Gossiping for Mates | Dr. Tania Reynolds

Species

Macken Murphy

Anthropology, Social Sciences, Species, Science, Animals, Nature

4.8 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2022

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Women compete vigorously over mates but do so more subtly than men. In this episode, Dr. Tania Reynolds teaches us how women use gossip to win mates. Additionally, we discuss friendship, thinness, and the evolution of homosexuality, among other subjects.

Tania Reynolds is an assistant professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of New Mexico. Her research examines how intrasexual competition and cooperation contribute to psychological and behavioral sex differences. She investigates how pressures for humans' ancestors to select advantageous social allies—and be selected in return—contribute to modern-day preferences, biases, and behaviors.

Connect with Dr. Reynolds on Twitter @TaniaArline, and keep up with her work using the links below:

Department webpage: https://psych.unm.edu/people/faculty/profile/tania-reynolds.html

Research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tania-Reynolds

Transcript

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0:00.0	I hear way too much about how males compete for females.
0:04.9	Frankly, the dynamics of male-male-maid competition are just a little too explicit, a little too heavy-handed to get my brain working.
0:14.9	A male wants a mate, and so they either attack other males physically, or they do something obnoxious to prove to the females that they're the better choice.
0:25.9	They sing a loud song or shake their tail or pull up in a Lamborghini.
0:32.4	I get it. We all get it. We all understood it the first time we heard of it.
0:37.5	I'm a little tired of talking about peacock's tails. I'm a little bored of antlers.
0:45.0	I want to talk about how females compete over males. Because there is competition there and
0:51.4	almost nobody bothers to talk about it. And that competition gets intense.
0:57.8	Especially in monogamous or monogamous species where only one female gets full access to any given male's genes and resources.
1:08.5	Especially in species where females are tied to one male for a prolonged period of time.
1:17.0	Especially in species where there is an enormous difference between mating with a high mate value male and mating with a low mate value male, especially in species like
1:33.9	ours.
1:36.3	Women compete over men vigorously, and mostly covertly.
1:46.2	And today we're going to talk about how.
1:51.2	Fair warning to parents, today's episode is not intended for all audiences.
2:04.0	We're going to talk about gossip, we're going to talk about dieting, we're going to talk about makeup and clothing, pretty privilege, the limits of beauty, the evolution of homosexuality, evolutionarily informed self-help and friendship.
2:11.4	And I don't think I could have chosen someone better to talk about these topics with.
2:19.2	Dr. Tanya Reynolds is an assistant professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of New Mexico.
2:24.8	She is an expert in intracultural competition and behavioral sex differences in humans,
2:30.3	well known in my field for her expertise on female-female cooperation and competition,
2:33.6	which is the centerpiece of today's podcast.
2:40.0	I was taught some of Dr. Reynolds' work as a student at Oxford, and it inspired a great many discussions inside and outside the classroom, along with a wonderful MSC dissertation
	...

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