Transcript The Beauty Myth - Welcome to the EvoS Consortium!

Evolutionary Psychology and the
Beauty Myth?
Charles Crawford
Department of Psychology
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC, Canada, V 5A 1S6
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.sfu.ca/faculty/crawford
A Central Problem for Humans
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How can we set up societies
– that are founded on moral principles, and yet
– are pliable and comfortable enough for people
so that the society will persist?
Example: Collapse of the USSR
Resolving “naturalistic” and “moralistic” fallacies
Is there a role for evolutionary psychology?
The Beauty Myth
 Standards
of human physical beauty
are arbitrary.
 Individual3s are very susceptible to
cultural pressures to conform.
 The media in western cultures impose
beauty standards.
 Men somehow use the “beauty myth”
to control and oppress women.
Blame for Standards of
Beauty
“Oh my God, we are so sick in this society.”
– “Better watch out girl. You're getting a
little broad across the beam.”
 “I believe in sin, therefore in a sinner; in
theft, therefore in a thief; in slavery,
therefore in a slaveholder; in wrong,
therefore in a wrong-doer.” William Lloyd
Garrison/Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth
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Today’s Talk
 Physical
beauty: What it may tell us
– Fluctuating body asymmetry
– Waist-to-hip ratio.
 The thin female physique
– Reproduction suppression model of
anorexic behaviour.
– empirical support for it.
1,000,000 years
Assessing Quality of
Prospective Mate
Qualities: May not be directly observable
– Resources
– Fertility
– Parental care
– Parasite resistance
 Assessing health, fertility,...
– Body asymmetry
– Waist-to-hip ratio
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Fluctuating Body Asymmetry
Genes produce the basic design of organs.
 Environmental conditions and genetic
quality impact on expression of the design.
 Many traits bilaterally symmetric in design.
 Asymmetry results from imprecise
expression of the design.
 It can indicate poor genes or high levels of
environmental stress.
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What is being
Displayed?
Dev Singh: Waist-to-hip Ratio
Ratio of waist to hip measurements
 Women: WHR = 0.7
 Cross cultural evidence
 Indicator of health
 Body scarification
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Adaptations: Tools for Ancestral
Survival and Reproduction
Fever fighting parasites
 Upright walking
 Assessing Waist-to-Hip Ratio in choosing a
mate
 Assessing Fluctuating Body Asymmetry in
choosing a mate
 Detecting cheaters on social contracts
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Adaptations as Information
Processors
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a set of genetically-coded developmental
processes that enabled ancestral organisms to
implement cost-benefit analyses in response to
specific sets of environmental contingencies, and
that organized the effector processes for dealing
with those contingencies so that the allele(s)
producing the decision processes were reproduced
better than alternate allele(s)
examples: recognizing kin, forming social
contracts, deceiving oneself, choosing mate,...
Evolutionary Psychology
Defined
Problems humans encountered in the EEA
– Finding high quality mates.
 Psychological adaptations that evolved to
help solve those problems
– Assessing Waist-to-hip ratio/Symmetry.
 The way those adaptations function now
– Women in advertisements, TV, & movies
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Anorexic Behaviour
Disturbance in way body weight/shape is
experienced
 Fear of gaining weight
 Amenorrhea
 Most common in:
– Young women
– Industrialized countries
– Upper status women
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Non Evolutionary
Explanations
Sociocultural
 Taking control
 Family pathology
 Political:
– Men want power over women.
– “Juvenile” women easier to control.
– Men “juvenilize” women to control them.
 Others...
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Unanswered Questions
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What is it about industrialization that encourages a thin
standard of beauty?
Why do some girls progress to very thin levels of
emaciation?
Why do we not see “pathologies” associated with other
aspects of attractiveness, i.e. eyelashes?
What environmental variables drive the passion for
thinness?
What are the relations to the physiology of ovulation,
menstruation, and hunger?
Adaptive Reproductive
Suppression
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Female reproduction is very costly.
Individuals can improve their lifetime
reproductive success by delaying reproduction if
current conditions for reproducing are poor, but
are expected to improve.
Value of body fat for women:
– Insulation
– Storage of calories
– Regulation of reproduction
Anorexic Behaviour: Reproductive
Suppression and Critical Fat
If conditions for reproduction
are poor, but expected to
improve delaying reproduction
can contribute to lifetime
reproductive success (Wassar
& Barash, 1983).
Accumulation of body fat is an
important factor in initiating
and maintaining women’s
menstruation and ovulation
(Frish, 1988).
Altering body fat:
A mechanism for
adjusting
reproduction as a
function of
expected current
and future
reproductive
success
Hypothesized Stresses that
May Make Delay Adaptive
High levels of:
– Female-female competition
– Attention from undesirable males
 Exacerbating conditions:
– Fat-rich diet
– Work needed to raise body fat level
– Early puberty relative to social maturity
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Female-Female Competition:
Initial Naive Predictions
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1. Incidence will be positively correlated with
social status
– Reason: Female-female competition is more
intense in upper status groups.
2. Incidence will be increasing in societies where
the age of puberty is falling
– Reason: Changes in diet, etc. producing earlier
physical maturation do not necessarily cause
earlier psychological maturity.
Female-Female Competition:
Initial Naive Predictions
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3. As the level of female-female competition
increases women are expected to increasingly
value thinness.
– Reason: Since reproductive suppression
mechanisms are being activated at a low level
in many women thinness will become attractive
to many women.
4. As women gain political and social skills
incidence will begin to decline
– Reason: Avoidance of stresses
How do we Validate
Evolutionary Explanations?
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by modeling ancestral selection processes to
determine if the adaptation could have evolved
cross cultural studies to determine how the
adaptation functions in different environments
experimental studies to make causal statements
about psychological mechanisms
locating the basis of the adaptation in nervous and
endocrine systems to give biological credibility
Modeling Ancestral Fitness Costs and
Benefits
Explain: Contribution to ancestral fitness
 Predictor variables:
– Reproductive effort - Now/Later
– Reproductive success - Now/Later
– Reproductive value - Now/Later
 Parameters:
– c = cost of delay
– k = effect of reproducing now.
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Environmental Variability: In
Standards of Beauty
Human Relations Area files
 63 societies
 Dependent variable: Standards of beauty
– plump/fat, moderate fatness, slim.
 Independent variables: Predictors of
standards of beauty for several hypotheses
– latitude, protection of girls, menstrual
taboos, value of women’s work,...
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Some Hypotheses
Whims of fashion
 Food security
 Latitude
 Battle of the sexes - control of fertility
 Value of female work
 Adaptive reproductive suppression
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Food Security & Climate
Independent variable: Food
– Results: Societies with unreliable food
supply have plump standard of beauty (r
= 0.28)
 Independent variable: Latitude
– Results: Societies with high latitude have
plump standard of beauty (r = 0.273)
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Battle of the Sexes: Fertility
Male-female Battleground
Independent variables: Dominance,
Machismo, value of female life, courtship
choice, control of sex
 Results:
– Strong emphasis on machismo have
plump standard of beauty (r = 0.433).
– Husbands dominate wives (r = 0.426).
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Value of Women’s Work
Independent variables: value of female
work, menstrual taboos
 Results:
– Few menstrual restrictions (r = 0.377)
– Female work (r = 0.284)
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Adaptive Reproductive
Suppression: Protection
Independent variables: Risk associated with
reproduction
 Societies with high probability of adverse
consequences of sexual maturation have
slender standard of beauty
– Exposure, premarital sex, illegitimacy
attitude (r = 0.234)
– Sexual expression, permission (r = 0.325)
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Adaptive Reproductive
Suppression: Female Dominance
Multiple regression of beauty on dominance
measures for 62 societies
 Results:
– With female dominance (R2 = 0.423)
– Without female dominance (R2 = 0.209)
 Female power associated with slender
standard of beauty.
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Experimental Studies of
Psychological Mechanisms
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Causal statements about psychological
mechanisms
Experimentally manipulate:
– Nature of delay: Indeterminate / Determinant
– Reproductive stress: Female-female
competition, undesirable male attention
– Non reproductive stress: Gardening, Hospital
visit
Susceptibility measures
Experimental Design
Control group
Pre test
Experimental group
Yes
Yes
Stress
manipulation
Low
High
Post test
Yes
Yes
Pre and Post Tests
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Pre tests: Indicators of susceptibility on:
– Interoceptive awareness
– Interpersonal distrust
– Ineffectiveness
Post tests: Effects of the imagined stress on:
– Drive for thinness
– Body dissatisfaction
– Maturity fears
Female-female Competition:
Female subjects
High
Low
Indefinate
4-Years
0
10
20
30
40
Female-female Competition
Male
subjects
Indefinate
4-Years
High
Indefinate
Low
4-Years
Female
subjects
0
10
20
30
40
Male Attention:
Female Subjects
Indefinate
High
Low
4-Years
0
10
20
30
Gardening and Music:
Female Subjects
Hospital
High
Low
Gardening
Music
0
10
20
30
Stress and Time: Femalefemale competition
Indefinate
High
Low
4-Years
1-Year
0
10
20
30
40
Media Study
25
20
15
Low Exposure
High Exposure
10
5
0
Low Fashion
High Fashion
Risk
Unanswered Questions
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What is it about industrialization - thin standard of
beauty? Stress: Duration & intensity
Why do some girls progress to very thin levels of
emaciation? Vulnerability, stress
“Pathologies” associated with other aspects of
attractiveness, i.e. eyelashes? Reproduction
What environmental variables drive the passion for
thinness? Competition, attention, others
What are the relations to the physiology of ovulation,
menstruation, and hunger????????
Naomi Wolf in The Beauty Myth
Anorexia is spreading because it works. Not only does it
solve the dilemma of the young woman faced with the
hunger cult, it also protects her from street harassment
and sexual coercion; construction workers leave
walking skeletons alone. Having no fat means having
no breasts, thighs, hips, or ass, which for once means
not having asked for it.
Woman’s magazines tell woman they can control their
bodies; but women’s experiences of sexual harassment
make them feel they cannot control what their bodies
are said to provoke.
Members of Evolutionary
Psychology Laboratory
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Charles Crawford, Judith Anderson
Sally Walters, Joanne Nadeau
Maria Janicki, Gerald Beroldi
Martin Renaud, Windy Brown
Laura Dane, Larua Ward, Erica Nance,
Oonagh Zuberbier
Naturalistic Fallacy: “What is,
is what ought to be.
Women are more caring than men...
 Men are more sexually aggressive than
women...
 Men’s sexual jealousy...
 Women care for children...
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The Moralistic Fallacy: “What
ought to be is what is.”
Women ought to be more caring than men...
 Abortion ought to have no negative
effects...
 Coercion ought not to be involved in
sexuality...
 Men and women ought to have the same
sexual agendas...
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Wilson on Natural Selection
and the Human Mind
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Camus said that the only serious philosophical question is
suicide. That is wrong even in the strict sense intended. The
biologist, who is concerned with questions of physiology and
evolutionary history, realizes that self-knowledge is constrained
and shaped by the emotional control centers in the
hypothalamus and limbic system of the brain. These centers
flood our consciousness with all the emotions--hate, love, guilt,
fear, and others--that are consulted by ethical philosophers who
wish to intuit the standards of good and evil. What, we are then
compelled to ask, made the hypothalamus and limbic system?
They evolved by natural selection. The simple biological
statement must be pursued to explain ethics and ethical
philosophers, if not epistemology and epistemologists, at all
depths. (Edward O. Wilson, 1975)
Conspiracies and the Tragedy of the Commons