Interesting article. I think that’s a reasonable route for status/power attraction to take. I must imagine that there’s some neuroscience literature on sexual attraction, where brain region activations are cross-referenced with self-reported feelings of attraction, and referencing this would help support the point.
With regard to appearance attraction, the innate/non-innate question is tricky. There are regions of the world with very different beauty standards, but the ones common in advanced cultures (e.g. svelte form indicating self-control) seem legitimately useful in those cultures, and the ones common in less-advanced societies (e.g. overweight bodies indicating lots of available food) seem legitimately useful in those cultures. Between advanced cultures, there are some things, like the aspects of facial attractiveness, that vary. It’s possible that this is all innate, and there are, indeed, similar innate differences in psychology between regions that researchers have found. Still, things like foot-binding were culturally imposed fairly successfully for a great period of time, so I assume there is some non-instinctual layer at play.
I’d expect, in men, that there’s some interplay between a fundamental, evolved physical layer that might vary between groups[1], and a learned representation of what an elegant woman likely to remain in the good graces of the community looks like[2].
“This is what we’ve all agreed is the right way to dress; a woman who looks like this will get along well, likely comes from a good family, and has demonstrated aptitude for the social scene, which will be beneficial to me and to the prospects of our children.”
I must imagine that there’s some neuroscience literature on sexual attraction, where brain region activations are cross-referenced with self-reported feelings of attraction, and referencing this would help support the point.
Alas it’s much less useful than you’d think, at least for the kinds of questions that I’m interested in. My view is it’s extremely difficult to learn anything useful from fMRI studies, at least for this kind of question. I think the important nuts-and-bolts questions would be answerable by measuring the activity and interconnectivity of tiny cell groups in the hypothalamus, but that’s not experimentally possible as of today.
(fMRI is not helpful for that: the relevant cell groups are all too small and physically proximate (sometimes even intermingled) to tell them apart by location as opposed to by receptor expression etc., and it’s moot anyway because fMRI just can’t measure the human hypothalamus at all, it’s too close to a major artery or something, I forget.)
Interesting article. I think that’s a reasonable route for status/power attraction to take. I must imagine that there’s some neuroscience literature on sexual attraction, where brain region activations are cross-referenced with self-reported feelings of attraction, and referencing this would help support the point.
With regard to appearance attraction, the innate/non-innate question is tricky. There are regions of the world with very different beauty standards, but the ones common in advanced cultures (e.g. svelte form indicating self-control) seem legitimately useful in those cultures, and the ones common in less-advanced societies (e.g. overweight bodies indicating lots of available food) seem legitimately useful in those cultures. Between advanced cultures, there are some things, like the aspects of facial attractiveness, that vary. It’s possible that this is all innate, and there are, indeed, similar innate differences in psychology between regions that researchers have found. Still, things like foot-binding were culturally imposed fairly successfully for a great period of time, so I assume there is some non-instinctual layer at play.
I’d expect, in men, that there’s some interplay between a fundamental, evolved physical layer that might vary between groups[1], and a learned representation of what an elegant woman likely to remain in the good graces of the community looks like[2].
“This is the shape that wives who produce healthy, successful children have generally had, where I’m from.”
“This is what we’ve all agreed is the right way to dress; a woman who looks like this will get along well, likely comes from a good family, and has demonstrated aptitude for the social scene, which will be beneficial to me and to the prospects of our children.”
Thanks!
Alas it’s much less useful than you’d think, at least for the kinds of questions that I’m interested in. My view is it’s extremely difficult to learn anything useful from fMRI studies, at least for this kind of question. I think the important nuts-and-bolts questions would be answerable by measuring the activity and interconnectivity of tiny cell groups in the hypothalamus, but that’s not experimentally possible as of today.
(fMRI is not helpful for that: the relevant cell groups are all too small and physically proximate (sometimes even intermingled) to tell them apart by location as opposed to by receptor expression etc., and it’s moot anyway because fMRI just can’t measure the human hypothalamus at all, it’s too close to a major artery or something, I forget.)