10 ms·

Sex and shopping - it's a guy thing

47 points by alexandros 17y ago

araneae 17y ago
I think that idea that men use wealth to attract mates is pretty damn obvious, but I never really considered that women use displays of altruism to attract males. But makes sense that women would want to say "look! I'll make a good mommy! I am nice and selfless!" But to go back to our usual question of women-in-tech, people often remark that women tend to go into fields that are more "helping" i.e. medical professions, non-profits. In general, I think the implication that women go into more "helping" fields and men go into more revenue generating fields is used to paint men in a bad light; but here they've shown that women are being just as selfish when they appear to be more altruistic than men. After all, they're much more likely to do charity when a potential mate is watching.
- nopassrecover 17y ago
  Well "pretty damn obvious" wasn't so clear. As a concept it sounds nice and clean that we're all motivated by sex but when you (I'm assuming you're male) go and buy a new car, new watch or a trip to Europe, are you really thinking "this will impress the ladies"? Because that's what this study has actually proved for once - conspicuous purchasing decisions are motivated by sex (conversely conspicuous charity for women).
  - araneae 17y ago
    I guess what is obvious to me is that conspicuous behavior != conscious behavior. No one is really thinking "this will impress the ladies" or "this will impress the guys" when they perform these behaviors, but that's really irrelevant. Most of human behavior, I would argue, is not conscious. We're conscious of the decisions we make, but not always about the ultimate (evolutionary) causes. And why should we? It's completely unnecessary for the evolutionary reasons for our behavior to be conscious, only that we act in a manner that will produce more copy of our genes.
    - krakensden 17y ago
      "Man is not a rational animal, man is a rationalizing animal"
  - adammichaelc 17y ago
    Maybe I'm all alone here, but in high school I remember buying a car and thinking exactly "can't wait to show the girls." :)
- vaksel 17y ago
  I think they go into nursing because the income is better than programming. My cousin's wife just became a nurse. 2 years of schooling, and her first job started her off at $80K a year. And since she doesn't work at a hospital, that's $80K for regular hours. And she is just a regular nurse fresh out of school.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    extrapolating from a single data point is a bad idea. the national average for 2009 is in the ballpark of $45k
    - vaksel 17y ago
      well this is NYC, $80K here is like $45K in Kentucky
    - blackguardx 17y ago
      That statistic gets dragged down by nurses who only have associates degrees. Nurses with a B.S. earn over $60k on average.
      - pmorici 17y ago
        It's possible to get 80k out of school as a computer scientist and I also know nurses that have a 4 year degree before they started nursing school so...
    - iigs 17y ago
      If people go into nursing because the perception is that it pays so well, these viewpoints are not contradictory.
- pwnstigator 17y ago
  I think that idea that men use wealth to attract mates is pretty damn obvious, but I never really considered that women use displays of altruism to attract males. It makes sense. The contest for status (i.e.. access to women) among men makes men a lot more mean-spirited and despicable than they would like to be, so a woman who is, or seems to be, "above the fray" is very attractive. This explains the appeal of the female healer, the angel in the house, etc.
- zaidf 17y ago
  But makes sense that women would want to say "look! I'll make a good mommy! I am nice and selfless!" I was hanging out with this girl when this random guy approaches us in the parking lot asking for gas money, saying how he's forgotten his wallet at home. I am super wary of his story and am about to walk off. The girl with me doesn't. She wants to go in the ATM and get him some money. I let her do that and like you said, knowing the girl would go out of the way to help some random guy added brownie points for her in my book. Of course, if I was being totally rational I may have considered the move dumb on her part. But my gut reaction was "cool chick!".
diego 17y ago
Spent is a great book. I particularly liked the descriptive part of it, should be required reading for anyone working in marketing or trying to sell products. I'm not so sure about his prescriptive ideas. He proposes different ways to shape policy so that people rely less on consumerism to send status signals to each other. In general they are interesting but sound a bit impractical. Still, it's very well written and enjoyable.
mberning 17y ago
So what happens when I go out and buy a sports car, but don't tell anybody about it and generally try to draw as little attention to it as possible? Or put another way, what would the explanation be if I buy some high status item, but then actively work to downplay it?
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  Reminds me of a point made in a similar article: why are people so surprised high profile figures like Bill Clinton risk so much to have affairs, when from an evolutionary standpoint they got there in order to have affairs. As for downplaying a sports car, it's not very likely you'll do that. Possible, of course, but just not very likely.
  - Imprecate 17y ago
    I've had a brand new high-end German car for almost a year and some of my closest friends don't even know I own it (I live in a large city where driving isn't that common). I like to keep a low profile for the most part. I don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention, look like a "young hot-shot kid" at work, etc. There's nothing wrong with women appreciating your success and ambition, but nobody wants to be a meal ticket. I think women like confidence more than money, but having both never hurts. I once joked to a friend that my luck hadn't improved significantly despite earning much more; he quipped "you were still a guy who was going to make a lot of money back then, you just didn't have it yet." The most interesting signaling behavior to me is being a hipster. Not having to work is really showing familial wealth and status. Most people don't come from a background where they can spend all day finding cool music and weird clothes rather than working a 9-5.
- fburnaby 17y ago
  What if you hang around in a culture in which conspicuous consumption is generally frowned upon? You would have apparently conflicting goals; a presumably "hard-wired" desire for the car, yet a more learned knowledge that it won't actually help you implement the intentions of your genes. In short, I'm proposing that it could be one of those examples of an out-of-evolutionary-context kind of behavior.
ShabbyDoo 17y ago
I wonder if the ever increasing average age of marriage (at least in the US) leads to more consumption. Imagine that most people get married right after high school graduation. Men certainly would have consumed within their means to attract women, but they would have been limited to what their parents gave them and what they could earn in after-school jobs. Would they still consume so much? Perhaps the "promiscuous" men would continue spending so they could attract additional mates?
pwnstigator 17y ago
Study 4 showed that women rated a man driving a Porsche Boxster as more attractive for a short-term sexual relationship than a man driving a Honda Civic. The fact that women are even capable of conceiving of short-term sexual relationships is a sign that our society is impotent and dying.
- pwnstigator 17y ago
  This was voted down why, exactly? Everyone knows I'm right. A society that fails to impel people to better themselves is next to useless.
  - pwmanagerdied 17y ago
    'cause your name makes it clear you're trolling? =V
    - pwnstigator 17y ago
      I'm not trolling. I am annoyed to see copious downvoting with minimal response or discussion.
      - orborde 17y ago
        You provided no evidence to back up your point originally, and so it came off as a drive-by "I am an anti-feminist troglodyte who is either trolling or hopelessly incapable of thought" comment; both cases merit a downvote.
        pwnstigator 17y ago
        You consider me "anti-feminist" why? Casual sex and strong-man polygamy are about as anti-feminist as it gets, rooted in the concept of women as a resource to be sexually exploited.
        orborde 17y ago
cturner 17y ago
The article underneath about 'givewell' was more interesting still. http://www.givewell.net/charities/top-charities http://www.givewell.net/charities/top-charities """ GiveWell was founded in 2006 by former hedge-fund workers Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld. Frustrated by the absence of evidence provided by charities that they are delivering the goods in terms of their charitable ends, the pair decided to use their data-analysis skills to evaluate charities' effectiveness. They were appalled at what they found. Evidence-based charity lags far behind evidence-based medicine: virtually no charities do randomised, controlled trials regarding which interventions work. In fact, almost no charities collect any systematic data on whether or not their well-intentioned activities are actually doing any good. """

47 points by alexandros 17y ago

I think that idea that men use wealth to attract mates is pretty damn obvious, but I never really considered that women use displays of altruism to attract males. But makes sense that women would want to say "look! I'll make a good mommy! I am nice and selfless!" But to go back to our usual question of women-in-tech, people often remark that women tend to go into fields that are more "helping" i.e. medical professions, non-profits. In general, I think the implication that women go into more "helping" fields and men go into more revenue generating fields is used to paint men in a bad light; but here they've shown that women are being just as selfish when they appear to be more altruistic than men. After all, they're much more likely to do charity when a potential mate is watching.

nopassrecover 17y ago
Well "pretty damn obvious" wasn't so clear. As a concept it sounds nice and clean that we're all motivated by sex but when you (I'm assuming you're male) go and buy a new car, new watch or a trip to Europe, are you really thinking "this will impress the ladies"? Because that's what this study has actually proved for once - conspicuous purchasing decisions are motivated by sex (conversely conspicuous charity for women).
- araneae 17y ago
  I guess what is obvious to me is that conspicuous behavior != conscious behavior. No one is really thinking "this will impress the ladies" or "this will impress the guys" when they perform these behaviors, but that's really irrelevant. Most of human behavior, I would argue, is not conscious. We're conscious of the decisions we make, but not always about the ultimate (evolutionary) causes. And why should we? It's completely unnecessary for the evolutionary reasons for our behavior to be conscious, only that we act in a manner that will produce more copy of our genes.
  - krakensden 17y ago
    "Man is not a rational animal, man is a rationalizing animal"
- adammichaelc 17y ago
  Maybe I'm all alone here, but in high school I remember buying a car and thinking exactly "can't wait to show the girls." :)
vaksel 17y ago
I think they go into nursing because the income is better than programming. My cousin's wife just became a nurse. 2 years of schooling, and her first job started her off at $80K a year. And since she doesn't work at a hospital, that's $80K for regular hours. And she is just a regular nurse fresh out of school.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  extrapolating from a single data point is a bad idea. the national average for 2009 is in the ballpark of $45k
  - vaksel 17y ago
    well this is NYC, $80K here is like $45K in Kentucky
  - blackguardx 17y ago
    That statistic gets dragged down by nurses who only have associates degrees. Nurses with a B.S. earn over $60k on average.
    - pmorici 17y ago
      It's possible to get 80k out of school as a computer scientist and I also know nurses that have a 4 year degree before they started nursing school so...
  - iigs 17y ago
    If people go into nursing because the perception is that it pays so well, these viewpoints are not contradictory.
pwnstigator 17y ago
I think that idea that men use wealth to attract mates is pretty damn obvious, but I never really considered that women use displays of altruism to attract males. It makes sense. The contest for status (i.e.. access to women) among men makes men a lot more mean-spirited and despicable than they would like to be, so a woman who is, or seems to be, "above the fray" is very attractive. This explains the appeal of the female healer, the angel in the house, etc.
zaidf 17y ago
But makes sense that women would want to say "look! I'll make a good mommy! I am nice and selfless!" I was hanging out with this girl when this random guy approaches us in the parking lot asking for gas money, saying how he's forgotten his wallet at home. I am super wary of his story and am about to walk off. The girl with me doesn't. She wants to go in the ATM and get him some money. I let her do that and like you said, knowing the girl would go out of the way to help some random guy added brownie points for her in my book. Of course, if I was being totally rational I may have considered the move dumb on her part. But my gut reaction was "cool chick!".

diego 17y ago

Spent is a great book. I particularly liked the descriptive part of it, should be required reading for anyone working in marketing or trying to sell products. I'm not so sure about his prescriptive ideas. He proposes different ways to shape policy so that people rely less on consumerism to send status signals to each other. In general they are interesting but sound a bit impractical. Still, it's very well written and enjoyable.

mberning 17y ago

So what happens when I go out and buy a sports car, but don't tell anybody about it and generally try to draw as little attention to it as possible? Or put another way, what would the explanation be if I buy some high status item, but then actively work to downplay it?

radu_floricica 17y ago
Reminds me of a point made in a similar article: why are people so surprised high profile figures like Bill Clinton risk so much to have affairs, when from an evolutionary standpoint they got there in order to have affairs. As for downplaying a sports car, it's not very likely you'll do that. Possible, of course, but just not very likely.
- Imprecate 17y ago
  I've had a brand new high-end German car for almost a year and some of my closest friends don't even know I own it (I live in a large city where driving isn't that common). I like to keep a low profile for the most part. I don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention, look like a "young hot-shot kid" at work, etc. There's nothing wrong with women appreciating your success and ambition, but nobody wants to be a meal ticket. I think women like confidence more than money, but having both never hurts. I once joked to a friend that my luck hadn't improved significantly despite earning much more; he quipped "you were still a guy who was going to make a lot of money back then, you just didn't have it yet." The most interesting signaling behavior to me is being a hipster. Not having to work is really showing familial wealth and status. Most people don't come from a background where they can spend all day finding cool music and weird clothes rather than working a 9-5.
fburnaby 17y ago
What if you hang around in a culture in which conspicuous consumption is generally frowned upon? You would have apparently conflicting goals; a presumably "hard-wired" desire for the car, yet a more learned knowledge that it won't actually help you implement the intentions of your genes. In short, I'm proposing that it could be one of those examples of an out-of-evolutionary-context kind of behavior.

ShabbyDoo 17y ago

I wonder if the ever increasing average age of marriage (at least in the US) leads to more consumption. Imagine that most people get married right after high school graduation. Men certainly would have consumed within their means to attract women, but they would have been limited to what their parents gave them and what they could earn in after-school jobs. Would they still consume so much? Perhaps the "promiscuous" men would continue spending so they could attract additional mates?

pwnstigator 17y ago

Study 4 showed that women rated a man driving a Porsche Boxster as more attractive for a short-term sexual relationship than a man driving a Honda Civic. The fact that women are even capable of conceiving of short-term sexual relationships is a sign that our society is impotent and dying.

pwnstigator 17y ago
This was voted down why, exactly? Everyone knows I'm right. A society that fails to impel people to better themselves is next to useless.
- pwmanagerdied 17y ago
  'cause your name makes it clear you're trolling? =V
  - pwnstigator 17y ago
    I'm not trolling. I am annoyed to see copious downvoting with minimal response or discussion.
    - orborde 17y ago
      You provided no evidence to back up your point originally, and so it came off as a drive-by "I am an anti-feminist troglodyte who is either trolling or hopelessly incapable of thought" comment; both cases merit a downvote.
      - pwnstigator 17y ago
        You consider me "anti-feminist" why? Casual sex and strong-man polygamy are about as anti-feminist as it gets, rooted in the concept of women as a resource to be sexually exploited.
        orborde 17y ago

cturner 17y ago

The article underneath about 'givewell' was more interesting still. http://www.givewell.net/charities/top-charities http://www.givewell.net/charities/top-charities """ GiveWell was founded in 2006 by former hedge-fund workers Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld. Frustrated by the absence of evidence provided by charities that they are delivering the goods in terms of their charitable ends, the pair decided to use their data-analysis skills to evaluate charities' effectiveness. They were appalled at what they found. Evidence-based charity lags far behind evidence-based medicine: virtually no charities do randomised, controlled trials regarding which interventions work. In fact, almost no charities collect any systematic data on whether or not their well-intentioned activities are actually doing any good. """