Human Behavior And Sexual Relationships Essay

From birth, one's sexuality is shaped by society. Cultures institute behaviors that are to be seen as the societal norms, which work to constantly reinforce societal expectations of how genders should act in relation to one another. Although some may argue that one's sexuality is an innate characteristic resulting from genetic makeup, there is a large amount of evidence pointing to its social construction instead. Through the power differences between males and females, established gender roles, and drastic economic shifts, society establishes sexuality and reinforces the behaviors that are expected of its citizens.

Unlike sex, the history of sexuality is dependant upon society and limited by its language in order to be defined and understood.

Clark and Hatfield helped support this by getting female and male experiments to ask male and female participants if they would like to engage in casual sex. 75% of males said yes while every female participant said no. This helps support the sexual selection theory as it shows that females have to be more careful with mating as they only have a limited amount of opportunities therefore are more likely to enter a longterm mating strategy. Males can have casual sex with little investment so are more likely to then females. This study helps to show the gender differences.

In his article, The Strategies of Finding a Mate, David M. Buss discusses the act of finding a mate and the characteristics that people are drawn to in a mate. He begins the article with a brief look at the history of mating and the theories that have previously been proposed. In particular he addressed Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual evolution and belief in preferential mate choice. Buss proposes that there are three components to human mating. He states that “human mating is inherently strategic… mating strategies are context-dependent… [and that] men and women have faced different mating problems over the course of human evolution and, as a consequence, have evolved different strategies” (Buss, 1994, p. 241). He uses this theory to propose nine different hypotheses to prove that despite humans being varied and different from each other, all humans look for similar characteristics when trying to find a mate (Buss, 1994).

This essay aims to show a comparison between the differences between both female short-term mating strategies and female long-term mating strategies. It will explore the evolution of psychology that has shown reasons for human mating and how these reasons go above and beyond the general idea of physical attractiveness and love. This essay will identify how mate preferences have evolved and further identify psychological mechanisms that women have used to select their mates over the past. This essay will compare and critically discuss the differences and outline them between female short-term mating strategies and female long-term mating

Human sexuality is a common phrase for all, and anything, pertaining to the feelings and behaviors of sex for the human race. Sexuality has been a topic that has been discussed and studied for as far back as 1000 years B.C. and is still being studied today. As the discussion of sexuality has progressed through history, theories have been created based on research and experiments that scholars have implemented, based on their own perceptions of human behavior. Out of the many theories that pose to explain sexual behavior, Sexuality Now explained ten that are seemed to be the most overlapped, and built off of theories. Of these theories, two that were discussed in the text were the behavioral and sociological theory. These two theories cover some of the basic ideas of what could possibly influence a person’s sexuality.

Riann Anderson and Madison Lash based their presentation of an article titled, Female Guppies with Bigger Brains Pick more Attractive Guys. The article hypothesized that the females with the bigger brains would choose males with the larger fins, more color, and one with the elaborate dances. “In order for you( in reference to the female guppies) you have to have a level of large brain power”, said Lash. The idea of females choosing the more attractive male correlates to the scientific concept of sexual selection, the idea that mates choose particular traits because those will help them in the environment. A great deal of the females with bigger brains wanted the more attractive mates, because essentially the more aesthetically pleasing males

J. 2006). This argument combines behavioural solution to problems such as deciding a high quality mate, with psychological mechanisms produces behaviour. There is no explanation assuming that same psychological mechanism cannot produce various behaviours that solved distinct problems. For example, the domain general “mechanism” of social learning, involving observations of role models through imitations of the observed behaviour. Such as, a female employs social learning in selecting an item. She observes her parents selecting an item, and she does the same. If she switches problems domains to the selection of mate, the mechanism of social learning would not guide her to discover a mate. Instead, it would guide her to look and imitate mate-selection behaviour of female role models; leading to the achievement of mate-selection criteria that are particular to the problem domain of choosing a mate. The domain-general mechanism of social learning will generate behavioural solutions to each problem domain in which it operates. This illustrates the domain-general learning mechanism operates on domain specific inputs, creating information specific to those inputs; in order to generate

When the adolescents were rating the different characteristics the results were as followed, boys rated attractiveness higher than the girls and social status wasn’t important to either group. In the vignette portion of the research, when the social status and the attractiveness were displayed on pictures, it showed that both groups found attractiveness important. Social status was only important for the boys when the mate was attractive and the girls found social status was important whether attractive or not. Lastly, as stated by Ha (2009) “self-perceived mate value moderated the relationship between attractiveness and dating desire for both boys and girls.” Also stated be Ha (2009) “adolescents who perceived themselves as having high mate value showed more dating desire if the other person was attractive compared to adolescents who perceived themselves as having a lower mate value.”

5. Compare and contrast how filter theory and social exchange theory view dating and mate selection.

Following this trend, society has advanced today so as to add several variations to the list of “human sexualities.” Modern society, however, still tries to restrict sexuality and how individuals engage in alternate lifestyles.

Without even realizing it, we as humans everyday pick out various types of characteristics in each other defining in what we want in a mate. In the Discovery Channel’s show, “Science of Sex Appeal” we are shown various different types of reasonings which make us attracted to certain people. An example of this is when four people were set to walk on a treadmill. During this experiment, two of the people, who were male and female, were asked to walk normally. The second set of people were asked to also walk on a treadmill, but were told they would be recorded and rated on their sexual attractiveness.

The first few chapters discuss in depth both the general rules for mate selection and the differences in mate selection and varying preferences for male and female genders. As explained in the intro the author theorizes that the current behavior of humans in relation to mating behavior can be linked to our evolutionary past. He references Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution and his idea of natural selection, which is the the process through which organisms adapt to their environment and in doing so tend to

Just as other interpersonal themes, sexual themes in film are often depictions of sexual themes that exist in real life relationships. For this very reason, it is very easy for a person to compare his relationships with that of a relationship shown in media or film. Some relationships are total train wrecks from the start while others are not necessarily ideal, but healthy. Although not seen very often, ideal couples in film are attributed with characteristics that are seen by society as desirable; youthful, attractive people who are hyper-sexual and affectionate. As cliché as it sounds, sometimes relationships are simply “complicated”. Such is the case in the film It’s Complicated.