The Hidden Psychology Of Sexual Conflict - David Buss - #319

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, you beautiful people. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is David Buss. He's one of the founders of the field of evolutionary psychology, professor of psychology at the University of Texas, and an author. We are talking about the hidden psychology of sexual conflict. The topic of sexual deception, harassment and assault are an emotive, highly charged conversation. Men are accused and women are afraid, but why do these conflicts even arise? Why is it that men and women's sexual desires diverge? David's new book opens Pandora's Box to this complete hell of a murky world, and we're going to try and navigate through it today without getting cancelled or upsetting too many people. Expect to learn the key differences to men and women's sexual desires, how the over-perception bias explains much of why we are confused, why women are attracted to bad boys, how men are mentally hardwired to objectify women, how mate value discrepancy can cause all manner of catastrophes, whether all men are rapists and much more. God, I adore this conversation. If you liked the 15 Harsh Psychology Truths with Adam Lane Smith a couple of weeks ago, you will love this one. Evolutionary psychology to me is endlessly fascinating. It allows us to peer under the hood and work out why we are the way we are. And David is one of the godfathers of that field. Again, you have the opportunity today, as you're listening to this conversation unfold, to notice any emotional reactions that arise inside of yourself and question why are they there? What is it about this insight that's causing you to feel that way? For men, there are lots of uncomfortable truths that come up in this around some of the reprehensible things that men have done to women over the ages. And to women as well, there are some things that make it sound like perhaps David's giving men a pass or perhaps the hashtag not all men actually might be true. All of these things should give you pause. They should give you reason to think, okay, how can I assess my assumptions around this? How can I have a more balanced viewpoint on what is perhaps one of the most charged conversations of the last decade? If you enjoy this episode, don't forget to hit the subscribe. In fact, before you even listen, it's awesome. Just go and hit the subscribe button now for me. Navigate to your little podcast app and make sure that it's been pressed. And it means that you will never miss an episode when they are uploaded every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Now please give it up for the wise and wonderful David Buss.
David Buss, welcome to the show.

**David Buss** (2:55)
Thank you. Hey, delighted to be here talking to you.

**Chris Williamson** (2:57)
It's Happy Book Release Day.

**David Buss** (3:00)
Yes, it is. It's hugely exciting. I've been getting a ton of email. People are tweeting about it, and Facebooking about it. So it's kind of an explosion on social media. So it's very exciting. And this is one of these things where this book took me three years to write, and it represents more than 30 years of research on and off, not continuous research. So it is a true labor of love. And so it's nice to see this thing finally hatched.

**Chris Williamson** (3:34)
Well deserved. Really, really well deserved. I said to you before we started, I absolutely love this. How would you characterize what evolutionary psychology is and why it's interesting and useful?

**David Buss** (3:46)
Oh, boy, that's a big question. So that I will try to be succinct on that. Evolutionary psychology is simply psychology. Look at it through the lens of evolutionary theory. And it basically is a, adds important ingredients such as functionality. So whereas most psychologists, they don't look at, what is it the, they don't ask the question, what is the function of whatever psychological mechanisms we have? They just say, you know, here's a phenomenon, cognitive dissonance or obedience to authority, or attribution bias or evolutionary psychologists ask, well, what is the evolve function, if any, of the psychological mechanisms we have? Be they food preferences, be they mate preferences, habitat preferences, coalition formation, friendship formation, navigating kinships, navigating social hierarchies and that functional lens, just posing that question adds a layer of depth to our understanding of psychology that has been missing prior to an evolutionary perspective. And so I think it brings quite a lot to the table. And I remember early on in the field of evolutionary psychology, Leda Cosmides, a friend and one of the founders of the field told me that there's no such thing as a non-evolutionary psychology.