Psychology Today: Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)
I don't.

Humans are naturally polygamous
mmmm... no.

Most women benefit from polygamy, while most men benefit from monogamy
possibly.

Most suicide bombers are Muslim
historically? or just recently? a bit like saying 'most poll tax protesters were english'

Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce
Not the sons I've seen!

Beautiful people have more daughters
I have two, thanks.

What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals
um, they love the Queen?

The midlife crisis is a myth—sort of
Due to being very poorly in my twenties, I'm still glad to be here. So, the MLC doesn't apply to me.

It's natural for politicians to risk everything for an affair (but only if they're male)
shortened to "Power attracts"

Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist
Ambiguous. Who are 'they'? The women? The men? 'This Man' in the Billy Ray Cyrus song?

political correctness gone mad

What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals

They don't pay all their taxes?

For nearly a quarter of a century, criminologists have known about the "age-crime curve." In every society at all historical times, the tendency to commit crimes and other risk-taking behavior rapidly increases in early adolescence, peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, rapidly decreases throughout the 20s and 30s, and levels off in middle age.

This curve is not limited to crime. The same age profile characterizes every quantifiable human behavior that is public (i.e., perceived by many potential mates) and costly (i.e., not affordable by all sexual competitors). The relationship between age and productivity among male jazz musicians, male painters, male writers, and male scientists—which might be called the "age-genius curve"—is essentially the same as the age-crime curve. Their productivity—the expressions of their genius—quickly peaks in early adulthood, and then equally quickly declines throughout adulthood

RONG

guys you dont actually have to 'refute' these, this article is a joke

How dare you ruin fun.

Yeah, that Kanazawa guy sure is hilarious.

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200803/why-we-are-losing-war

Most women benefit from polygamy, while most men benefit from monogamy

lol backwards

Here’s a little thought experiment. Imagine that, on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers came down, the President of the United States was not George W. Bush, but Ann Coulter. What would have happened then? On September 12, President Coulter would have ordered the US military forces to drop 35 nuclear bombs throughout the Middle East, killing all of our actual and potential enemy combatants, and their wives and children. On September 13, the war would have been over and won, without a single American life lost.

That really does make me think.

Most women benefit from polygamy, while most men benefit from monogamy

lol backwards

You know, in terms of a division of labor, women's daily work probably is lessened by polygamy. Not rly the point, obv.

without a single American life lost.
apart from those on holiday!

traitors should have stayed home and kept money in the economy obviously

good point :)

you think true Americans holiday in the Middle East??? xpost :'~(

Most of 'em are dull scientist-forgets-about-the-existence-of-culture fare, but "Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist" is a class act all the way.

Why was this apparently written by Alan S. Miller four years after his death?

..and peope in Embassies, trade missions, contractors...I guess he's obviously not serious but his schtick is the same thing in every article - "Oh, I'm so outrageous" - that it gets very tired very quickly. Still the LSE must see something in him.

What's a true American?

duh

i think also he's forgetting that by destroying the middle east he would miss out on a couple bajillion muslims, you know the ones from east asia, africa, paris, london, birmingham, berlin, barcelona, leeds, etc etc. and they might be a little bit put out with this ultra-genocide.

Israelis wouldn't be too happy either.

Most women benefit from polygamy, while most men benefit from monogamy

lol backwards

― admiral tub-a-lub (HI DERE), Friday, May 8, 2009 2:28 PM

If you have several wives they always have someone to go shopping with.

Ahh, thanks dan.

His guitar playing actually knocked down a building!

at what point are ev psychologists going to be laughed out of major universities

Most women benefit from polygamy, while most men benefit from monogamy

In an evolutionary sense? There are, I believe, some theories that say that there may be some advantage for a woman in an established relationship to exogmate, as it were, to insure a diversified pool of genes in her progeny. If nothing else, 'Big Love' has taught me that polygamy is definitely not for me. "It's who's night? Um, when is it MY night?"

What I've learnt - Beautiful people have daughters and having daughters increases chances of divorce, possibly because the beautiful blonde people are all out shagging politicians (who are just being man-sluts and not going through a midlife crisis), not that any of this is a bad thing because we were meant to be polygamous and we'll probably all be killed by Muslims soon anyway.

this is good stuff ;)

was kind of amazed to see someone reading this magazine on the bus the other day. I have always wondered who their target market is (insecure community college psych majors?)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20080825-000002.html

What?

start halfway down the page, under "taste hunters"

LOL

Sorry, LB. That was a "what?" for emphasis.

high in openness

I have Psychology degree, and just want to say I'm sorry. That's all.

Most suicide bombers are Muslim

this really has nothing to do with "human nature"

^^^ political correctness gone mad

i dunno if it's even true historically either. Tamil Tigers aren't muslim and they've done more suicide bombings than any group. More than 200 iirc.

oh, wikipedia tells me "330 Black Tigers have died in various actions on land and sea, almost all in Sri Lanka".

I don't even know what 'political correctness' is any more. Something's gone mad, anyway.

AFAICS, political correctness is simply trying to say whatever you have to say as inoffensively as you can. It used to be called diplomacy.

Humans are naturally polygamous
mmmm... no.

oh come on

people can have polygamous tendencies sometimes but that's different from saying "humans are naturally polygamous" - humans are just as naturally monogamous as they are polygamous

xpost: On the historical numbers around suicide bombing, Wikipedia suggests some 2,800 Kamikaze attacks.

Humans are naturally polygamous
mmmm... no.

oh come on

there is no such thing as "naturally" when it comes to humanity, this whole excercise is inherently pointless

Polygamy is a particular set-up:one man married to lots of women. This is clearly not universal. It is, however, rather common for individuals to have more than one partner over the period of their life; that's about as far as I'd go with generalisations on the subject.

exactly. polygamy is a specific social construct just as much as monogomy is. multiple sexual partners over the course of one's life /= polygamy.

it's serial monogamy

and yes, the only point to this is to provide pseudo-scientific 'proof' of a set of common prejudices.

lifelong love of cap'n crunch=cereal monogamy

This is a two year old article and I could swear we had a thread on it.

Ten Politically-Incorrect Truths About Human nature

Psychology Today is so dreadful

― J0hn D., Tuesday, July 10, 2007 9:47 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^extra lolz

dreadfully great

Been reading through the original articles. Gordon Bennett, what wretched drivel. I imagine these guys all have well thumbed collections of 'Gor' books.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

AFAICS, political correctness is simply trying to say whatever you have to say as inoffensively as you can. It used to be called diplomacy.

Yeah, in my mind Miss Manners has the final say on this. She got a letter from a guy crying about political correctness gone mad, asking her thoughts on this new 'trend.' She said it was simply good, respectful etiquette, and (the best part) that she wasn't going to ever defend bigotry.

Been reading through the original articles. Gordon Bennett, what wretched drivel. I imagine these guys all have well thumbed collections of 'Gor' books.

BAHAHAHAHAHAbabahahahahahaha oh man OTM.

at what point are ev psychologists going to be laughed out of major universities

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Friday, May 8, 2009 2:47 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I wonder this too! I read an excerpt from an evolutionary psych article explaining that people reading novels identify the heroes as characters showing traits that benefit communities and other people, and villains as ones showing more selfish and harmful ones, and that basically the evolution of socially useful traits shaped the way people identify "good" and "bad" guys. SO MESSED UP in SO MANY WAYS!

That is why I hate evolutionary psychology: it's conversational cocktail party conjecture but with a 'this is real and will fix ur life DO U SEE' slant. Natch this means it gets coverage bcz it is interesting.

Evolutionary psychology, for all its alleged insight, usually makes me just think "Oh...ok" and only temporarily cures my curiousness e.g. men like bigger breasts because bigger breasts imply bigger nipples which correlate with more milk which means more food and thus the survival of your family.

"oh...ok"

bigger breasts imply bigger nipples which correlate with more milk

waht

Copy and paste (somehow I couldn't convert HTML code GRRR)

I wonder about her nipples. But breastfeeding seems dangerous for the baby. Smothered in tits.

Oh hahaha, dumb blonde alert. Though I have to cry at Mark G saying he doesn't fancy blondies. ;-)

I did?

(retrackt tretrackt)

Um, as a 'type', I tend(ed) to fancy the tall/dark hair. But nowadays, my wife has um evolved into the blonde bombshell, so..

Beautiful people have more daughters

Maybe I shld have another daughter and then I can have above tattooed on my breasts.

'above'
(.) (.)

i know the first thing i look for in a lady is lots of milk for my future babies

me too, apparently, though i never knew why until now

I would think that gigantic nipples would be an impediment to feeding a baby...? Also how the hell is there a correlation between nipple size and milk production????

this has ruined my whole day :-(

dunno, Dan- it would need to be truly enormous for it to be an actual impediment-

http://images-cdn01.associatedcontent.com/image/A2517/25174/300_25174.jpg

I'm thinking of a girl who was described to me as having "nipples the size of Tollhouse cookies", so yeah I am talking truly enormous.

the size and shape?

o wait i thought tollhouse cookies were square for a second

"nipples the size of date squares"

lol I don't know if you have ruined Fig Newtons or made them even better

a friend of mine, after I'd moved away from where he lives, told me a year later about a girl he'd hooked up with: "Make a fist. That's how big her nipples were!" This was middle school for fuck's sake so obv. a lie, but still: THAT would be an impediment to eating.

hurting otm

In the book Woman by Natalie Angier she shows some papers from evo psych peeps that say men like boobs bcz they remind men of butts and another bunch of papers that say men like butts bcz they remind them of boobs.

as far as tits go, bigger is better. my gf has two round robust milky white 38Ds, with dark brown nipples that spread 3 in across her beautiful tit flesh. i've been with lesser woman and have not had similar pleasure, especially the ones that are all nipple.

egads, does she know you post here?

i am her

TMI

lols

max I hear u have nice titties

pics

you never her

max will you put them next to my cabesa for a scale comparison + the lols?

max more like stacked

What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals

when in doubt, vote for the thing that is least like a statement

men sexually harass women because they are not sexist seems like the clear winner - its the only one i got any awesomely charged anti pc vibes from at all

I voted that one for being such a nasty koan.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

what really are you supposed to do when your educated friends expose themselves as psychology today readers (and not even the evo-psych creep kind)

If you know their birthday, look up their astrology sign and casually say "that's so (Libra/their sign) of you" and they'll be amazed and ask "what is?". And then you say "gullibility."

Most suicide bombers are Muslims

wtf? this may be factually true, but it says absolutely nothing about "human nature".