from tdj
You know, somehow, it sometimes bothers me the amount of free time people have to do these freaking studies on whatever.
The mating market
Jan. 8th, 2007 | 02:29 pm
posted by: tdj
High school and college as protected mating markets:
Traditionally,teens mixed more with adults and extended family, so they received feedback on their mate value from their clan as much as from their clique. But today teens are schooled and socialized in lockstep,creating an unprecedented separation from adults that Miller argues may warp accurate self-appraisal. A 17-year-old girl, he contends, compares herself mercilessly to her equally nubile peers; she doesn't mingle with adults enough to realize that she and her friends are all in the top-10 percent of women, reproductively speaking. "Forty years ago,"says Miller, "a girl might have entered the workforce at age 18 and gotten a lot of attention in the office relative to the 28-year old'spinster.' " Today, she'll enter college, still socializing and competing with a gaggle of equally young, pretty girls.
Boys also rank themselves heavily against peers. But because high school shelters them from the status wars waged among professional men, Miller believes boys actually overestimate their mate value during adolescence, and none more so than jocks. "Young men who were captains of the football team graduate thinking they're God's gift to women, and women respond, 'I'm interested in corporate attorneys and well-cited professors. Who the hell are you?' " The bottom line, he says, is that the longer you extend age-segregated higher education, the more you delay accurate calibration to the overall mating market.
Sex tariffs! The criteria (pretty vs. power) are more broken than the educational system, but it's a curious vector.
Tags: acadamia, psychology, sex
The mating market
Jan. 8th, 2007 | 02:29 pm
posted by: tdj
High school and college as protected mating markets:
Traditionally,teens mixed more with adults and extended family, so they received feedback on their mate value from their clan as much as from their clique. But today teens are schooled and socialized in lockstep,creating an unprecedented separation from adults that Miller argues may warp accurate self-appraisal. A 17-year-old girl, he contends, compares herself mercilessly to her equally nubile peers; she doesn't mingle with adults enough to realize that she and her friends are all in the top-10 percent of women, reproductively speaking. "Forty years ago,"says Miller, "a girl might have entered the workforce at age 18 and gotten a lot of attention in the office relative to the 28-year old'spinster.' " Today, she'll enter college, still socializing and competing with a gaggle of equally young, pretty girls.
Boys also rank themselves heavily against peers. But because high school shelters them from the status wars waged among professional men, Miller believes boys actually overestimate their mate value during adolescence, and none more so than jocks. "Young men who were captains of the football team graduate thinking they're God's gift to women, and women respond, 'I'm interested in corporate attorneys and well-cited professors. Who the hell are you?' " The bottom line, he says, is that the longer you extend age-segregated higher education, the more you delay accurate calibration to the overall mating market.
Sex tariffs! The criteria (pretty vs. power) are more broken than the educational system, but it's a curious vector.
Tags: acadamia, psychology, sex