Buss, David

evolutionary psychologist, University of Texas at Austin; author of The Evolution of Desire, The Dangerous Passion, Why Women Have Sex, and the textbook Evolutionary Psychology

David Buss: Sex, Dating, Relationships, and Sex Differences

Lex Fridman Podcast · May 4, 2022

• David Buss
• evolutionary psychology
• mate selection sex differences
• jealousy and infidelity
• mate-switching hypothesis
• status and power evolutionary origins
• pornography and objectification
• incel psychology
• homicidal ideation research
• Depp-Heard commentary
• polyamory and pair-bonding

Core ideas

Buss argues mating and intergroup violence have both been central to human evolutionary history, tracing warfare partly to competition over reproductive access (illustrated via anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon's fieldwork with the Yanomamö, where killing status ["unokai"] correlated with higher polygynous marriage rates) and partly to reputational deterrence dynamics between groups. He frames human mating psychology as unusually complex relative to other primates because of two evolved traits largely absent in chimpanzees: long-term pair-bonding with substantial male parental investment, and concealed ovulation, which he argues co-evolved with pair-bonding by requiring males to stay near a partner year-round rather than only during a visible fertile window.

Buss describes long-standing research (including his own classroom demonstrations) finding that women report valuing a much longer and more heavily weighted list of mate qualities than men typically report, and argues this reflects an underlying sex difference in mating psychology: men, on average, prioritize physical attractiveness and youth (cues correlated with fertility) more heavily in long-term mate selection, while women, on average, prioritize resource-acquisition potential, ambition, and status more heavily — a pattern he says holds cross-culturally and, counterintuitively, appears to persist or even grow more pronounced in highly gender-egalitarian countries like Sweden and Norway. He discusses his "mate-switching hypothesis" for female infidelity — that affairs often function to transition out of an unsatisfactory relationship rather than primarily to acquire "good genes" while retaining a provider, noting evidence that a majority of women (and a minority of men) who have affairs develop emotional attachment to the affair partner, which he argues undercuts the alternative "good genes" hypothesis favored by some colleagues.

On status and power, Buss argues that because women have historically prioritized mates with status and resources, this created evolutionary selection pressure on men to compete more aggressively for status hierarchies, which he offers as a partial explanation (alongside other social and structural causes) for why positions of political and social power remain disproportionately held by men — a claim he is careful to frame as a causal hypothesis rather than a moral justification. He discusses jealousy as, in his view, a functional adaptation for guarding a valued relationship against "mate poaching" or partner infidelity, while acknowledging it is also the leading cause of intimate partner violence, and describes a robust, cross-culturally replicated sex difference in which men report greater distress at a partner's sexual infidelity while women report greater distress at emotional infidelity.

Discussing objectification and media, Buss argues modern social media creates an "evolutionary mismatch" by bombarding people (especially women) with thousands of unrepresentative, curated images that trigger evolved social-comparison mechanisms calibrated for small-group living, contributing to lower self-esteem and higher rates of eating disorders; he attributes part of this to demonstrated misperceptions (both sexes' women underestimate how much thinner they believe men prefer partners to be than men actually report). On pornography, he similarly describes both positive and negative effects, including men developing unrealistic expectations and, he argues, a possible dampening effect on real-world relationship pursuit and ambition. Asked about incel communities and violence, Buss argues (while noting he has not personally researched the subculture in depth) that most traits women report valuing in a mate are improvable, and that channeling frustration toward self-improvement would be more productive than hostility toward women; he also discusses his research on homicidal ideation, noting a large majority of men (and a smaller majority of women) report having had fleeting thoughts about killing someone, most commonly triggered by public humiliation, status loss, or perceived mate poaching.

On the Depp v. Heard trial (ongoing at the time of the conversation, before Heard's testimony), Buss states he had not watched it directly and does not consider himself qualified to adjudicate the relationship, though he notes intimate partner violence can be symmetrical as well as asymmetrical and that emotional abuse is sometimes more damaging than physical abuse. On relationship structure, Buss frames long-term pair-bonding as one strategy within a broader "menu" that also includes serial monogamy, infidelity, and polyamory, describing several negotiated forms of polyamorous arrangements he has discussed with practitioners, and states he personally favors equality within romantic partnerships even while noting some group contexts (e.g., coalitional warfare) may function better with hierarchy. He closes by describing his view of love as an evolved "commitment device" that credibly signals otherwise-unverifiable devotion, recounts caring for his late wife through her terminal cancer as an experience that reduced his own fear of death, and describes the meaning of life as experiencing as much of humans' rich, mostly-dormant evolved psychological repertoire (love, coalition-bonding, and other capacities) as possible within a finite life.

Excerpts