive, or at least, they have a much better chance of growing up and carrying on the family line.

Here we see two male reproductive strategies, each with its own evolutionary success.That explains the behavior of the bad boys, but it doesn't explain why the girls fall for them.Right now, if a girl has a crush on those "dark triad" boys, it means their great-great-great-grandmother should too.From this point of view, there should still be some evolutionary advantages.It is usually expected that women are more attracted to men who are serious, loyal, and can fulfill their father's duties for a long time.These men can at least ensure that the children can live better.You are right, but...

Assuming our great-great-great-grandmothers were blind to, never fascinated by, the flower pickers, those gentlemen would not have passed on their indulgent genes, and it would be impossible for us to recognize their behavior today.In this way, there were many great-grandmothers who, like many women today, were enamored with playboys.While this contradicts our evolutionary intuition, it can be explained. Ladies fall for playboys, and their offspring's genes are predisposed to short-term relationships and "dark triad" boys.That way, they could have lots of grandchildren!Having lots of grandchildren is also an evolutionary success.Perhaps the children born to those women have a lesser chance of survival, but when they do, the sons can produce as many grandchildren for them as their fathers did.Bad dads make bad sons, and likewise, daughters can pass those "bad" genes on to their offspring.

Look, my story is almost finished, and the conclusion is that the research of the psychologist holding a microphone to speak, not only does not run counter to Darwin's theory, but has become a kind of confirmation.It was too loud when I closed my laptop, drawing disapproving glances from the attendees.When the chairperson of the conference asked "Any questions?", I stood up and pointed out to the speaker in a language everyone could understand that he had underestimated evolutionary biology.After I finished speaking, I still blushed in embarrassment.Discussion of the next speaker has already begun.Sit down, don't talk.