David Buss
@ProfDavidBuss
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Author of The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating
Austin, Texas
Joined April 2009
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Really great conversation with Lex Fridman.
Here's my conversation with
@profdavidbuss
, an evolutionary psychologist at UT Austin & one of the founders of evolutionary psychology. We talk about sex, dating, and sex differences. This was fascinating & fun. Thank you
@hubermanlab
for connecting us.
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Apologies for the retweet, but I enjoyed my conversation with
@lexfridman
tremendously. It has also exceeded half a million 'views.' As an introverted academic, I'm happy to reach a wider audience.
Here's my conversation with
@profdavidbuss
, an evolutionary psychologist at UT Austin & one of the founders of evolutionary psychology. We talk about sex, dating, and sex differences. This was fascinating & fun. Thank you
@hubermanlab
for connecting us.
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Excellent article in
@Quillette
taking apart the latest absurd anti-sex difference book. When will science actually triumph over ideology in this domain?
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Honored that my conversation with Lex Fridman on his podcast
@lexfridman
has already surpassed 300,000 views after 9 days:
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Strong replication of key findings of Buss's (1989) 37-culture study of sex differences in mate preferences; no support for 'social role theory'
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Happy to report that the 6th edition of Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind, is now out. Major revision, with 200 new references:
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Glad to see replicability when so many findings fail to replicate. My question: How many empirical refutations of social role theory will be needed before it is abandoned?
Sex differences in mate preferences are no smaller in more gender-equal nations, contrary to the idea that these differences are a product of socially-imposed gender roles.
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My paper on mate preferences across cultures just passed 5,000 Google Scholar citations, a record for me. An unknown number of citations come from people who hate it or its findings. Some found the paper worthy. If interested, here is a link:
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You can run, but you can't hide from evolved sex differences in mate preferences . . . even in Norway.
Even in the most gender‐equal society in the world, women give more weight to earning potential in the opposite sex and are far more likely to marry up than men.
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Contrary to social role theory, sex differences tend to be larger in countries with higher gender equality. A highly replicable finding:
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In an age of replication crisis, these sex differences have stood the test of time-replicable across cultures and times, and by dozens of independent researchers.
@ogiehart
theory was tested across 37 cultures (total N: 10,047) by
@ProfDavidBuss
which results:
1. Females were found to value cues to resource acquisition in Potential Mates more highly than Males.
2. Reproductive capacity were valued more by Males than by Females.
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too cute.
Play is not unique to human beings, part 164: Baby gorilla diving into straw 😍
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The selection of a long-term mate.
Please reply: What is the single most powerful/significant choice a human being can make in their life?
I was recently asked this question and will address, with Dubner, on a future episode of
@NSQ_Show
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Social science needs evolutionary theory.
@CristineLegare
explains why we need to unite the social and life sciences:
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This means a lot to me coming from
@hubermanlab
, an outstanding scientist w a great signal to noise ratio
The new episode of the
@joerogan
podcast with Evolutionary Psychologist
@ProfDavidBuss
about mate selection (and more) is superb. Don’t miss it.
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This is a bookstore I can support with joy. Banning books has a long and sordid history.
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Fascinating extended phenotype.
“Wolves infected with a parasite that commonly infects cats were 46 times more likely to become pack leaders and 11 times more likely to start a new pack…
“The parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, makes its hosts bold — a mechanism that increases its survival.”
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A shift that has profound consequences for mating. Sex ratio imbalances combined with mate preferences…
"[U]niversities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline."
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Dr.
@DrDebraSoh
did a fantastic job in this interview with Bill Maher and others--poised, articulate, and importantly, anchored in science.
Congratulations
@billmaher
on your 500th episode. Was a dream to be a part of it
@RealTimers
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Too cool not to share.
Bird's nest woven into a leaf. Evolution is amazing.
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How long will it take before social scientists realize that an evolutionary perspective is important for their discipline?
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It continues to baffle me too.
It still seems odd to me that so many people get so upset about the idea that, on average, men and women differ in certain ways. Who convinced them that the sexes are psychologically identical? Who persuaded them it'd be a really terrible thing if they're not?
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My department has granted me a slot to accept one new graduate student in evolutionary psychology for the fall of 2022. We fully fund graduate students for 5 years. If interested, here is our lab website:
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Love this.
Two adult elephants work together to rescue a baby drowning in a pool.
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A great conversation with Andrew Huberman.
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If only we had a theory that could have predicted this sex diff…
"If the conditions were right, would you consider having sexual intercourse with someone you viewed as desirable if you had known that person for 1 minute?"
Women: 5%
Men: 35%
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My conversation with
@jordanbpeterson
was wide-ranging, multidimensional, and terrific on all counts. Patriarchy is only one of many topics we touched on under the umbrella of 'Strategies of Human Mating'
"Men are one long breeding experiment run by women". The conversation on patriarchy by
@jordanbpeterson
and
@ProfDavidBuss
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Why overlooking sex differences might be a costly mistake:
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Nice photo and good points. The standard social science treatment of sex differences is an embarrassment, and will be viewed as such by historians of science.
"Men are not better than women; women are not better than men. Women & men are different; men & women are equal. Let’s stop being afraid of ourselves. Who's afraid of sex differences? Not these women
@InezFeltscher
@DrDebraSoh
@CHSommers
@PsychRabble
@IWF
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For those interested, my essay on why women have affairs:
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Thoughtful, informative, and nuanced. Rare in this age. H/T Geoffrey for flagging this.
In case you missed it, this
@joerogan
interview a year ago with
@BretWeinstein
and
@HeatherEHeying
includes some brilliant points about how sexual evolution can illuminate current ideological debates over gender,
#MeToo
, trans issues, masculinity, etc.
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Important to note how long ago sexual reproduction evolved, as well as how recent our species emerged.
If the whole history of the Earth were squeezed into just one day...
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Unfortunately, these responses are quite common, especially when dealing with the darker sides of human nature.
Invalid responses to a scientific finding:
- "That's can't be true because it's not true for me."
- "I'm offended by that finding, so it can't be true."
“That finding must be wrong because people could use it for a nefarious purpose.”
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Psychological Sex Differences: Origins Through Sexual Selection:
Is there a more cogent meta-theory of sex differences out there than this?
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It continues to amaze me that people think that 'jealousy' is an immature emotion that needs to be tamed:
Rather than understanding it's adaptive functions in detecting infidelity and mate poachers:
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There seems to be some question about whether evolutionary psychological hypotheses can be tested and potentially falsified. Well-formulated ones can indeed. Here is one referencesthat summarizes a handful: '
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List of 50 most influential living psychologists in the world:
Honored to be on this list, and happy to see so many evolutionary psychologists on it, starting with Leda Cosmides.
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Which is precisely the opposite of the predictions made by social role theory of sex differences; I wonder how many outright falsifications of social role theory it will take before its proponents admit that their theory does not hold up?
Which is consistent with nuanced differences in men’s and women’s evolutionary history
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Super-excited that the revised edition of The Evolution of Desire is out today:
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Yet more massive evidence that gender differences get larger in more gender-egalitarian culture. More evidence refuting social role theory:
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Perhaps chimp culture assigns males the 'role' of chimpiside?
Humans: Males commit 95% of homicides and are 79% of homicide victims
Chimps: Males commit 92% of chimpicides and are 73% of chimpicide victims
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Sex differences in human sexual strategies--massive review article:
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Relevant to current debates about sex difference, "knowledge of mate preferences alone affords correct classification of sex with 92.2% accuracy.":
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Agreed. Nor their impact on the development of girls and women. Truly astonishing in the year 2019.
GUIDELINE X - Most psychologists do not understand the impact of evolution, sexual selection, genes, and mating strategies on the development of boys and men.
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This is such a cool paper. A great demonstration of how evolutionary hypotheses can predict cultural variation as well as universal sex differences...in this case in the powerful emotion of jealousy.
Our cross-cultural paper on jealousy is out today in Nature Human Behaviour! We show variation in jealous response is associated with the level of paternal investment across populations, while also showing strong support for a classic sex difference.
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Excellent piece on the science of sex differences:
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Should be required reading for everyone.
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002/2016). 16+ years later, the case that there is such a thing as human nature still needs to be made.
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Mate wisely.
You’re asked to write a two-word opinion piece. What does it say? Go! 👇🏼
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Fatherhood is an under-appreciated dimension of masculinity.
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One consequence of the surge of women and dearth of men going to Uni is a mating crisis among educated women:
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This convo with Andrew Huberman
@hubermanlab
was definitely fun and free flowing.
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I just finished reading Blueprint, by
@NAChristakis
; the book is terrific start to finish. It should be required reading for everyone, especially for social scientists.
Here's my podcast interview with
@NAChristakis
, authoer of the EXCELLENT book "Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society." Among other subjects, we talk about the question of how optimistic everyone should be about human nature
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A fascinating list to give one pause about accepting findings uncritically.
Reversals in Psychology: A list of famous psychological findings that are now in doubt. Includes the Stanford prison experiment, implicit bias, Pygmalion effect, stereotype threat, power posing, multiple intelligences, brain training, learning styles, etc.
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Important quote. Penned by the first author, Dan Conroy-Beam.
"Mates do not come a la carte but prix fixe: Each potential mate has a set of features that must be accepted or rejected wholesale."
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Like all traits, Agreeableness has pluses and minuses. In my studies of it, positives include 'I attempted to arrive at a solution that was satisfactory to all involved.' Negatives include 'I accepted verbal abuse without defending myself.'
Agreeable people are also those most likely to regard an emotive empathy as the highest (or only) virtue. But a virtue in excess or in imbalance can easily become a vice. Hence the Freudian devouring mother. "Anything you do is ok, dear."
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Clockwise from top left - David Buss, George C. Williams, Martin Daly, Mildred Dickemann, Richard Alexander, Napoleon Chagnon, W.D. Hamilton
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So well deserved. Leda is a brilliant pioneer.
3 celebrations in 3 days! Congratulations to the brave & brilliant Leda Cosmides on her induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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One of my favorite photos of all time; surrounded by brilliant minds, with me being the slacker in the bunch.
Clockwise from top left - David Buss, George C. Williams, Martin Daly, Mildred Dickemann, Richard Alexander, Napoleon Chagnon, W.D. Hamilton
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My book on sexual conflict just out today! Super-excited. Happy to get a blurb from Nicholas Christakis, whose books I greatly admire.
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Happy to announce the new edition of 'Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature':
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Too cool for words.
Silverback gorilla stands guard as his family crosses the road
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Steve Pinker's 'The Blank Slate' is one of my favorites of his, and still as relevant today as when it was published. Highly recommend.
@h_mich_l
@ProfDavidBuss
This is on my list next 😌
I’ll add ‘how the mind works’ to my reading list. Thanks for the recommendation. Kinda hard finding books of the same caliber as professor Buss’
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Had a very interesting conversation with
@jordanbpeterson
about human mating strategies, sex differences, and sexual conflict.
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The Handbook of Human Mating, coming out soon. Terrific contributors:
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And the wisdom of choosing your battles carefully.
When natural selection trumps sexual selection...
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Paper Bill von Hippel and I wrote on how ideological bias impedes understanding the logic of evolutionary psychology; based on actual survey of 300+ social psychologists:
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This is appalling.
Beggars belief that an elite university could outlaw discussion of one of the most important scientific theories (indeed, most important ideas) of all time.
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Here is an hour-long conversation Richard Dawkins and I had:
How come
@RichardDawkins
and
@ProfDavidBuss
never had a talk or event together? Two pioneer of evolutionary theory. Where’s the podcast?
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Yet more evidence refuting 'sex role' theory; how much more evidence do we need before this archaic theory is consigned to a mere footnote in the history of the field?
Multivariate effect sizes for sex differences in moral judgements across 67 countries. "These multivariate effect sizes of sex differences were substantially
larger in individualist and gender-equal countries."
By
@MohammadAtari90
et al.
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I'm so proud of Courtney Crosby, a graduate student in our EP Lab, for winning the best student presentation award. Title of her talk: "Six Dimensions of Sexual Disgust"
Congratulations to our presentation winners!
@vspooner1
for best poster and
@EvoCourtney
for best talk. Awesome job, ladies!
#FOSSIL2019
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As Dan Dennett noted, it's about the most important idea anyone ever had.
Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle began
#OnThisDay
in 1831. The five year trek around the world shaped his ideas about the natural world; he later said that the journey was "by far the most important event in my life."
#histSTM
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I am truly blessed to have such a talented group of graduate students; all super-cooperative, which makes research collaborations such wonderful.
And that’s a wrap for the
@ProfDavidBuss
lab class of 2022/23
@RandomMutations
@Pa0la_Baca
Coming soon from us… the Cross Sex Theory of Mind 😎🤘🏻
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Excited to announce that the UK edition of my book on sexual conflict has dropped today, under a slightly different title:
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Thanks for tweeting this. My writings on love are typically overshadowed by some of my other work. Not complaining, but good to see some coverage of the important emotion of love in long-term mating.
If a partner chooses you for rational reasons, he or she might leave you for the same rational reasons: finding someone slightly more desirable on all of the “rational” criteria. Commitment might be more robust when the person is blinded by an uncontrollable love.
@ProfDavidBuss
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This is important.
Teaching people about how evolutionary processes created human nature and our shared humanity likely reduces prejudice, ethnocentricism and racism. Darwin knew this. We are one species. We need more education on human nature & evolution not less.
@NAChristakis
@StevenHeine4
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My article on why women have affairs, just out in AEON; emotions run high on this topic:
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Thanks Andrew; much appreciated!
The new episode of the
@joerogan
podcast with Evolutionary Psychologist
@ProfDavidBuss
about mate selection (and more) is superb. Don’t miss it.
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Thanks to Steven Pinker for the wonderful endorsement of my new book on sexual conflict.
Out today, a book for our time: When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault, by the leading evolutionary psychologist of sex, David Buss.
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Thanks, Amy. It is a labor of love. Much appreciated.
Just got my updated copy of
@ProfDavidBuss
's "Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind" It's technically a textbook, but really the best primer, in readable language, for anyone looking to understand ev psych.
@Routledgepsych
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Nice illustration of powerful evolutionary forces.
Intersexual selection vs. intrasexual selection
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Happy as well. Crazy science denialism around evolved sex differences has become . . . well, crazy.
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Calm scientific destruction by Dave Schmitt of nonsense peddled by those who deny evolved sex differences:
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For those interested in a book chapter I wrote on the evolution of love, this can be downloaded free:
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Honored to be included in 'the best of making sense' episodes.
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Many of us suspected this, but it's another thing to have hard numbers on it.
WARNING: Studying the social sciences may impair your understanding of the world
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I concur. The Status Game is a superb and insightful book, and a great read.
Great to see this shout out to The Status Game in the
@guardian
yesterday from the great
@akalamusic
- thank you!
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My TEDx talk on Sexual Conflict:
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Pinker's essay is indeed excellent. Thanks for pointing it out.
Still my favorite argument for the importance of evolutionary psychology. Written by
@sapinker
, Foreword to the 2nd edition of "The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology" edited by
@ProfDavidBuss
.
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Gratified that work on the science of mating is reaching such a broad audience.
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Nap Chagnon was a true pioneer; very sad he's gone, but his work is an invaluable legacy. Photo from around 1986, in between W.D. Hamilton and R.D. Alexander.
Got news that Napoleon Chagnon died. He taught at UCSB for many years and truly was one of the pioneers of evolutionary psychology. Wrote one of the most popular ethnographies in anthropology (of the Yanomamo of the Venetzuelan Amazon).
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I have no sense of whether my sentiments are favored or opposed, but do not want anyone or anybody in power dictating what books I can and can't read.
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