Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:49:43.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Speaking power to sex in Auckland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

N. Patrick Peritore
N. Patrick Peritore*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Background.

Sex-specific differences in attitudes and behaviors, arising from a division of human nature into male and female types, have been core findings of evolutionary psychology and are now among its key investigational presumptions. These differences have largely been ignored by mainstream political and social theories.

Method.

I explored one potential path toward incorporation, using “Q” methodology to test for male-female differences in attitudes toward social power. A 33-factor survey was administered confidentially and in single-blinded fashion to 26 participants, 8 adult males and 18 adult females in Auckland, New Zealand. Nine élite participants were recruited from among wealthy families and the executive staffs of prominent businesses, while 17 non-élite participants were recruited from among the personal networks of university students.

Results.

957 acts of subjective prioritization were available for analysis. Sex-specific strategies consistent with the maximization of reproductive success through hypergamous marriage were significantly more pronounced among the non-élites, male and female, than among the élites. Culture-associated behaviors and ideologies were significantly more pronounced among élites, male and female, than among the non-élites.

Conclusion.

Shared élite male-female interest in social control and hierarchy maintenance may affect mating strategies sufficiently to obscure more expected sex-specific differences in attitudes and behaviors.

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 49 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Peritore, N. P., “The Evolutionary Critique of Culturalism” in Recent Explorations in Biology and Politics, Somit, A. and Peterson, S., eds. (Connecticut: Jai Press, 1997), 5(5): 109–130.Google Scholar
2.Peritore, N. P., “Hierarchy and Complexity in Evolutionary Theory” in Recent Explorations in Biology and Politics, Falger, V., Meyer, P., and Van Der Dennen, J., eds. (Connecticut: JAI Press, 1998), 6(4): 65–87.Google Scholar
3.Behavioral Endocrinology, Becker, J., Breedlove, S. M., and Crews, D., eds. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1993); Neuroscience. 2d Edition. Mark Bear, Barry Connors, Michael Paradiso. (Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2001). Chapter 17.Google Scholar
4.Dixson, A., Primate Sexuality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
5.McGuire, M. and Troisi, A., Darwinian Psychiatry (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
6.Van der Dennen, J., ed., The Nature of the Sexes (Groningen: Origin Press, 1992).Google Scholar
7.Short, R. V. and Balaban, E., eds., The Differences Between the Sexes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
8.Mealey, L., Sex Differences (San Diego: Academic Press, 2000).Google Scholar
9.Buss, D., “Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1989, 12:1–49.Google Scholar
10.Birkhead, T. R. and Moller, A. P., eds., Sperm Competition and Sexual Selection (San Diego: Academic Press, 1998).Google Scholar
11.Low, B., Why Sex Matters (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
12.Walsh, A., Biosociology (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1995).Google Scholar
13.Baker, R. and Bellis, M., Human Sperm Competition: Copulation, Masturbation, and Infidelity (London: Chapman and Hill, 1992).Google Scholar
14.Trivers, R., Social Evolution (Menlo Park: Benjamin Cummings, 1985).Google Scholar
15.Clutton-Brock, T. H., The Evolution of Parental Care (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
16.Byrne, R. and Whiten, A., Machiavellian Intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar
17.Whiten, A. and Byrne, R., Machiavellian Intelligence II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18.Brown, S. R., Political Subjectivity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).Google Scholar
19.Stephenson, W., The Study of Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).Google Scholar
20.Dixson, A., Primate Sexuality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
21.Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I., Human Ethology (N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989).Google Scholar
22.Daly, M. and Weghorst, S., “Male sexual jealousy,” Ethology and Sociobiology, 1982, 3:11–27.Google Scholar
23.Daly, M. and Wilson, M., Homicide (N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1988).Google Scholar
24.Wrangham, R. and Peterson, D., Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996).Google Scholar
25.Andersson, M., Sexual Selection (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
26.Keeley, L., War Before Civilization (N.Y.: Oxford, 1996).Google Scholar
27.Goodall, J., The Chimpanzees of Gombe (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
28.Bourguignon, E. and Greenbaum, L., Diversity and Homogeneity in World Societies (Cambridge: HRAF Press, 1973).Google Scholar
29.Murdoch, G., Social Structure (N.Y.: Macmillian Press, 1960).Google Scholar
30.de Waal, F., Chimpanzee Politics: Sex and Power among Apes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982).Google Scholar
31.de Waal, F., Good Natured (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
32.Harpending, H., and Rogers, A., “Fitness in Stratified societies,” Ethology and Sociobiology, 1990, 11:496–509.Google Scholar
33.Domhoff, G. W., The Powers that Be (N.Y.: Vintage, 1978).Google Scholar
34.Smuts, B., Cheney, D., Seyfarth, R., Wrangham, R., and Strusaker, T., Primate Societies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).Google Scholar
35.Rogers, A., “Evolutionary Economics of Human Reproduction,” Ethology and Sociobiology, 1990, 11:23–49.Google Scholar
36.Trivers, R. and Willard, D. E., “Natural selection of parental ability to vary the sex ratio of offspring,” Science, 1973, 179:90–92.Google Scholar
37.Stevens, A. and Price, J., Evolutionary Psychiatry (London: Routledge, 1996).Google Scholar
38.Coe, K., The Ancestress Hypothesis (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003).Google Scholar