4| The Evolutionary Psychology of Modern Day Mating Practices w/ Caelin White

Men's Dating Mastery

Quote from the Episode:

“Our problem as humans is that we work really hard to simplify our understanding of nature and sometimes, that desire to make things simple, comes at the cost of seeing things as they truly are.”

– Caelin White

The Highlights:

• Humans adopt varying mating strategies depending on environmental conditions and individual internal factors.
• Polarizing arguments for and against monogamy are equally flawed. Humans gravitate towards monogamy or non-monogamy, driven by reproductive and non-reproductive goals in the context of their environment.
• Novelty seeking behavior signals desirable adaptive qualities in a partner.
• What people say about physical attractiveness and how they actually behave are at odds. There are also societal biases and unique gender tendencies that you need to be aware of.
• Beware of the qualities that people who are willing to be mate poached tend to possess.
• Jealousy is an adaptive behavior that is triggered differently in men and women.

About Caelin White:

Caelin White is a PhD resident in clinical psychology. He diagnoses and treats mental disorders by teaching people different ways of thinking and behaving. He also applies this training to coach athletes, performers and those in corporate settings to enhance performance output; and as an athlete himself, Caelin practices what he preaches. In addition, Caelin conducts research to understand how humans engage in mating and relationships using various theories, such as those from evolutionary biology.

Show Summary:

This episode takes an evolutionary perspective on mating. Caelin and I discuss a concept called “Conditional Mating Strategies”, which states that there is no ideal approach to mating. Instead, it suggests that humans adopt different strategies that are most suitable to their environment and individual traits. Through this lens, we explore arguments for and against monogamy, the benefit of exhibiting novelty seeking behavior, the role of physical attractiveness, mate poaching and jealousy. This conversation is not limited to our prehistoric ancestors. Instead, we relate these principles to modern life, particularly in North America, in order to extract relevant insights.

We discuss the fallacy of polarizing arguments for and against monogamy. Tendencies towards monogamy vs. non-monogamy actually vary with the environment and are impacted by the drive to seek out the best reproductive strategy as well as our longing to be understood, social belonging, contribution to the well-being of others, desire for novelty, etc.

We explore how exhibiting novelty seeking behavior might make you more attractive by signaling information about your adaptive qualities.

The often debated topic of the role of physical attractiveness is dissected with some surprising findings. We explore the discrepancy between what people say and do when it comes to looks, how gender and personal preferences impact the role of physical attractiveness and the “what is beautiful is good” hypothesis.

Caelin explains mate poaching along with the less than flattering qualities that the “poached” tend to possess and that you may want to avoid. He explains how people assess their bargaining chips and those of others and the role this plays in mate selection.

Jealousy, it turns out, is also an adaptive behavior that serves different purposes in men and women and is triggered by different key factors according to gender.

Advice:

Caelin explains what we know about kindness and how it can help in your dating life.

Contact Caelin:

Blog: https://mindyourmentalhealthcampaign.wordpress.com/

Email: [e-mail]

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Comments:

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