The Real Reason Men Cause More Sex Scandals Than Women | Psychology Today
As sex scandals involving powerful men seem to be getting increasingly commonplace (Edwards, Lee, Schwarzenegger, Strauss-Kahn, Weiner, etc.), many have been asking: Why are men so much more likely than women to cause these scandals? Why, in other words, are men so much more willing than women to risk losing their careers and families in order to pursue new mating opportunities?
Darwin's theories of natural and sexual selection provide a deeply compelling framework for understanding the sex difference in this compulsion to pursue new mates. And while much of the general public may be willing to accept, on some level, that this sex difference has evolutionary biological roots, there is still a lot of fear and misunderstanding out there about what the implications of this fact may be.
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Before I go further, let me review the evolutionary logic for why men are on average more interested than women in acquiring new sex partners. Evolutionary success is mainly about success in reproductive competition, and how you achieve this success depends on how much you are obligated to invest in the production of offspring. This "parental investment" can take many forms, including the investment of one's own bodily reproductive capacity. In general, female mammals must make a large minimum investment in order to reproduce (e.g. in ancestral humans, nine months of gestation and years of lactation), whereas male mammals can reproduce with a much smaller minimum investment (i.e. a few minutes of time and an easily replenished amount of sperm). This does not mean that males don't often benefit their offspring in essential ways by investing beyond this bare minimum. However, it does mean that because the obligatory costs of reproduction are (in most species) much lower for males than for females, there are significant differences in the mating strategies that males and females evolve.
The typical pattern--and the one that applies to humans--is that females evolve to be relatively choosy about who they mate with, and relatively low in "sociosexuality" (i.e., relatively uninterested in promiscuous, uncommitted sex). Males, on the other hand, have more to gain and less to lose from having large numbers of sexual partners, and they evolve to be less choosy and higher in sociosexuality. A simple way to understand this logic is to imagine what an ancestral man and woman could have gained reproductively from having 100 sex partners, as opposed to just one partner, in one year. The woman could produce exactly one child, whether she had one or 100 partners, and so would gain little from those 99 extra partners. For the man, on the other hand, 99 extra partners could in theory mean 99 extra kids.
This sex difference in the desire for new mates doesn't mean that men aren't interested in long-term, committed sexual relationships; on the contrary, most men strive for such relationships and value them deeply. But it does mean that even when he is involved in such a relationship, the average man will regard opportunities to mate with new partners as being more compelling than would the average woman. And the strength of this temptation will generally be proportional to his social status, because the higher his status, the more women will be attracted to him (again, for basic evolutionary reasons), and the more opportunities he will have.
So the high status man will often face a dilemma. While some evolved modules in his brain—let's call them his "long-term interest" modules—are coaching him to act in ways that will benefit his family, career and reputation, other evolved modules—his "mating" modules—are urging him to pursue new sexual opportunities. And these mating modules, besides being insistently persuasive in their own right, may even actively sabotage the influence of the long-term interest modules, by causing the man to underestimate and discount the risks involved (to family, career and reputation) in the pursuit of sexual thrills. Thus the man may be compelled to pursue these thrills in ways that, to other people, seem surprisingly reckless and stupid. ("Why on earth would he think he'd be able to get away with that?")
It's hard to see how anyone could truly accept the theory of evolution without also accepting that when the sexes differ in obligatory parental investment, they're going to evolve divergent mating strategies...
Sexcapades at City Hall: Politicians and Bad Sexual Behavior | Psychology Today
Anyone watching the news this last week got treated to the full monty of politics and sex with some reporters tittering about electronic flashing by New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner and others shaking their heads in disbelief at the brazen sexual predation of San Diego mayor Bob Filner.
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Weiner and Filner are not alone. A very small sampling of other “top” political sex scandals (here and here) includes US politicians Mark Sanford (South Carolina Governor), John Ensign (US Senator from Nevada), David Vitter (US Senator from Louisiana), Kwame Kilpatrick (Mayor of Detroit), Larry Craig (US Senator from Idaho), Barney Frank (US Representative from Massachusetts), Bill Clinton (US President), Gary Hart (US Senator from Colorado and presidential candidate), Eliot Spitzer (New York Governor), John Edwards (US Senator and presidential candidate) and foreign politicians John Profumo (UK Prime Minister), Jeremy Thorpe (British Liberal Party leader), and Silvio Berlusconi (Italian Prime Minister).
WHY THESE GUYS?
According to evolutionary theory, individuals are driven to maximize their lifetime reproductive success, which they do by maximizing the number of genes they pass into the population’s pool of genes. Sexual Strategies Theory, which is derived from evolutionary theory, suggests men and women pursue different sexual strategies because of the different reproductive challenges they face.
It comes down to parental investment in offspring that result from mating. Men’s contribution is quantified by the minutes-long act of sexual intercourse. Women’s contribution, on the other hand, includes the nine-month gestation period then years of child rearing that follow.
In simple terms, men, because of their low parental investment, seek to maximize their number of mates. Women, on the other hand, because of their high parental investment, seek to maximize the “quality” of their mates in terms of resources for survival a mate offers to them and their children after mating (e.g., food, shelter, and protection) and the genetic value of the mate (e.g., physical attractiveness, good health, and intelligence).
Research has shown that women’s desire for “quality” mates translates into a preference for men with expendable resources, elevated financial capacity, ambition, and industriousness, all of which are typically characteristic of men with high social status and greater age.
And despite flagging public opinion of politicians in general, these qualities are also characteristic of many professional politicians. Individual politicians are often considered high status based on their greater than average levels of education (about 70% holding advanced degrees versus 10% of typical Americans), income (members of Congress making $174,000 or about 3.4 times more than the average full-time US worker), age (about 60 versus 37), and, because of media coverage, fame.
WHAT ARE THESE GUYS THINKING?
Can We Expect Powerful Men Not to Have Affairs? | Psychology Today Canada
Evolutionary theory, then, suggests these men have traits that make them highly desirable as mates. And being driven by the desire to maximize their reproductive success, some of the morally weaker ones yield to the increased access they have to mating opportunities as a result of their desirability.
The Petraeus scandal is a recent example of a well-worn theme from evolutionary psychology. Socially successful men parlay their prestige into conquests in the bedroom. Moralists claim to be appalled. Should they be? Or are we merely observing one of the great truths of human sexual psychology playing out?
That truth is that successful men from King Solomon to Genghis Khan to President Kennedy enjoyed many wives, concubines, or lovers. Their high-testosterone profile helped them acquire leadership positions and also boosted their sex drive. All that is like the tinder that fuels the forest fire of uncontrolled passion. The spark is provided by attractive young women whose knees go weak in the presence of alpha males.
Spark and tinder
There is a certain monotony in each of these sex scandals involving leaders, most of whom are politicians whose antics are revealed because they are so much in the public eye. Whether it is Elliot Spitzer, Silvio Berlosconi, Arnold Schwarzennegger, or Herman Cain a position of prominence encourages a feeling of sexual entitlement – a sense that the rules, and even laws, regulating sexual conduct for most people, do not apply.
That kind of sexual assertiveness is characteristic of prominent men throughout history from Pharaohs and Popes to generals and geniuses. Male leaders arrogantly assume that they can treat women as they please with impunity. That is certainly the impression one gets from reading the history of noblemen, monarchs, and emperors (1). This alpha-male syndrome is quite familiar to animal behaviorists. When an animal achieves high social status, his testosterone level rises. This phenomenon may be illustrated by gorillas where each group has one dominant male that inseminates all of the females. The dominant male has a silver back that is evidently explained by his high testosterone level.
Men do not have silver backs, of course, but testosterone is more important for human sexuality than most psychologists like to concede. In particular, high status men are sexually assertive, sometimes to the extent that they break laws.
Testosterone also rises with competitive success for humans, and even with sexual intercourse so there is a positive feedback loop whereby prominent men acquire high testosterone levels along with increased social status (2).And that brings us to the other vital ingredient in this story – the psychology and behavior of women who provide the spark for this combustible mix, not merely because they are attractive but because they go out of their way to seduce powerful men.
There are several good reasons why women are attracted to high-status men. They are generally - but not always - better looking than lower-status men. Women acquire status themselves through such associations. Successful men employ the trappings of their wealth and status to impress women whether it is their clothes, their cars, their houses, their privileges, or their expensive gifts. Confidence, poise, and social skills often compensate for any physical shortcomings so women perceive them as more physically attractive than they are in objective terms.
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Evolutionary psychology suggests otherwise. Our leaders behave exactly like any other alpha male primate crashing through the jungle.
Petraeus, Sex and the Aphrodisiac of Power | Psychology Today
Why did David Petraeus risk a dazzling career and even a possible future presidential candidacy for sex with his biographer?
Petraeus’s already considerable power expanded when he took over CIA. And power is drug with psycho-active properties, one of the strongest of which is as an increase in sexual appetite. As Henry Kissinger famously observed, ‘power is an aphrodisiac’.
President JF Kennedy reputedly had sex with a new woman almost every day of his presidency, and even Franklin D Roosevelt had numerous affairs. Quite how the most powerful nation on earth is going to nurture and keep its most brilliant leaders if it dispenses an aphrodisiac and then condemns them when it works, is a mystery that this country must solve very quickly.
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Both men and women who have a high need for power have sexual intercourse more often than those who have lower power needs[i] and dominance and sex are biologically linked in every mammalian species, including humans. Roughly one in twelve Asian men, for instance, possess a Y chromosome which can be traced back to a single sexually-prolific individual who lived in Central Asia around 1200 AD – almost certainly Genghis Khan.[ii]
Sex and power are linked as they both cause a surge in the hormone testosterone in both sexes. Testosterone in turn ramps up activity of the chemical messenger dopamine in the brain’s ‘reward network’. Everything we experience as pleasure or reward - from being paid a compliment through drinking a cocktail to having sex – has its effects via this dopamine-rich brain system. And power is another incredibly strong activator of the reward network.
This is why power is an aphrodisiac – by ramping up the reward system it also increases appetite for other reward-rich activities such as sex. The high testosterone levels which high political office triggers can therefore further increase sexual appetites in a politico-erotic vicious circle which can bring the most able of people to do things that their self-controlled selves would not countenance.
However, these appetites do not just stimulate a hunger for more power and more sex – they also have profound effects on the way the brain functions more generally and this can help explain the bewildering lapses of judgment that we see in the fallen great.
The power- and sex- increased dopamine levels also change the way the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is key to forethought, planning, inhibition and attention, functions.
Dopamine however, like some other chemical messengers in the brain, has a “Goldilocks Zone”, an optimal level where the brain functions at its best. Moderate increases, therefore, can make people smarter, more focussed and strategically better in their thinking via their effects on the way the prefrontal cortex of the brain functions. Too high-doses, on the other hand, can take people out of their Goldilock’s zone, to the extent that their forethought and inhibition may be temporarily diminished.
This may explain some of the lapses of judgment shown by powerful leaders such as Petraeus: the very parts of their brain which are crucial for their self-control are the ones which may be disrupted by the aphrodisiac dispensed to them by their government.
21. Sexual Predation by Alfa and Beta Males.
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Power: The Ultimate Aphrodisiac by kate kate on Prezi
Why So Many Politicians Get Caught up in Sex Scandals | Psychology Today Ireland
The seemingly endless stream of sex scandals by powerful politicians in the United States raises a question: Does this say something about men, or does it say something about power?
New research suggests that power, not being a guy, is the corrupting factor. Powerful people tend to see themselves as more attractive than they really are and, more importantly, tend to believe that others see them as more attractive than others really do. Power also seems to change how people think about risk -- power gets people to focus on potential rewards and ignore the potential downside. Add it all up and you get a far higher propensity for infidelity among both powerful men and powerful women.
The Minds of Powerful Sexual Predators: How Power Corrupts | Psychology Today
The Dirty Truth About Sex, Power, and Extramarital Affairs | Psychology Today
Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger
.Bill Clinton and David Letterman
.John Edwards and Newt Gingrich.
Anthony Weiner (sort of) and... well, Tiger Woods again. And then again a few more times after that.
When we think about extramarital affairs, this is who we think of. Men. Powerful men. Rich, famous, powerful men.
Why would men of status be more likely to step out on a spouse? The answers we give to this question usually have to do with biology or evolution. As in, that's just how men are wired. It's just boys being boys, with these famous men simply acting out the fantasies that most any man would if given the opportunity.
It's a straightforward explanation with intuitive appeal. And when you add to the mix the idea that men who achieve powerful positions often do so thanks to self-confidence and a propensity for taking risks–not to mention that women seem drawn to men of high status–the formula for cheating appears rather simple:
Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and there's nothing like a bit of male social status to fuel extraterrestrial extracurriculars.
But what if the presumed sex difference in infidelity isn't as set-in-stone as we assume it is? What if power does predict unfaithfulness, but no more so for men than women?...
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Did power predict infidelity among these respondents? Absolutely–for both intended and actual cheating. And this relationship was mediated by confidence, indicating that much of the association between power and infidelity comes from the increased faith that the powerful have in their ability to successfully attract potential sex partners.
Interestingly, though, these results were no different for men versus women. That is, more powerful men were more confident and reported having (and seeking) more affairs. But the same was true for women. Even controlling for factors like age and level of intelligence, the patterns for male and female respondents were comparable.
So the dirty secret about sex, power, and extramarital affairs is that while the relationship that many of us assume to be there does exist, it's little different for men than for women. At least among this sample of working professionals, in which all the respondents had their own income, cheating was no more of a hard-wired tendency for males than for females.
Why No One Should Be Surprised by Politicians' Scandals | Psychology Today
Politicians are accomplished, intelligent, sophisticated, and apparently well-functioning individuals who should know better. So why don’t they? How could highly intelligent, sophisticated, people do and say such things? How could their judgment be so bad? How can they be so uncaring of the feelings of important others in their lives? Of their responsibility to their supporters and to the public? Of their integrity? How could they be so irresponsible? Is this endemic to politicians or just a select few of them? Is it just that politicians have more temptations and opportunities (and get more publicity) than most?
Psychological data indicate that this is not an anomaly unique to a few aberrant politicians. The data also indicate that the potential for this kind of behavior is not equally distributed in the population. There really is something about politicians that predisposes them to scandalous behavior, prevents them from owning up to it, understanding the hypocrisy of contradictory public statements, and caring about the mismatch between their public personae and their private activities.
There are personality features that distinguish such people and keep them from realizing the effect of what they have done to others — narcissism, power motivation, high risk-taking, and a false self. Politicians are more likely than others to display them all.
Narcissism, characterized by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a constant need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, makes people extraordinarily self-centered. Further, their exploitative sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, disregard for others, and constant need for attention adversely affect their interpersonal relationships. Such features exemplify an almost perfect stereotype of a politician. What kind of person can endlessly tell strangers, without self-consciousness, that her/his opponent is completely unworthy whereas s/he belongs in a high-prestige, powerful position?
Power motivation is the desire to have an impact on the world and/or others. People high in power motivation are competitive and want to be in charge. They crave prestige. For many, sexual admiration is a big plus. Power motivation is pretty much a prerequisite for being a politician, since they are all driven to have impact and be in charge.
High risk-taking is the very essence of politics. You either win or lose elections. Olympians get silver and bronze medals. In politics, almost does not count; second place is a loser. It takes a special breed of person to put his or her entire self at risk in this way. Those who take such risks repeatedly do not limit themselves to political risks; they are prone to risk-taking generally. Big risks are in their DNA. Small or moderate ones just won’t get the heart pumping.
A false self is a requirement for politics. Politicians must constantly guard their words. A casual comment can be damaging politically. Politicians are expert at avoiding questions and parse their words so as not to offend. They build up a public false self to protect themselves politically.
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Put it all together. Begin with a self-centered, insensitive, person, who thinks s/he is special (narcissism). Add a need to be in charge and have a major impact on the world (power motivation). Throw in an attraction to risk, the bigger the better (high risk-taking). This person takes up politics to meet these needs. It’s a perfect fit. In the service of these needs, s/he presents a false front of modesty, caring, and empathy. Every word is weighed in terms of how it will affect her/his goals. After a while, s/he doesn’t know who s/he is anymore. S/he is under tremendous stress. S/he endorses attitudes and behaviors that s/he may or may not actually believe in (false self). S/he may not even know what s/he believes in other than power, prestige, and admiration. And, s/he is entitled to these things.
At the same time, s/he has personal needs s/he also feels entitled to. To satisfy them entails great risk, but s/he is attracted to risk. There is also self-destruction built into the false self. So s/he takes chances and risks destroying all s/he has so painstakingly built.
When caught, s/he does not feel guilt and remorse, s/he feels threatened. S/he does not understand the sense of betrayal others experience; it is about him/her, not them. S/he’ll first try to ride over it through denial, anger, and cover-up. Or s/he will justify the behavior through claiming that others would behave exactly as s/he did. Should that fail, s/he’ll try carefully crafted redemption in line with her/his public persona or false self. That these efforts to fool others are transparently insincere would be lost on him/her.
Put it all together. This describes Tela Girl's mentality and mating motivation to A T! (Tela Girl's power driven!)
The Cheating Man’s Brain - Newsweek
Why ‘Luv Guv’ is no surprise (opinion) | CNN
So do the above links!
Psychology of Sex: The Evolutionary Scandals
Sexual Scandals and Subtexts: The Next Wave is the Last Wave
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/136395606/are-politicians-especia
The ‘Means of Reproduction’ and the Ultimate Purpose of Political Power – The Contemporary Heretic
The Purpose of Political Power?
The notion that powerful rulers often use their power to gain access to multiple nubile sex partners is, of course, hardly original to sociobiology. On the contrary, it accords with popular cynicism regarding men who occupy positions of power.
What a Darwinian perspective adds is the ultimate explanation of why political leaders do so – and why female political rulers, even when they do assume power, usually adopt a very different reproductive strategy.
Moreover, a Darwinian perspective goes beyond popular cynicism in suggesting that access to multiple sex partners is not merely yet another perk of power. On the contrary, it is the ultimate purpose of power and reason why men evolved to seek power in the first place.
As Betzig herself concludes:
“Political power in itself may be explained, at least in part, as providing a position from which to gain reproductively” (p85).[5]
After all, from a Darwinian perspective, political power in and of itself has no intrinsic value. It is only if power can be used in such a way as to maximize a person’s reproductive success or fitness that it has evolutionary value.
Thus, as Steven Pinker has observed, the recurrent theme in science fiction film and literature of robots rebelling against humans to take over the world and overthrow humanity is fundamentally mistaken. Robots would have no reason to rebel against humans, simply because they would not be programmed to want to take over the world and overthrow humanity in the first place.
On the other hand, humans have been programmed to seek wealth and power – and to resist oppression and exploitation. This is why revolutions are a recurrent feature of human societies and history.
But we have been programmed, not by a programmer or god-like creator, but rather by natural selection.
We have been programmed by natural selection to seek wealth and power only because, throughout human evolutionary history, those among our ancestors who achieved political power tended, like Ismail the Bloodthirsty, also to achieve high levels of reproductive success as a consequence.
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Applying the Polygyny Threshold Model to Modern America
Thus, applying the polygyny threshold model to humans, and rather simplistically substituting wealth for territory size and quality, we might predict that, if Jeff Bezos is a hundred thousand times richer than Joe Schmo, then, if Joe has only one wife, then Jeff should have around 100,000 wives.
But, of course, Jeff Bezos does not have 100,000 wives, nor even a mere 100,000 concubines.
Instead, he has only one solitary meagre ex-wife, and she, even when married to him, was not, to the best of my knowledge, ever guarded by any eunuchs – though perhaps he would have been better off if she had been, since they might have prevented her from divorcing him and taking an enormous share of his wealth with her in the ensuing divorce settlement.[7]
Indeed, with the sole exception of the magnificent John McAfee, founder of the first commercially available antivirus software, who, after making his millions, moved to a developing country where he obtained for himself a harem of teenage concubines, with whom he allegedly never actually had sex, instead preferring to have them defecate into his mouth while sitting in a hammock, but with whom he is nevertheless reported to have somehow fathered some forty-seven children, most modern millionaires, and billionaires, despite their immense wealth and the reproductive opportunities it offers, seemingly live lives of stultifyingly bland bourgeois respectability.
The same is also true of contemporary political leaders.
Indeed, if any contemporary western political leader does attempt to practice polygyny, even on a comparatively modest scale, then, if discovered, a so-called ‘sex scandal’ almost invariably results.
Yet, viewed in historical perspective, the much-publicized marital infidelities of, say, Bill Clinton, though they may have outraged the sensibilities of the mass of monogamously-married ‘Middle American’ morons, positively pale into insignificance besides the reproductive achievements of someone like, say, Ismail the Bloodthirsty.
Indeed, Clinton’s infidelities don’t even pack much of a punch beside those of a politician from the same nation and just a generation removed, namely John F Kennedy – whose achievements in the political sphere are vastly overrated on account of his early death, but whose achievements in the bedroom, while scarcely matching those of Ismail the Bloodthirsty or the Aztec emperors, certainly put the current generation of American politicians to shame.
Why, then, does the contemporary west represent such a glaring exception to the general pattern of elite polygyny that Betzig has so successfully documented throughout so much of the rest of the world, and throughout so much of history? And what has become of the henpecked geldings who pass for politicians in the contemporary era?
The Evolutionary Law: Powerful Men Don’t Stay Monogamous
The Core Premise
As a man gains power, his access to women expands.
Not because his character suddenly changes, but because the conditions around him do.
Testosterone already biases men toward competition, pursuit, and mate-seeking behavior. When that baseline drive is combined with rising status, the result is not linear. It is exponential.
Women are biologically attuned to cues of status, dominance, resources, and social gravity. These signals indicate competence, protection, and genetic viability. As a man climbs, those signals become louder and more visible.
At higher levels, friction vanishes almost entirely.
Introductions happen automatically. Invitations arrive unprompted. Proximity increases. Opportunity becomes ambient rather than pursued.
This is the part most people misunderstand.
Men do not fundamentally change as they rise. Their environment does. What was once scarce becomes abundant. What once required effort becomes effortless.
And when attractive options surround a man consistently, restraint stops being about willpower and starts being about structure.
The Biological Engine
Men evolved to spread genes widely.
That asymmetry never disappeared.
Status activates what can be described as an elite seed distributor protocol. When a man’s perceived genetic value rises, his mating drive does not diminish. It intensifies.
Power raises testosterone, lowers perceived risk, and rewires expectations around access. The man does not change. His biological incentives finally align with opportunity.
The Social Engine
Society glamorizes powerful men while demanding moral restraint from them.
Fame, wealth, and influence increase female attention. Gatekeeping erodes. Social proof compounds. A man selected publicly becomes more selectable privately.
The culture rewards the outcome but condemns the process.
The Opportunity Engine
When barriers drop and discretion rises, temptation becomes ambient. The cost-benefit calculation shifts.
The Male Drive for Status: Its Cultural Evolution | The Art of Manliness
Monogamy: Bridling the Male Status Drive
For most of human history, polygyny (men having multiple wives) was the norm in cultures all around the globe. Polygyny intensifies status competition among men because it creates a “winner-take-all” reproductive market. The men at the top of the status heap gain access to more women, while the men at the bottom may not get to reproduce at all; as we discussed last time, because of polygyny, anthropologists believe that only 33% of our ancestors were male.
Polygyny amplified as societies grew larger and more hierarchical. Instead of having just a few wives, kings and rulers in large societies would have dozens of them, as well as a huge harem. According to the Bible, King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Genghis Khan had so many wives and concubines that 16 million people living today are thought to be his direct descendants.
For the “Big Men” in these societies, taking on as many wives and concubines as possible served two purposes. First, it served as a status signal of wealth. In order to support so many people, you’ve got to have the resources to do it. Second, multiple wives and concubines signaled sexual potency. Throughout history and across cultures, a man’s ability to procreate has been a salient factor in determining his status as a man. Polygyny and concubinage allowed ancient kings and rulers to create enormous bloodlines and create a kingdom where many of the subjects had originally descended from his very own seed. In a way, extreme polgyny and concubinage allowed a man to become like a god — populating a little world onto himself.
Sex, Genes & Rock 'n' Roll: How Evolution Has Shaped the Modern World - Rob Brooks - Google Books
I read this book in its entirety in 2012. It should be with the rest of my collection in California. I mention this because there's a chapter or maybe several chapters in this book covering the above topic (male power and status converting to reproductive success). Since I don't have the book on me at the moment I can't tell you the exact chapters, but I believe chapter 4 may discuss the topic, so begin reading there in the above link!
