Where the Sexy Ones Are
Tyler Cowen Alex Tabarok points me to this paper, Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe. The abstract:
The Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI; Simpson & Gangestad 1991) is a self-report measure of individual differences in human mating strategies. Low SOI scores signify that a person is sociosexually restricted, or follows a more monogamous mating strategy. High SOI scores indicate that an individual is unrestricted, or has a more promiscuous mating strategy. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project (ISDP), the SOI was translated from English into 25 additional languages and administered to a total sample of 14,059 people across 48 nations. Responses to the SOI were used to address four main issues. First, the psychometric properties of the SOI were examined in cross-cultural perspective. The SOI possessed adequate reliability and validity both within and across a diverse range of modern cultures. Second, theories concerning the systematic distribution of sociosexuality across cultures were evaluated. Both operational sex ratios and reproductively demanding environments related in evolutionary-predicted ways to national levels of sociosexuality. Third, sex differences in sociosexuality were generally large and demonstrated cross-cultural universality across the 48 nations of the ISDP, confirming several evolutionary theories of human mating. Fourth, sex differences in sociosexuality were significantly larger when reproductive environments were demanding but were reduced to more moderate levels in cultures with more political and economic gender equality. Implications for evolutionary and social role theories of human sexuality are discussed.
Below is a table of SOIs….
Labels: Finn baiting, sex
What’s up with Morocco? Male – 65.6 the highest; Female, 20.1, very low.
How would that even work? Methinks some Moroccon men have an inflated opinion of their own prowess…
It looks like there’s a lot less variation in the SOI scores among men living in different countries than there is among women in different countries.
Latvia edges out even Finland — good news for Roissy.
Kinda disappointing picks overall — it’s probably a population-level version of the pattern among individuals, namely that uglier girls have to be a bit sluttier in order to attract mates.
Of the high-scoring countries, only Slovenia really jumps out. Baby.
@neuroskeptic, the largest sex difference going by the Cohen’s d values (p values are biased by sample size which is the reason the U.S. is so high) are actually for Morrocco and the Ukraine together, at d=1.24. So Ukraine’s men have equally inflated sexual egos.
Incidentally, Finland has a moderate sex difference, indicating that they are one of the countries with high political gender equality. My guess is that men and women are both promiscuous because their cultural homogeneity fosters sexual safety: only 2.5 percent of Finnish citzens are foreign, and most foreigners are from Russia, Estonia and Sweden (source: Wiki page for Finland).
“Third, sex differences in sociosexuality were generally large and demonstrated cross-cultural universality across the 48 nations of the ISDP, confirming several evolutionary theories of human mating.”
All sociology professors should have to read this study.
Alex, not Tyler.
East-Asian-comparable low scores for Botswana and Zimbabwe are surprising, no, given the high rates of HIV transmission?
It sucks that I can never find my old comments in Haloscan search, but Finland is not an anomalous data point here. Finland and the Baltic states show an unusual amount of testosterone for Europe, and this shows up in measures like homicide, HIV, testicular cancer, digit ratio, and sperm quality. In some key ways Finland and surrounding areas look like tropical populations (and nearby Denmark is nearly the opposite). That is, it looks like there was significant female selection for “good genes” (Mixed ethnicity soldiers suggest that at least some of this is genetic).
Steve calls one polygnous SSA group the “anti-Finns”. But Finns are really an unusual mix of dad and cad traits (something he has been forced to consider before), and are probably more likely to become uncivilized in response to rapid cultural changes than other Europeans (which may be a reason they are more resistant to immigration), just like their more basket case-y Russian and Baltic neighbors.
Danes are a better example of the paternal morph within Europe, and East Asians are still one of the best examples of the Anti-Pimbwe.
The African sociosexuality scores may be counter-intuitive, but international data always puts East Asians at the bottom of the world when it comes to questions about how much they want and enjoy sex. Show me a man that is mild about his sex life, and I’ll show you a decent father.
This study is almost 5 years old. Here are a few remixed numbers from the paper I had on my computer:
Average Sociosexuality by Country:
Finland 50.50
New Zealand 47.69
Men 46.67
Slovenia 46.26
Lithuania 46.10
Austria 45.73
Latvia 43.93
Croatia 42.98
Israel 40.95
Bolivia 40.90
Argentina 40.74
United Kingdom 40.17
Estonia 39.95
Germany 39.68
Netherlands 39.34
Morocco 39.31
Switzerland 39.13
Serbia 38.72
Fiji 38.58
Brazil 37.93
Czech Rep. 37.52
Australia 37.29
United States 37.05
France 36.67
Turkey 36.06
Mexico 35.69
Average 35.31 (SD 26.05)
Slovakia 34.90
Peru 34.59
Canada 34.52
Italy 34.37
Poland 34.21
Spain 33.72
Belgium 32.82
Congo, D.R. 32.43
Greece 32.38
Ukraine 32.27
Romania 32.16
Philippines 32.10
Malta 31.27
Portugal 29.55
Lebanon 28.57
Women 27.34
Botswana 27.02
Ethiopia 26.55
Japan 24.10
Hong Kong 22.90
Zimbabwe 22.66
South Korea 22.21
Bangladesh 19.67
Taiwan 19.22
M-F Difference 19.33
Average by Region:
Finland 50.50
Lithuania 46.10
Latvia 43.93
Estonia 39.95
Northeast Europe 45.12
New Zealand 47.69
Austria 45.73
United Kingdom 40.17
Germany 39.68
Netherlands 39.34
Switzerland 39.13
Australia 37.29
United States 37.05
France 36.67
Canada 34.52
Belgium 32.82
Northwest Europe 39.1
Bolivia 40.90
Argentina 40.74
Brazil 37.93
Mexico 35.69
Peru 34.59
Americas 37.97
Slovenia 46.26
Croatia 42.98
Czech Rep. 37.52
Slovakia 34.90
Poland 34.21
Ukraine 32.27
Romania 32.16
Eastern Europe 37.2
Israel 40.95
Morocco 39.31
Turkey 36.06
Lebanon 28.57
Middle East 36.2
Italy 34.37
Spain 33.72
Greece 32.38
Malta 31.27
Portugal 29.55
Southern Europe 32.26
Congo, D.R. 32.43
Ethiopia 26.55
Zimbabwe 22.66
SS Africa 27.2
Fiji 38.58
Philippines 32.10
Botswana 27.02
Japan 24.10
Hong Kong 22.90
South Korea 22.21
Bangladesh 19.67
Taiwan 19.22
Asia 25.7
I notice Denmark and Norway aren’t surveyed here. I predict that they would cluster with Belgium at the bottom of the European numbers.
And here’s a Blue Balls Index, ordered by the size of the Male-Female difference within a country (The smallest difference is Latvia, men = 1/3 SD higher; the average sex difference is men = 2/3+ SD higher). Women don’t average higher than men within any country, and even the sex differences between countries show limited overlap. (Highest women over men = -13.26-9.21 Latvian Women and Asian men)
Morocco +45.52
Bolivia +39.55
Ukraine +33.43
Philippines +33.29
Turkey 32.45
Peru +30.35
Italy 30.34
Romania +29.16
Fiji +29.04
United Kingdom +27.78
Brazil +26.83
Lebanon +26.69
Argentina +25.42
Croatia +25.2
Lithuania +25.19
Mexico +23.05
Slovenia +23
Finland +22.43
Israel +22.28
New Zealand +21.63
Spain +20.91
Zimbabwe +20.82
Portugal +19.95
Estonia +19.72
Czech Rep. +19.47
Bangladesh +19.3
Ethiopia +19.29
Greece +19.11
Netherlands +18.95
United States +18.79
Poland +17.39
Austria +17.23
Serbia +17.1
Canada +17.03
Australia +15.79
Slovakia +15.75
Malta +15.39
France +15.22
South Korea +14.3
Taiwan +14.18
Belgium +12.88
Germany +11.92
Japan +11.75
Congo +11.61
Switzerland +10.99
Hong Kong +10.67
Botswana +10.5
Latvia +7.74
The Bottom 5 men:
Taiwan 28.42
Hong Kong 29.88
S. Korea 30.5
Bangladesh 31.10
Japan 32.47
The Top 5 Women:
Latvia 41.68
Finland 41.60
New Zealand 38.79
Austria 38.66
Slovenia 36.45
“Kinda disappointing picks overall — it’s probably a population-level version of the pattern among individuals, namely that uglier girls have to be a bit sluttier in order to attract mates.”
The irony is that men prefer promiscuous societies, and yet in promiscuous societies sexy men reproduce more. The result isn’t more feminine offspring, but sexy sons.
And to the extent that the genes that make sexy sons are sexually antagonistic, sexy sons means ugly daughters.
Also, as Thomas Haden Church taught us in the movie Sideways via an obese truckstop waitress, promiscuous male mating is, by definition, not choosy male mating.
In a world where Thomas Haden Church has to pick one, and only one, woman as his lifetime sex partner, he no longer chooses the obese truckstop waitress.
Monogamy makes men choosy. Choosy men make sexier daughters. Monogamous men are the reason females got colorful.
> It sucks that I can never find my old comments in Haloscan search
Have you tried a google submission of the form
[ “yada yada” site:http://www.haloscan.com/comments/raldanash/ ]
You probably have, but I thought I’d mention it. For me it works OK, sort of, but really not all that well.
Using google to search for haloscan comments doesn’t work well. Jason has GNXP privileges at the haloscan site, so he can do a better comment search there.
Jason has some relevant comments elsewhere which I discuss in this post.
Interesting add-ons there Jason about male monogamy in Europeans and their hair and eye color diversity. This is born out in the data, since Europeans cluster with Asians (and some African countries) in have the lowest sex differences in sociosexuality, indicating European men do not tend towards polygyny despite their high SOI levels.
What I didn’t understand initially is why Europeans overall (men and women) have higher levels on the SOI, than Asia and Africa. Is this simply the result of liberal social attitudes? One would expect that if sexual liberation were brought to countries across the world, SOI would track Rushton’s r-K continuum, with Africans at the top, Europeans in the middle, and Asians with the lowest sexual promiscuity. It seems like these survey data are speaking more about social restrictions than about people’s actual sexual preferences.
Finland and the Baltic states show an unusual amount of testosterone for Europe, and this shows up in measures like homicide, HIV, testicular cancer, digit ratio, and sperm quality.
As regards HIV, it seems that Finland and Lithuania have prevalance rates similar to or lower than those of Western Europe, whereas Latvia, Estonia, and Russia have high rates. See this chart of reported new infections in the Eastern Baltic Sea area 1999-2004 (in the chart Suomi=Finland, Viro=Estonia, Liettua=Lithuania, Leningrad=Leningrad Oblast, Karjalan tasavalta=Republic of Karelia, Pietarin kaupunki=St. Petersburg).
The most obvious demographic difference between Finland and Lithuania on the one hand, and Latvia and Estonia on the other, is that the latter have large Russian-speaking minorities (between a quarter and a third of the total populations), whereas the former don’t. In Estonia, the worst hit area is the city of Narva, which is 94% Russian-speaking. So, one might conjecture that the high HIV rates of Estonia and Latvia are due to the presence of Russians, considering that Russia has a very high rate, too. It should be noted that apparently the majority of HIV carriers in this area are/were intravenous drug users.
This is not to say that there could not be something to your theory about the Eastern Baltic Sea peoples, just that the HIV argument seems weak. As for Finns, heavy drinking, and homicide (as discussed by Sailer in the link), this study found a link between the high activity MAOA genotype and “alcohol-related impulsive and uncontrolled violence” in a sample of Finnish violent offenders.
Having sexy sons doesn’t necessarily mean ugly daughters, if you are not concentrating only on sexually dimorphic traits like size and robustness. For instance, South European men are considered sexy (at least in Finland), but they will have both sexy sons and daughters. Many of their appreciated features (beautiful face, good dancing skills etc.) are more or less independent from their sex.
And by the way Finnish women are not ugly (ask Razib). Finland also has very low HIV rates.
You should correlate these results with alcohol consumption (and when people drink, how much do they drink on one occasion).
JL, good call on HIV for NE Europe. Obviously I haven’t given much serious thought to what’s going on in that region yet, but there does appear to be some sort of there there.
The MAOA study doesn’t say Finns are more likely to carry the genetic variant, but it’s an interesting question anyway.
I think it is an interesting speculation that Finn violence is in some part a result of maladaption to alcohol; Finns use excessive alcohol to overcome social inhibitions that are more genetically common in Northern populations, but Northern European populations haven’t had as much time to build genetic defenses against the negative effects of alcohol like Southern European populations. See:
Genetic Variability and the Formation of Social Norms: The Case of European Alcohol Consumption
“Having sexy sons doesn’t necessarily mean ugly daughters, if you are not concentrating only on sexually dimorphic traits like size and robustness.”
Of course not. I said “to the extent,” and I have no idea what that extent is. There is likely a correlation between the beauty of men and women in different populations, and local disease pressures may well boost looks in both men and women.
Don’t forget that Finland and the Baltic is the home of the CCR5 ?32 HIV-Resistance Allele, so that’s probably involved.
Here’s a Map of the spread of CCR5 ?32 across Europe.
The low rate of HIV infection in the better parts of Europe is thought to be due to their high rates of condom use.
It’s possible there’s some genetic effect, but I doubt it’s responsible.
The low rate of HIV infection in the better parts of Europe is thought to be due to their high rates of condom use.
Maybe, but you would first need to exclude IV drug users and their partners, or control for different incidence of IV drug use and different drug policies. Where clean needle provision is allowed and/or encouraged by the authorities, there is less HIV transmission by needle-sharing, which is a major cause of HIV in Eastern Europe.