creative maverick

I went to a fascinating talk at London Zoo this week about how evolution and our biology affect who we fancy and who we settle down with.

The speakers were Professor Robin Dunbar from Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University and Professor Karl Grammer from Department for Anthropology at University of Vienna.

Here’s how it was billed:

Biological approaches to human behaviour suggest that human mate preferences are influenced by similar underlying mechanisms to those seen in animals. Visual cues play a large part in judgements of attractiveness and compatibility. Recent research has revealed new insights into the intricacies of these cues and how we form early judgements based on them without fully realising how these decisions are made.

Here are some of my notes from the remarkable talks:

• Internal gestation and the nature of lactation in humans means that males can do relatively little in early child-rearing
• One consequence is that females prioritise child-rearing and males prioritise mating. Females have more to lose and so are choosier about mate
• Humans have very large brains. The brain requires a significant amount of our daily energy intake just to tick over
• One million years ago, our brains evolved to be too big to fit through the birth canal. The solution is that humans are now born 12 months premature. We are therefore unusually helpless at birth (compared to other animals)
• Wealth and status affect infant survival rates - historically and even today - and so women are attracted to wealth and status.
• One modern symbol of wealth is to own the latest mobile phone. Men more often display their mobiles than women; they take them out and put them on the table during a train journey while women leave them in their bags. Also,

“Men are more likely to display their mobile phones when there are women nearby.”

• Men’s height matters. Stats show salary increases 1% for each centimetre over average male height. Taller men are more likely to be married.
• Bravery in men correlates with attractiveness. Men are more likely to take risks when women are watching.
• Humans are treated differently according to their attractiveness: parents smile more at attractive babies.
• Parasite resistance is very important in humans. (The weight of parasite cells in our body is greater than that of our own cells) Signs for parasite resistance such as good skin therefore correlate highly with attractiveness.
• The model for attractiveness varies from culture to culture and era to era. For instance a composite of the faces of the most successful film actresses shows differences for each decade. There is a 30s beauty, 40s beauty and so on. The 70s face deemed attractive for women was more masculine.
• Despite these variations, some traits are universally attractive across cultures - from Europe to Asia to Africa - left/right symmetry of the face for instance.

Provocative stuff huh? I await your angry comments…