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Evolutionary Psychology and Feminism Sex Roles DOI 10.1007/s11199-011-9987-3 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Evolutionary Psychology and Feminism David Michael Buss & David P. Schmitt # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract This article provides a historical context of field of evolutionary psychology—a field of research evolutionary psychology and feminism, and evaluates the that has revolutionized how we understand human contributions to this special issue of Sex Roles within that psychological mechanisms and how they interact with context. We briefly outline the basic tenets of evolutionary social, cultural, and ecological variables to produce psychology and articulate its meta-theory of the origins of manifest behavior. It is also an exciting opportunity to gender similarities and differences. The article then evaluates clarify the basic tenets of evolutionary psychology, the specific contributions: Sexual Strategies Theory and the discuss the interface with feminist scholarship, and desire for sexual variety; evolved standards of beauty; address some of the misunderstandings commonly held hypothesized adaptations to ovulation; the appeal of risk about work in this field. Dialoguing with other scholars taking in human mating; understanding the causes of sexual about these issues in this format provides an invaluable victimization; and the role of studies of lesbian mate opportunity to facilitate future progress in this field. preferences in evaluating the framework of evolutionary It is a hallmark of the maturation of the interface of psychology. Discussion focuses on the importance of social evolutionary psychology and feminist perspectives that and cultural context, human behavioral flexibility, and the Sex Roles has devoted an entire special issue to its stock- evidentiary status of specific evolutionary psychological taking. First, we briefly review some of the main tenets hypotheses. We conclude by examining the potential role of of evolutionary psychology; fruitful dialogue requires evolutionary psychology in addressing social problems being absolutely clear about those foundational tenets, identified by feminist agendas. the nature of hypotheses developed according to the framework, and consequently the relevant empirical tests Keywords Evolutionary psychology . Feminism . Sexual of those hypotheses. Second, we review some historical strategies . Gender differences landmarks of the links between evolutionary psychology and feminism. Third, we comment on the specific contributions to this special issue. We conclude by Introduction looking to the future—discussing the broader implica- tions for facilitating a productive interface between these We are delighted with the opportunity to comment on perspectives. research and essays in the exciting and high-impact Basic Tenets of Evolutionary Psychology: A Brief D. M. Buss (*) Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Sketch Austin, TX 78712, USA e-mail: [email protected] Evolutionary psychology is a hybrid discipline that draws insights from modern evolutionary theory, biology, cogni- D. P. Schmitt Bradley University, tive psychology, anthropology, economics, computer science, Peoria, IL, USA and paleoarchaeology. The discipline rests on a foundation of Sex Roles core premises (Buss 2011;Conferetal.2010; Tooby and research in the field of non-human behavioral ecology tests Cosmides 2005): specific hypotheses about evolved mechanisms in animals, the bulk of scientific research in evolutionary psychology (1) Manifest behavior depends on underlying psychological tests specific hypotheses about evolved psychological mechanisms, information processing devices housed in mechanisms in humans, hypotheses about byproducts of the brain, in conjunction with the external and internal adaptations, and occasionally hypotheses about noise (e.g., inputs—social, cultural, ecological, physiological—that mutations). interact with them to produce manifest behavior; As in all scientific endeavors, the outcomes of the (2) Evolution by selection is the only known causal empirical research necessarily vary from hypothesis to process capable of creating such complex organic hypothesis. Some will be empirically supported. Some will mechanisms (adaptations); be falsified. And some will receive mixed support and (3) Evolved psychological mechanisms are often func- require modification as the helical interplay between tionally specialized to solve adaptive problems that theories and empirical data unfolds. We applaud the efforts recurred for humans over deep evolutionary time; of the authors in this special issue who have conducted (4) Selection designed the information processing of empirical tests of specific evolutionary psychological many evolved psychological mechanisms to be adap- hypotheses, ranging from adaptations to ovulation through tively influenced by specific classes of information design features of short-term mating strategies. And we from the environment; concur with the authors of these articles that the best way to (5) Human psychology consists of a large number of make progress is by using the scientific method to test functionally specialized evolved mechanisms, each empirical claims. sensitive to particular forms of contextual input, that get combined, coordinated, and integrated with each other and with external and internal variables to An Evolutionary Meta-theory of Gender Differences produce manifest behavior tailored to solving an array and Gender Similarities of adaptive problems. Several key implications follow from these premises. Evolutionary psychology provides a meta-theory for pre- First, human behavior is not, and cannot be, “genetically dicting when and where to expect gender differences and determined”; environmental input is necessary at each and when and where to expect gender similarities (Buss 1995a). every step in the causal chain—from the moment of Women and men are expected to differ in domains in which conception through ontogeny and through immediate they have faced recurrently different adaptive problems contextual input—in order to explain actual behavior. over human evolutionary history. They are expected to be Second, underlying psychological mechanisms must be similar in all domains in which they have faced similar distinguished from manifest behavior. Just as explaining adaptive problems over human evolutionary history. manifest calluses requires identifying underlying cell- Although the final scientific word is not yet in, we producing mechanisms and the environmental input suspect that the similarities outnumber the differences. necessary for their activation (repeated friction to the skin), These include similarities in taste preferences (an exception explaining manifest human behavior requires indentifying occurs when women get pregnant and hence face a different the underlying psychological mechanisms and the environ- suite of adaptive problems), and similarities in habitat mental input necessary for their activation and implemen- preferences (e.g., for resource-rich environments containing tation. Third, social and cultural inputs are necessary and places for refuge), similarities in kin investment as a integral parts of the scientific analysis of all forms of function of genetic relatedness, and similarities in adapta- human social behavior. Fourth, evolutionary psychology tions to avoid the “hostile forces of nature” such as contends that human behavior is enormously flexible—a predators, parasites, and other environmental hazards. This flexibility afforded by the large number of context-dependent sentiment is echoed by Hannagan (2011), who suggests that evolved psychological adaptations that can be activated, “What is shared among the genders is a motivation for the combined, and sequenced to produce variable adaptive human elimination of economic or social competitors and the behavior. desire for control over events (i.e., ‘politics’)” (this issue). These basic tenets render it necessary to distinguish Mating and sexuality, in contrast, are domains in which between “evolutionary psychology” as a meta-theory for women and men are known to have confronted different psychological science and “specific evolutionary hypothe- adaptive problems. For example, unlike men, women have ses” about particular phenomena, such as conceptual for millions of years faced the adaptive problems of proposals about aggression, resource control, or particular pregnancy and breastfeeding, both of which are metaboli- strategies of human mating. Just as the bulk of scientific cally expensive endeavors. Men but not women have faced Sex Roles the adaptive problem of paternity uncertainty and the risk of the two approaches or disciplines are in some ways misdirected parental investment—adaptive problems in- overlapping but in some ways incommensurable. curred as a consequence of internal female fertilization. Neither “feminism” nor “evolutionary psychology” is Despite domains in which evolutionary psychologists theoretically monolithic. Among feminist psychologists, for typically predict gender-differentiated adaptations, even example, some such as Hyde have argued that gender within mating women and men face many similar adaptive differences have been exaggerated and that women and problems. In long-term mating, for example, both genders men are much more similar than they are different (e.g., face the problem of identifying mates who will commit to Hyde 2005). In contrast to “similarity feminists,” other them over the extended temporal durations (Buss and feminist psychologists, such as Eagly,
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