How Are We Influenced by Human

Nature and Cultural Diversity?

What is your belief/affect response to Jan and Tomoko?
Genes, Evolution, and Behavior
 Natural selection
 Heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce are
passed to ensuing generations
 Social animals Join, conform, recognize social status

 Social as well as biological evolution occurs (still does)

 Such as trust, disapproval, punishment, altruism, morality

 Social behavior genetics are harder to see because they interact

(happens along with) cultural changes

 Evolutionary psychology
 Study of the evolution of cognition and behavior based on principles of
natural selection
 There has been enough time for variance in genes
 Variation has been recent , copious, and regional (N.Wade)

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How Are We Influenced by Human
Nature and Cultural Diversity?
Culture and Behavior
Culture
 Enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by
a large group of people and transmitted from one generation
to the next
Cultural diversity
 Our behavior is socially programmed
 Could it also be influenced by genes?

 One in eight Americans is an immigrant

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How Are We Influenced by Human
Nature and Cultural Diversity?
Culture and Behavior
Norms: Expected behavior by the group
 Norms (implicit rules for getting along)
 Standards for accepted and expected behavior
 Expressiveness - German v. Greeks?

 Punctuality - U.S. v. Caribbean ? Jamaica?

 Rule Breaking – a social norm for rule breaking?

 what’s the benefit of that?

 Personal Space – prison inmates v. us

• Buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies

Eye contact –when is it appropriate? How long?
a “stare (creepy)” v. “he’s looking at me”

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How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural
Diversity?
Culture and Behavior
Cultural similarity
 What is a ‘theory of mind’?
 Universal friendship norms
 Universal trait dimensions CANOE

 Universal social belief dimensions

 Cynicism, social complexity, reward for hard work, spirituality, fate control
 Universal status norms (R. Brown)
 Intimacy (you must call me “professor”!!)

 Incest taboo –why is this universal?

 Norms of war –except for Iraq and a few others

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How Are Males and Females Alike and Different?
Gender
Characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced,
by which people define male and female
Females:
 70% more fat, shorter, weigh less
 More sensitive to smells and sounds

 More vulnerable to anxiety disorders, depression

Males:
 Slower to reach puberty, die younger
 ADHD!!!!

 Commit suicide (more women try but don’t succeed)

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How Are Males and Females Alike and Different?
Women Men
Describe themselves in more Focus on tasks and on
relational terms connections with large
Experience more groups
relationship-linked emotions Respond to stress with “fight
More empathetic or flight” response
Gravitate toward jobs that Gravitate toward jobs that
reduce inequalities enhance inequalities

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How Are Males and Females Alike and
Different?
Social Dominance
 (when is it better to be socially dominant?)
Men are socially dominant
Women’s wages in industrial countries average 77
percent of men’s
Men tend to be more autocratic; women more
democratic
Men take more risks

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How Are Males and Females Alike
and Different?
Aggression
Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone
In the U.S., the arrest ratio of male to female is 9 to 1
 When provocation occurs the gender gap shrinks
Women are slightly more likely to commit indirect
aggressive acts
 Spreading malicious gossip

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How Are Males and Females Alike
and Different?
Sexuality
Men:
 More often think about and initiate sex
Women:
 Are more inspired by emotional passion

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Evolution and Gender: Doing What
Comes Naturally?
Gender and Mating Preferences
Men seek out quantity (reproduce widely)
 Spreading genes widely
Women seek out quality (wisely choose)
 Protecting and nurturing of offspring

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Evolution and Gender: Doing What
Comes Naturally?
Reflections on Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary psychologists sometimes start with an
effect and work backward to construct an explanation
 Way to overcome the “hindsight bias” is to imagine things
turning out otherwise. (find the function it provides)
Evolutionary psychologists disagree with this theory
 Same criticism for “cultural theories”
 Their opponents worry that accepting genetically driven
differences reinforces gender stereotypes.
 Is evolution genetic determinism? Or can we adapt to

different environments?

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Sample Predictions Derived from
Evolutionary Psychology

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Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes Naturally?
Gender and Hormones
Gender gap in aggression seems influenced by
testosterone
As humans age they become more androgynous
 Mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics

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Culture and Gender: Doing as the
Culture Says?
Gender Role
Set of behavior expectations (norms) for males and
females
 Confess: did culture form you develop “roots” or “wings”?
 Discuss: Is gender role “inequality” good or bad?

Gender roles vary over culture

 Should both spouses work and share child care?
 41 of 44 countries prefer sharing
 What are the implications for each option?

Gender roles vary over time

 Evolution and biology do not fix them.

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Culture and Gender: Doing as the Culture Says?
 Peer-Transmitted Culture
 50% of personality (and predisposition to respond)
 is inherited
 0 -10% percent of individual variations in personality traits is by
 parental nurturing

 The other 40 -50 % is peer influence! On values/ preferences

 What are some that you learned /adopted?

 What are the implications for values and behaviors having the

 boy/girl scout v. gang group influence?

 Extremism Islamist v. other religious influence?

 Change comes from the youth. Some examples?

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What Can We Conclude about Genes, Culture, and Gender?
 Biology and Culture
 Biology and experience interact when biological traits influence how the
environment reacts
 Epigenetics – environment triggers biological gene expression
 E.g. diet, drugs stress

 But some stress is good for us

 (at cellular level and for physical development)

 E.g. Hostility of cop killers in Bronx and Jihad John

 Great truths: B = f (p * e) –
 Power of the situation

 Power of the person

interaction (*) plays a big role

 A social situation affects different people differently

 People often choose their situation

 People often create their situations

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