The Evolutionary Psychology of Andrea Yates

The Texas woman who drowned her 5 children in a bathtub has been on my mind nearly non-stop since my husband, Mr. Field Notes, was told by his new psychology prof that evolutionary psychology has nothing to say about the case, because her genes died with the kids, whereas the other perspectives of psychology do.

I have been trying to keep from going bananas about it. After all, he is only taking the class to satisfy a dumb prerequisite required for what he really wants to study. And it's only a dumb requirement because he already has a much larger knowledge of psychology than most students who take intro retain even after 6 months.

So anyway, he started taking an introductory psychology class online through our local community college and I didn't have high hopes that it would actually be a good class, and I agree that he should just do the minimal effort required to get an A and leave it at that.

But...

When the prof so summarily dismisses my field's perspective so early on, it sort of slams the door on that perspective being seen as valuable from there on out. I just don't like the foundation it sets for the rest of the class and he can, if he chooses to, defend the perspective and show that it actually has some value, not to mention increase everyone's knowledge. I don't know if he will speak up in the class discussion forum where it came up, but I kind of hope he does.

If I were him, I'd argue that Andrea Yates killing her kids is an example of female infanticide and that under certain circumstances, killing your own progeny can increase reproductive success. It wouldn't at first glance seem so, but evolution is not as simple or as black and white as it appears.

A woman who has a lifetime of reproductive years ahead of her and has a baby that is unhealthy, sick or disabled, or for whom she is unable to care for due to life circumstances such as poverty, lack of support, or ill health herself (including mental illness), may 'choose' to kill that child (or children) and try again for a healthy one or postpone having children until her situation changes so that when she does have another child, the child will have a better chance of actually surviving long enough to reproduce. By doing so, she cuts her losses and saves wasted energy.

Rarely do other animals continue to care for sick or disabled offspring. And, there are examples of animals, primates even, that postpone their reproduction until their circumstance becomes more favorable for reproduction. Tamarins are a great example of this. Often, the reproductively mature offspring of these small South American monkeys stay with their parents and take care of their younger siblings instead of moving away to start families of their own. They could move away from home, get 'knocked up' and try to take care of those babies on their own in an area where they cannot adequately defend enough territory to have food to eat and a safe place to sleep, but they don't. And they don't go off to have those babies, realize they made a mistake, kill the babies and try all over again when they can find a place with food and shelter. Instead, they don't even bother moving out; they stay put and become adult babysitters. They invest in the genes they share with their siblings and bide their time until they can successfully raise a family of their own.

We humans don't seem to be very good at delaying reproduction until better times even with access to condoms and birth control. There are plenty of news reports of babies found in the toilet and in garbage bins, and of course, humans have plenty of abortions. There are also plenty of examples of women who wait until they're done with school and have a career and an established social support system before they start a family (and sometimes they wait a little too long and find their fertility has dropped, making this strategy not entirely foolproof either).

My point is that people kill their own kids, more often before they are even born, and while it seems counter to evolutionary theory for them to do this since it kills their genes, it doesn't kill their ability to produce kids. They can still reproduce in the future and if being motivated to kill your kids under the right circumstances means that your reproductive success isn't zero, i.e. you still have a child that survives to reproduce later, then the genes that contribute to that motivation haven't been selected against. The only thing that would truly be inexplicable from an evolutionary perspective is why people would get a vasectomy or have their tubes tied before they ever reproduce. And even that can be predicted by evolutionary theory if those people tend to contribute to the reproductive success of their relatives, with whom they share many of the same genes.

In any case, evolutionary theory would predict that a woman would be most motivated to kill her own children if:
* They are severely sick, injured, or physically or mentally disabled to the point of being unlikely to reproduce as adults,
or
* She lacks the financial, emotional or social resources (social support) needed to effectively care for them,
and
* The woman is young enough to have a better chance of successfully reproducing later than if she continued to care for the child/children.
In such cases, the benefit could outweigh the cost. For the behavior of Andrea Yates to be a perfect example of this, she would have had to be younger than 45 (an age at which there is a significantly reduced chance of being able to become pregnant) and be poor or depressed or socially isolated or have ill or disabled kids. She was 36 at the time, young enough to be able to reproduce again, and from the Wikipedia account on her, sounds as though she had little social support to help care for the children, and was convinced the children were defective.

Steven Pinker, a respected evolutionary psychologist, argues in his book How The Mind Works, that post-partum depression is a mechanism that motivates a woman to kill her newborn in just these circumstances. It has been said that Andrea Yates had been experiencing post-partum depression.

I don't think Andrea Yates is a perfect example of the 'kill your kids to bide your time and reproduce again when conditions improve' strategy, but she does fit the bill for an individual who would be expected to be motivated to do so.

My baby looks like a Francois Langur!

You'll just have to take my word for it, because I lack photographic evidence, but Baby Field Notes looks just like a newborn Francois Langur.

She gets the same drowsy, relaxed look on her face. She's got the pointy little monkey ears, the plump upper lip hanging over a receding chin... the almond eyes, the fluffy red hair. A hint of a spike mohawk.

There's no way to get around the superficial resemblance of baby humans to baby monkeys, but one thing you may not know about is another way that human and monkey infants are alike — the presence of a natal coat. A natal coat is the term for the different coloration of primates during infancy that later changes. Only about 10-20% of primate species are born with different hair color than they'll have as adults.

These francois langurs are relatives of silver leaf monkeys. Like the silver leaf monkeys, they give birth to bright orange babies that stand out in stark contrast to the significantly darker adults. Black and white colobus monkeys also have babies with a conspicuous natal coat. Theirs are completely white. Chimps are born with tufts of white hair on their rears (I think it makes them look especially cute!), and some human babies and toddlers go through a blond phase before they become brunette as adults. The natal coats that chimps and humans show are less conspicuous but no less noteworthy.

Primatologists, admittedly, don't know why primates are sometimes born with a different hair color, but they have some decent hypotheses. One is that the different coloration provides a signal to others that the baby is indeed a baby and that elicits extra care from elders. Another is that the stark contrast helps adults see the babies better in a dark forest and this may help the troop better protect them from predators (who could also see them more easily, but this cost is presumed to be smaller than the benefit of adults being able to readily see the baby). Both hypotheses propose the coloration denotes the individual is young and needing extra attention. Perhaps in the same way that little blond ringlets are cute on toddlers, orange fur on these primates makes them look especially cute to adults.

No one has studied the natal coat thing among humans, and it has really not been well studied among other primates, but I think it's an interesting subject for research. Some evolutionary psychologists think that the reason that blondes are so attractive in our society is that blond hair is a trait usually seen naturally only in the young and therefore blond hair on an adult woman signals youth and therefore, fertility.

Right now Baby Field Notes has golden red hair. In the sunlight it's the color of the baby francois langur pictured above. It will be interesting to see if she developes blond hair as toddler like Mr. Field Notes had. I never did.

Heartaches are heroes when their pockets are full

One of the classic studies from Evolutionary Psychology, one that gets mentioned in all the textbooks and is known to all students of the field, perfectly illustrates a line from the Rosanne Cash song Seven Year Ache: Heartaches are heroes when their pockets are full.

It's best known as the "Burger King study." The researcher, John Marshall Townsend, an anthropology professor at Syracuse University, dressed the same man in two different ways. One was a Burger King uniform, and the other was a white shirt with nice tie and watch and a navy blazer. He had women look a photo of the man and evaluate to what extent they would: like to have coffee with him, date him, have 'uncommitted sex' with him (a favorite question of EP), have a serious involvement with him, have a serious sexual relationship, and marry him (another favorite EP question). Unsurprisingly, women across the board rated the nicely dressed man higher.

Perhaps a better song and line to pair with it is ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man: Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man.

The real question then becomes why? Why do women prefer a sharp-dressed man. Ah, sure, women want a good provider. But why? The answer depends on who you ask. Ask an evolutionary psychologist and they'll tell you it's because ancestral women who chose men to mate with who showed signs of status and wealth left more offspring than women who were indifferent to wealth. Ask a member of the "Flat Earth Society," what some evolutionary psychologists call women's studies departments, and they'll say it's because women learn to prefer wealthy men because that's what our culture values. I say it's what our culture values for a good reason: Those values helped us thrive as a species.

The need for women to prefer wealthy men has a lot, I think, to do with the ecological conditions women have customarily faced, namely, lower status. Another significant one is having babies that are metabolically costly and also incredibly difficult to care for, compared to other species. Human babies are basically born before they should be. They come out of the womb much less developed and far more dependent on mom than other primate babies, including other great apes, who also have very dependent babies. Human babies require significantly more care and that is made a lot easier with the help of another parent who can provide food, shelter and protection. The higher status the helper, the better fed the baby and the more likely to survive. That's how the theory goes.

There are some feminist evolutionary psychologists who doubt whether that helper actually was a male sexual partner. The other helper (or helpers most likely) could have been a mother, grandmother or other females raising babies cooperatively.

Can mothers choose the sex of their baby?

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Sisterhood is Powerful: Lessons from Gelada & Hamadryas Baboons

Living along the cliffs of highland Ethiopia is a fascinating species of baboon called the Gelada baboon. They are magnificent creatures and stand apart from the rest of the primates due to their chests. They are bare and bright red.

Both males and females of the so-called bleeding heart baboon have hourglass shaped areas of bare, red skin on their chests. Female geladas, upon reaching sexual maturity, develop blister-like bumps around the edges of these skin patches.

They swell and change color from whitish to red in conjunction with the female's estrous cycle. They are an obvious indicator of fertility, somewhat like the fleshy rump patches of other baboons, chimps and bonobos.

Because gelada baboons spend most of their day sitting on their behinds munching grasses, they don't signal ovulation on their rears like many other primates do. What good is a hidden signal? So it's displayed where it can be seen — on their chests. Some evolutionary psychologist think something similar drove the evolution of human female sexual signals. Instead of sporting swollen labia like chimps and bonobos do when they ovulate, human females have a much more subtle signal in the form of a different pair of red lips. The ones on our faces. It's a much more subtle signal. No wonder men find women mysterious!

Gelada baboons live alongside steep cliffs. At night, they climb down the rocks to sleep, safely away from predators. They huddle together for warmth. Nights in the mountains of Ethiopia are chilly. Males and female have evolved thick fur to cope with the conditions. Males have especially thick hair concentrated around their heads, neck and chest. They look very much like lions. It is said that Ethiopian warriors use their manes in traditional costumes.

Their unusual appearance and striking presence is one thing, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of these primates is their social structure. It is one of the most complex among primates and is often cited as a model for understanding what the social structure of ancestral humans might have been like.

Gelada baboon social structure is also especially interesting because it contrasts sharply with a closely related species of baboon — the hamadryas baboon. Both species of baboon live in Ethiopia in the highlands in groups of hundreds of individuals. Bands upwards of 400 have been spotted in one place, but they recognize only the few who live in their troop and especially their harem. Harems are formed of 2 to 8 females, their young and one dominant male. Sometimes harems are referred to as OMUs or one male units to differentiate their social system from that of human harems, but the concept is basically the same. Often, gelada and hamadryas baboon harems have a hanger-on or follower male who is too young, too inexperienced, or too low ranking to acquire his own harem. And that's where some of the stark differences between the two species can be seen.

Hamadryas males actively herd their females using visual and vocal threats. Sometimes they bite. A nip to the back of the neck corrects wayward females who may be intent on defecting to another harem or joining up with a follower male. It can get vicious and stressful from a female's point of view. Hamadryas follower males also try to steal the females — even females that are juveniles not yet mature enough to reproduce. They kidnap the youngsters and guard them until they are old enough to mate with. They do take good care of their young charges by grooming them, helping them up and down cliffs, and watching out for other signs of danger.

Gelada females, in contrast, have much more relaxed lives. Males don't herd them or try to abscond with them or their babies. They live lives characterized more by sisterly bonds than domestic abuse. Gelada females enjoy very tight bonds with other females in their group, spending most of their grooming time on each other. In contrast, their hamadryas counterparts focus most of their grooming on 'the boss.'

Why do gelada and hamadryas females live such different social lives?
The answer is actually remarkably simple: Gelada females are family. Hamadryas females are totally unrelated to each other. Kinship is a powerful determinant of behavior among primates.

Why are gelada females all related to one another?
At sexual maturity, when juveniles complete puberty and become capable of reproduction, they must leave their natal troop, their birth troop, to avoid inbreeding. Among geladas, it's the males who leave. For hamadryas, it's the females who leave. When they join new troops, they find themselves living with unrelated females who are more interested in the dominant male than each other. For gelada females it's just the opposite.

Are the bonds of sisterhood powerful deterrents for male violence? I think the story of the gelada and hamadryas baboons suggests so.

Abortion is murder. Say what?!

Last night I talked to someone I hold near and dear to my heart. The subject of politics came up, specifically Sarah Palin. After listening I said with a questioning tone, So I take it you're Republicans then? Well, Matt is but I'm more of an independent and then for a reason that I know has to do with being impressionable, she went on to tell me that she thinks abortion is murder even in the case of rape and incest and that a vote on abortion should be put to the states.

I just about died.

This person is my sister. Even though we have our differences, I respect her enough to listen and to try to understand her perspective and why she holds it. I also think it is my responsibility to tell her mine and why I hold it, because she should respect me and my position and why I hold it. We don't have to agree with each other but I do expect her to think about what her position means.

I told her what I would tell anyone who got into it with me. I think government and other people have no business, indeed no right, to dictate that a woman must carry a pregnancy to term that arose through rape or incest. Forcing someone to endure a pregnancy, a medically risky proposition, is like raping them again.

She said abortion is murder.

I think what is aborted are just cells, sure they are alive — but so are bacteria, lichen, oak trees, slugs, kittens, Malamutes, convicts and cancer cells.

If abortion is murder, then so is killing someone's family pet and so is killing someone on death row.

If you think it's your right to tell someone else they have to continue to be pregnant when they are pregnant through rape or incest because to do otherwise is morally wrong because it's murder, then you better not eat meat, wear fur or support the death penalty.

Inflicting an unwanted pregnancy on a woman who has been raped is raping her again. That pregnancy can become a constant reminder of having been raped when coping with the effects of rape are already difficult enough. Why make it harder?

As I found out this morning when I set out to do some more research on the psychological consequences of abortion, I found that anti-abortion sites often cite bogus studies that supposedly support the existence of something called 'post-abortion syndrome.' This is supposedly supposed to convince us that it's harmful for women to have an abortion.

According to the APA, American Psychological Association, there is no evidence that abortion causes psychological harm. They based this decision on the best scientific research available. If you would like to read the actual research, it is summarized in the APA's 1992 publication, Psychological Factors in Abortion: A Review. The APA's position statement is available here.

Here's another way to look at the consequences of forcing a woman who conceives through rape - through the lens of evolutionary psychology. Because I am a responsible academic, I will preface this by pointing out that the subject of evolution and rape is a seriously controversial one in psychology. The popular opinion is that rape is a product of the socially constructed power differences between men and women and that it has nothing to do with sex and reproduction. I personally do not agree with that. I think rape is a product of power differences between men and women that are socially constructed and reinforced but also that those power differences arose from evolutionary forces, specifically sexual selection. Women still prefer to mate/pair with men who are wealthy and who are taller, bigger and more muscular. As long as they do, and have more babies with those men, that power difference will continue. When women no longer need to marry a wealthy man to live well, you'll see that change. Equal pay. That is a pro-woman issue too.

But back to rape and the evolutionary psychology of it. If rape is a behavior that has anything to do with a genetic predisposition or susceptibility to use sexual violence to assert power, then do you really want the rapist's offspring, possibly carrying the genes for that psychological susceptibility, to live and have the opportunity to rape and reproduce those genes? Yes, I know that implies something that sounds an awful lot like eugenics. Because it is. But remember, people practice eugenics everyday without realizing it. Most people don't marry just anyone or have children with just anyone. People choose their mates and choose them selectively. Deep down, selective mating is about selecting someone on the basis of what they look like and how they act, both of which are affected at some level by genetics. When you refuse to get sexually involved with a guy because he's not good-looking enough, lacks the smarts or ambition to advance his career, is alcoholic or developmentally delayed — you, whether you like it or not, are practicing a form of eugenics. So why make a fuss over extracting some cells from a woman's uterus?

Is it morally wrong to do that because, unlike cancer cells, they might grow up to do something good in this world? They might also grow up to be a serial killer. More likely, they will just be another cog in the wheel of life on this already overcrowded planet.

Some people, my sister included and I know so because she said so, think it's okay to force a woman to carry a rape pregnancy to term because she doesn't have to keep the child. As if having to keep the child is the fundamental problem... but okay, let's just say that it is for the sake of the argument. If you're going to try to make a woman, pregnant through rape who doesn't want to be pregnant, feel better by telling her she doesn't actually have to keep the child, that she can give it up for adoption, then you better have a better reason than 'it's morally wrong to have an abortion' and you better pay and pay dearly to give those unwanted children the best possible life and education. I don't see extreme anti-abortion people advocating for raising taxes to put more funding into the DHS or to pay for health care and education for children. And, even if they were, it would not make it acceptable to force a woman to be pregnant.

Now if you ask me, the pragmatic thing to do, the best thing to do for everyone involved, is to let the woman get an abortion if she wants one.

Tell me your favorite book..

Someone asked me to tell them my favorite book. I have many, but tonight the answer I gave was Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation.

It's written like a series of Dear Abby-style letters from sexually frustrated mammals, birds, and insects who ask "Dr. Tatiana" to explain some sexual oddity. For example, "Don't Wanna Be Butch in Botswana" writes, "I'm a spotted hyena, a girl. The only trouble is, I've got a large phallus. I can't help feeling that this is unladylike. What's wrong with me?"

The writer, Olivia Judson, is a talented PhD evolutionary biologist who conveys tremendous knowledge while writing at a level that is extremely graspable and freaking hilarious!

Used copies are the best $5 you'll ever spend on reading material.

She's got a TV show now too that has aired in the UK, Canada and Australia, but I guarantee you'll never see this one on American TV. It is over the top!



We'd much rather have our kids growing up on a steady diet of violence than sex and evolution.

Blue-Eyed Lemurs: Or why gentlemen prefer blondes.

Each month on etsy I debut a new monkey made out of eco-felt and created to resemble a real species of primate. The August monkey for the Monkey of the Month Club is the blue-eyed lemur.

The monkeys are decorative ornaments that can be used year round. The felt is made by a company, the Kunin Felt Group, that makes it out of 100% post-consumer plastic bottles. I call them OrnaMonkeys.

The blue-eyed lemur is a species of lemur that is unique among primates in two regards:
* They have blue eyes.
* The males and females look different.

Their blue eyes arise from a recessive gene that also gives rise to blue eyes among humans. So far as I know, the blue-eyed lemur is the only other species of primate beside humans to regularly have blue eyes. Blue-eyed lemurs are a subspecies of black lemurs. When they mate, something they are able to do, the offspring usually have brown eyes.

I don't know why taxonomists decided to give the blue-eyed ones their own 'sub' species status, but it's a little silly really. The only thing that separates the two is the color of their eyes. It's as silly as designating all blue-eyed people a subspecies of Homo sapiens, except that people aren't endangered and lemurs are.

Taxonomic designations have real conservation consequences. The blue-eyed lemurs are considered critically endangered, which is more serious than simply being endangered. It means they more desperately need habitat protected and those rules enforced. Designating them in a special category might translate into more attention, stricter laws, tougher enforcement — and more money for their conservation.

But what is really cool, in my opinion, is not their blue eyes, but the fact that males and females of this species look radically different. All males are completely black. All females are reddish and have light faces. This pattern, known as sexual dimorphism, is more typically seen in birds where the males are brightly colored and the females are drab brown and hardly distiguishable form other species of bird. When birdwatchers go out birdwatching, they're usually looking for males - they're flashy and far easier to identify.

It's not all that different for these blue-eyed lemurs, except that I think the females look flashier.

There are loads of theories about why males and females look different. Most are variations on sexual selection - an evolutionary mechanism Darwin proposed as a compliment to natural selection. Sexual selection is an evolutionary process whereby male and female mate preferences diverge over time, either because males prefer and select lighter females to mate with or because females prefer darker males to mate with. It’s a bit like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes! Over time, the females get lighter and males get darker.

No one knows just why gentlemen prefer blonds and ladies flip over dark haired men, but one intriguing theory (at least for the human pattern) is that light hair is more typically seen among children than adults. So, light hair signals youth and is a desirable quality in females since it means they have a lifetime of reproductive potential ahead of them. That's why gentlemen prefer blondes. What's interesting, and provides some measure of support for this theory as it applies to these lemurs, is that males are born reddish like females and only darken to black with age. I don't know of a good theory about why females prefer darker males let alone whether they actually do, but there is some reasonably good evidence to suggest that men really do prefer the fairer sex.

* * * * *

The blue-eyed lemur OrnaMonkeys are for sale on etsy. They all come with a fact sheet so recipients can learn about the monkeys. The Monkey of the Month Club makes a wonderful Christmas gift. Memberships go on sale in early October.

NY Gov Spitzer: What on earth was the man thinking?

Though lots of great news splashed across the wires today, including one on using a token economy in the workplace to boost productivity (uh - good luck implementing that one without making your staff feel like toddlers) and one on tourists kidnapped in Tunisia (which I am planning to write about, having been there), it was an article that quotes psychoanalysts
explaining why Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York who got himself a prostitute, that really caught my eye because of how bad it was — or rather how full of crap the psychoanalysts were.

“There’s the psychology of the exception,” said Leon Hoffman, former chairman of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s public information committee. “People in power sometimes feel they can do things that us, mere mortals, are forbidden to do. There’s a sense, as with adolescents, that 'I won’t get caught.'”

Doug Muzzio, professor of public affairs at Baruch College, says Spitzer’s situation could be a case of a deep-seated compulsion or one of simple hubris.

Chicago psychoanalyst Mark Smaller says, “Often the behavior in question is caused by intense anxiety, stress in the workplace or home, or feeling overwhelmed.”

You know what I say? The dude was a horndog who was probably in an unsatisfying marriage or not getting enough sexual gratification at home. Rather than doing the hard work of solving his problems though legitimate means, he took the easy, sleazy path. There's no reason to delve beyond the obvious here.

The psychology behind the $17 billion shoe obsession

17 BILLION DOLLARS.

That is the amount American women spent on shoes in one recent year (2004-2005) according to the retail and consumer- information firm NPD Group.

That's the amount of many an Eastern European country's foreign debt.

There's no denying the shoe's place in popular culture. They inspired the title of a recent film, In Her Shoes, starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. They figured prominently in the television show "Sex and the City" whereby millions of women suddenly became aware — and desirous — of Manolo Blahniks, shoes that could easily cost more than my monthly mortgage. And who could forget when Imelda Marcos' collection of thousands of pairs of shoes came to symbolize the cruel and backwards rule of her husband over the Philippines, a country of people more accustomed to overwhelming poverty than luxury footwear.

So, what belies this shoe obsession?

While it might be tempting to turn toward a Freudian view of shoes — seeing the particularly pointy stiletto-style pumps as some sort of phallic symbol, whereby donning them, woman can reduce the inevitable "penis envy" that so consumes them according to the theory — this would be far-fetched.

Actually, I don't think it is that far off. Shoes can signal power, and they certainly have something to do with sexuality.

Consider the power that comes with wearing high heels. They add inches of height — as much 2 or 3 inches. Chimps and other animals' hair stands up when they are in the throws of a dominance show. Humans have largely lost this ability to instantly look more bad ass when the situation calls for it. Instead, we women can use high heals. Afterall, people still ascribe higher status, dominance, and even income to people who are bigger — specifically taller. If men gain power and influence with their height (41 of the past 42 winners of the U. S. Presidential race have been the taller of the two candidates*) who's to say women don't gain power when they elevate their height with high heels? They also make noise - a ton of noise. Primates, like other animals, make a raucous display when they compete for power. Shoes do this for women.

The great irony here is that although high-heels make a woman feel more bad ass, they would be a huge handicap if she ever had to defend herself. They throw balance off. Each step requires the utmost concentration until heel-wearing becomes so well-practiced it's like riding a bike. The fact that women can walk perfectly adroitly in stilettos and their relatives may indicate a certain kind of superiority. In the biological world, functioning well with a handicap signals greater health — and fitness — in a Darwinian sense. It's called Zahavi's handicap principle. You can read more about it here. It's fascinating and explains some species characteristics that baffled even Darwin.

Shoes are not simply linked with power, influence, and status — which of course the rarity and price tag add to — they are also wrapped up with sexuality. High heels shift posture - forcing the chest and derrière out, making each more prominent. They increase the definition of muscles in the thighs and calves. And, they make the wearers feel sexier.

While all of this explains the obsession behind high-heeled shoes, it does little to explain why some women must have so many of them. For that, I blame the conspicuous consumption that pervades our country and leaves us falsely believing our possessions indicate our self-worth.

* Al Gore was the only one who was taller and did not win, though he did win more of the popular vote.

Love, desire and "romantic alternatives"

Researchers from UCLA and the online dating service eHarmony asked 120 UCLA students to look at photographs of very attractive people of the opposite sex, and choose the one they thought was most attractive. All 120 reported that they were in “committed” relationships. After viewing the photographs, the students were divided into three groups:

• One wrote an essay about a situation where they felt the most love for their partner.
  
• The second group wrote about a time they felt the most sexual desire for their partner.
• The third group wrote about a subject of their own choice.

While writing, the students were instructed to put a check mark in the margin of their essay every time they thought about the attractive person they chose.

Compared to the control group (who wrote about their own topic), people writing about love were 6 times less likely to think about the attractive person, and people writing about sexual desire for their partner were 4 times less likely.

The researchers also asked the students to describe the photo “hottie” after writing their essays. The love essay writers remembered only about 2/3 the number of attractive features as the other groups.

The researchers concluded that reflecting on the love you have for one person effectively filters out temptation for another.

*****
Gonzaga, G., Haselton, M. G., Smurda, J., Davies, M. S., & Poore, J. C. (2008). Love, desire, and the suppression of thoughts of romantic alternatives. Evolution and Human Behavior.

The Evolutionary Explanation for the Link Between Mental Illness & Creativity

Is it true that mental illness is associated with creativity -
or is that just a myth?

There is a bit of an evolutionary puzzle surrounding the persistence of mental illness, particularly debilitating conditions like schizophrenia. Many forms of mental illness are heritable and also associated with dramatically reduced ability to cope effectively with day-to-day life. If such conditions interfere so dramatically with life, wouldn't they impede reproduction too? Of so, then why do genes linked with schizophrenia persist?

The authors of the research article Schizotypy, creativity and mating success in humans provide some intriguing answers to this paradox. Their article was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, a well-respected journal, in 2005.

Schizotypy refers to a personality type that shares many of the same traits as schizophrenia, but not to the same extreme. The traits are:

• magical thinking, unusual experiences
  
• attention & concentration difficulties
• impulsive non-conformity (rash, reckless behavior that is eccentric)
• introverted anhedonia (social withdrawal, lack of enjoyment)
  

Several studies have found that artists and others active in the creative arts have elevated levels of some of these schizotypal traits. Specifically, the first and third.

In fact, artists and poets score as high on those two traits as schizophrenia patients do.

These are also traits that should theoretically lead to having more sexual partners, and hence, greater mating success. That final part is an important piece of evidence the authors use to explain why these traits persist in the general population. I should point out that the number of children schizotypal people have is a more valid measure of reproductive success than their number of sexual partners.

The authors of the study looked at correlations between the personality traits, creativity, and sexual activity. They used a sophisticated type of statistical analysis to guess at the causal relationships. Correlational data can never be used to determine whether one thing causes another, such whether being schizotypal causes one to produce more art. For that you need an experiment that manipulates one to see the effect on the other. However, path analysis can hint at causal relationships.

Using path analysis, the authors found that having a lot of unusual experiences ( I wish they had given some examples, but they didn't - boo) affects artistic output, which in turn affects sexual activity. What this means is that more prolific artists have more sexual partners.

This is consistent with psychologist Geoffrey Miller's theory that artistic creativity functions as courtship display - something akin to a peacock strutting its feathers.

Observation: Gorillas Mate Face-To-Face

One of the pieces of evidence some religionists like to toss around to "prove" that humans are not mere animals is that we humans are the only species on the planet that mates face-to-face. What they don't realize is that many other animals mate face-to-face, including woolly spider monkeys, bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees), and orangutans.

Primatologists working at Mbeli Bai forest clearing in the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo have captured for the first time evidence that wild gorillas copulate in the ventral-ventral position.

Copulation and ventral-ventral are the preferred scientific terms. I always correct my primatology students to use the term ventral-dorsal when they refer to the more usual animal mating position: doggy style. There are always a handful of students who have a difficult time making the switch. Those students also have a tendency to say animals "have sex." They don't. Animals mate or copulate. If they're going to learn how to approach the subject from a scientific perspective, they have to talk like scientists do.

But back to the story - of what significance is this gorilla observation? The primatologist who made the observation, Thomas Breuer, is hesitant to draw any conclusions, which is wise, given that this is a one time observation between one pair of gorillas — not a widespread pattern typical of adults.

Psychologists speculate that ventral-ventral copulation might engender a deeper relationship between a mating pair. It affords prolonged eye contact, something that has been scientifically linked to greater pleasure, liking, and even love (among humans). Perhaps this happens with other primates as well.

Breuer observed the gorilla pair mate for about 2 mins., after which the silverback briefly held the female's hand. Even the world's largest primates, of King Kong fame, enjoy affection. "Maybe there's a way the act forms a kind of bond between the silverback and the female," Breuer says. "But we just don't know."

Documenting internal feelings of love is challenging, whatever the species.

What your Waist-to-Hip Ratio Says About Your Health

A few weeks ago I had my annual checkup with my doctor. The drill was the same it's always been, except this time her nurse took a measurement on my waist.

Immediately I saw the connection to the research I am familiar with on the WHR (waist-to-hip ratio). WHR is a favorite topic of evolutionary psychologists.

It all started with an Indian researcher named Devendra Singh who demonstrated that men express the most sexual attraction to women with an hourglass figure - and not just any old hourglass figure. Men, in samples drawn from around the world, including non-Western and non-Industrialized cultures, agreed that women who have a waist-to-hip ratio of .70 are the most sexy.

Right about now, you might be wondering how to measure your WHR. Measure the narrowest part of your waist and the widest part of your hips. Divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement - that gives you your WHR.

A .70 WHR is roughly equal to a 25 inch waist and 36 inch hips. Regardless of weight or BMI (body mass index), those proportions are considered the most attractive to men all over the world.

Why? Men find sexiest those women who are likely to be fertile and nubile, i.e. able to get pregnant. Women with smaller waists and wider hips:

* aren't obviously pregnant
* tend to be younger
* have more circulating estrogen

- all of which are associated with higher fertility. Ancestral men who preferentially mated with women who showed signs of fertility left more offspring than men who were indifferent to such signals. Those are the men alive today.

And, ancestral women with those signals produced more offspring.

Women tend to be pear shaped, as opposed to the more apple shape of men. Why are the sexes shaped differently? The answer is probably obvious, because women's wider hips are "good for childbearing," but the evolutionary mechanism isn't obvious.

You've probably heard of natural selection, but what about sexual selection? Sexual selection is another way that organisms change over time.

Rather than changing in response to different climate conditions or the presence of predators as with natural selection, under sexual selection, change occurs due to competition for mates. Women become more pear shaped over time because that's what men find appealing, and women with sexier bodies can get better, more "fit" mates.

Although Singh's and other similar research has been fairly criticized on the grounds of flawed measurement instruments (at right), subsequent research using more valid techniques has achieved the same results.

The key piece in all of this is that question of whether women with .70 WHRs are really more fertile. As it turns out, women with smaller WHRs get pregnant more readily, according to a study of female fertility clinic patients.

Of course, I'm scratching my head at all this wondering why, if I have the ideal WHR and BMI and hormone levels, why can I not get pregnant then? It's the curse of endometriosis, a condition made worse by frequent menstruation, that probably never existed in ancestral times because women got pregnant soon after they started menstruating and then nursed, weaned the baby, and became pregnant again over and over.

Estimates are that ancestral women only menstruated about 30-40 times in their entire life. Can you imagine that? The average women living now menstruates hundreds of times in her life. And that, my friends, is an evolutionary novelty.

Medical doctors have caught on to the trend of WHRs - except they're interested in what it signals about your overall health - not just your reproductive health. Smaller waists and wider hips are associated with better coronary and vascular health. It's that connection with estrogen. Estrogen is "heart healthy." Must be, because my cholesterol numbers came in the mail today and mine are as healthy as they get.

My HDL "good cholesterol" is 83 out of 89 (higher is better), and my LDL "bad cholesterol" is 66. It's supposed to be under 130. And I eat cheese all the time - and milk. It's genetics, I tell you. It's genetics. Diet makes it worse, no doubt. I'm not going to start eating mac and cheese at every meal.

What is EP? Evolutionary Psychology defined.

Every once in a while when I meet someone new, they ask me what I do. Almost everyone wants to know what evolutionary psychology, or EP, is. Rather than define it, this time I'll share a favorite quote from a book I have assigned numerous times to my students - The Evolution of Desire, by David Buss, one of the founders of the field of evolutionary psychology. The quote conveys the subject matter and rationale of EP.

Those in our evolutionary past who failed to mate successfully failed to become our ancestors. All of us descend from a long and unbroken line of ancestors who competed successfully for desirable mates, attracted mates who were reproductively valuable, retained mates long enough to reproduce, fended off interested rivals, and solved the problems that could have impeded reproductive success. We carry in us the sexual legacy of those success stories.

Evolutionary psychologists study what people do to make themselves more "valuable" as mates, how they derogate same-sex rivals, and also behaviors that promote pair-bonding - among many, many other things. It's a sexy field to say the least, and is not without flaws.

Anyone who wants a highly accessible crash course in the sexier parts of the field should start with The Evolution of Desire.

Perfume: The Story of DNA & Desire

The movie Perfume: The Story of a Murderer begins with scenes that are not for the faint - blood, maggots, vomit, vermin, rotten fish - foul sights, surely putrid smells. If you can stomach the intensity, the movie is about Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man who was born with an acute sense of smell. Driven to create a perfume that captures the essence of a woman, he obsessively pursues the perfect scent to the point that his obsession moves from creativity to murder.

Though fictional, the story symbolizes our species' fascination with scent - and perfumery. The practice of creating scents to apply to skin, hair, body, fabric and living space dates back as far as there has been written history. Perfumery began before anyone ever heard of the three wisemen who brought frankincense and myrrh for a certain baby. Rather than go into the history of perfumery, I'd like to introduce you to the science of it. It's one of my very favorite subjects!

Figuring out which scents appeal to the broadest base of people is one way that professional perfumers can maximize their profits. Another way is to somehow target scents to people who most like a particular scent or scent family. Although perfumers have been at it for along time, research into why people prefer the scents they do is just getting started.

You may have heard that most people like vanilla, and that is generally true, and that some people like ylang-ylang, but others hate it. The same goes for patchouli; it's hit-or-miss. What you may not know is that scientists have figured out that whether people like a scent has to do with their genetic makeup, specifically the part of it that codes for proteins on the surface of certain immune cells.

MHC is a stretch of DNA that creates proteins of the surface of immune cells that help the body recognize and differentiate 'self' from 'non-self.' MHC has profound implications for our ability to stay healthy, but research from Wedekind has also turned up some fascinating connections to its role in body odor, perfume preference and even mate selection.

MHC influences body odor. Don't ask me how it does, it just has to do with bacteria, armpits, and crotches. People can actually detect the subtle MHC-based differences in body odor, and when asked to sniff the worn shirts of potential 'dates' and 'mates,' people routinely choose as the "best smelling" those people whose MHC is different. Humans prefer a significant other whose genes are different. This makes good evolutionary sense. That combination would produce offspring who's immune system has a good chance of being able to detect a wider range of germs, thus being healthier.

Wedekind's team of scientists discovered that people who have the same genetic code for MHC like the same scents. It hasn't been studied yet, but it stands to reason that perfume preferences would "run in families." Are sisters and mothers genetically programmed to select the same aromatherapy products from Bath & Body Works? Not exactly. It's not like such convenience was available in the nature red in tooth and claw days (and nights) of our ancestors' time. But - Wedekind's research suggests that people select perfume and odors to augment their own naturally occurring odor and DNA.

Other lines of evidence suggests that we've been evaluating others' mate potential based on their scent (and consequently MHC, DNA) for a very long time. I think humans used various natural odors in ancestral times to augment body odor and still use it in modern times to make ourselves more appealing to the opposite sex. Wedekind's other research suggests that we choose and reject mates based in part on their body odor. And, a few studies have even found that choosing mates with the wrong MHC actually affects fertility.

Nowadays we manipulate our body odor to maximize our appeal to others and alter our mood. The mark of a true Darwinian winner is whether or not you actually choose artificial scents that match your MHC - and - whether you choose a partner to reproduce with who likes what you like, but only to a point.

Next time you look at the tiny flower sewn to the center piece of a brassiere, recognize it as the modern day version of a little satchel of fragrant roses, oils, and herbs that women once pinned between their breasts to perfume and provoke - desire.

Prenuptial Perfumery - A Mating Ritual

A small and charismatically billed bird meanders over to another, emits a soft call, and then vigorously rubs its bill over the other bird's back. They exchange full body bill massages and end by entwining their necks. A citrus-like scent fills the air.




















These birds are crested auklets, and until recently the purpose of their strange behavior was a bit of a mystery.

Hector Douglas, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Alaska, had been observing the birds while conducting experiments on St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea. Through a series of ingenious experiments he found out the birds are strongly attracted to an orange-like scent that they secrete in wick-like feathers on their backs.

"They honed in on the scent, rotating their heads to place their nostrils directly over the dispenser. Then they rubbed their bills over the dispensers just as they would on the wick feathers of their partner. Next, the birds rubbed themselves on the lifelike models right in the area where the wick feathers are located,'' he said. "They would engage in prolonged loving on the models."

The birds rub the citrus-like scent on each other during courtship. Each adopts a characteristic posture, a signal to the other that some rubbing is desired.

According to Douglas, this is the first time alloanointing, or the transfer of chemicals, has been documented in birds. A few species of primates have been observed to anoint themselves, but not each other, with various organic compounds they get from breaking open centipedes. They spread the bug juice over their fur, thereby repelling pesky, biting insects.

The crested aukets' alloanointing also serves a practical purpose. Douglas showed the substance they secrete harms ticks. "The ticks exposed to average amounts of citrus scent moved much slower than the controls. They were sluggish, they staggered, and some appeared to be paralyzed,'' he said.

So just how does this help in mating?

Just like people with great hair and skin are more attractive, birds with good quality plumage are more attractive. Just as pimples and frayed hair are turn-offs to people, parasites turn glossy plumage into dull and ragged feathers that are a turn-off to birds.

Because birds can't preen their own heads and necks, those spots are vulnerable to ticks. By roping a partner into feather care, auklets can look better. It's very similar to going to get your hair cut before an important occasion. The birds pay for the service by returning the favor. Such reciprocal exchanges of support reinforce pair bonds.

Crested auklets are not the only ones who can benefit from a little prenuptial perfumery to get rid of the creepy crawlies and keep a budding romantic relationship alive. Viewers of the TV show Desperate Housewives may recall a comical scene aired recently in which Gabby successfully hid her affair with her ex-husband and the fact that she caught crabs from him by allo-anointing her husband. In order to keep her new husband from discovering her infidelity, she had to invent a way to treat his condition without letting him know that she caught crabs and gave it to him too. She turned the application of medicated lotion into a playfully erotic occasion, thus successfully keeping their pairbond alive.

Watch this human version of crested auklet allo-anointing:


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The article, Prenuptial perfume: Alloanointing in the social rituals of the crested auklet (Aethia cristatella ) and the transfer of arthropod deterrents, will be published in the German journal Naturwissenschaften.

Evolutionary Origins of Kissing

Some time ago Sciencewoman, who has a new baby, posed me a question about the evolutionary origins of affectionate versus erotic kissing. I'm not really sure what she was getting at, but my sister, who also has a new baby, chatted with me recently about how her son is a very affectionate little (open-mouthed) kisser. So, it got me thinking.

Of course, my perspective is heavily influenced by my knowledge of primates and also the relative lack of scientific investigation on the subject of kissing. In other words, what I am about to say about kissing represents my best theory, albeit a speculative one.

What we know about babies, humans or other primates, is that they love to explore the world through their mouths. Lips contain some of the highest concentrations of nerve endings found anywhere in the body, which suggests that we are programmed to derive, if not seek, much sensation from our lips. For infants, this makes nursing rewarding on a sensory level. I don't think it matters terribly, from an infant's perspective, what those lips land on - as long as at some point they land often enough on mom's nipples to receive enough food to stay alive. I'd argue that infants are programmed to explore life open mouthed. Only later do we learn to associate that sensation with other kinds of physical pleasure. We also learn later when it is not okay to associate open-mouthed exploration with pleasure.

As human adults, we've learned that exploring others' bodies with our tongues, lips, and mouths is inappropriate to do with just about everyone, and even for those granted special oral stimulation recipient status, we have learned that there is a time and place for that kind of activity. Not so for another great ape - the bonobo.

Bonobos, also called pygmy chimps, are close genetic relatives of chimpanzees and humans. In fact, bonobos are as closely related to humans in terms of DNA as they are to chimpanzees. Although they look a lot like chimps to the untrained eye, there are some marked differences between the them. They've got more human-like faces and expressions, including bright red lips. Bonobos are also gentler with each other. Unlike chimpanzees, bonobos have never been known to engage in gang warfare or organized hunts. They live relaxed lives by comparison even though they also live in the same large social groups as chimpanzees, along with all of the stressors - food competition, social hierarchy, and the like.

Rather than allowing competition to boil over into aggression, bonobos "make love, not war" as one well-known primatologist (Frans de Waal) has said of them. Basically bonobos are a very physically affectionate bunch. They kiss each other open-mouthed, including with tongue. They have sex, including oral, with each other without regard to age or who is male and who is female. In other words, homosexuality and pedophilia are the norm.


Some scientists have speculated that bonobos are "paedomorphic" which is to say that they retain infantile or youthful traits into adulthood. Paedomorphic traits are those that are characteristic of infants and children. Humans are also believed by some to be paedomorphic. For a comprehensive explanation of paedmorphism, see Stephen Jay Gould's 1977 book Ontogeny and Phylogeny.

I believe there is no huge evolutionary difference between open-mouth exploration of other's bodies, including "French kissing" and erotic kissing, and that of the non-erotic "affectionate" kissing. We begin life biologically prepared to do the first and only learn later that our culture reserves that form of affectionate expression and sensation-seeking for people we are romantically involved with. Biology prepares us to follow the rules that culture enforces.

The rules of display vary immensely from culture to culture and even in sub-cultures. Some allow open-mouthed kissing in public; others expressly forbid even closed-mouth kissing in public. Some allow open-mouthed kissing between people of the same sex; others forbid it and punish it with death. Most forbid open-mouthed kissing between an adult and a child. Yet, it still occurs.

But back to the beginning of the story - kissing of any kind is ultimately tied up with the original function of the lips - to nurse and to eat. In some cultures, mothers (and I imagine fathers too) masticate food before giving it to their babies to eat. When there is no Gerber baby jar to reach for when the baby can finally begin to have solid food and is being weaned from milk, masticating food in a parent's mouth is a great way to solve the problem. Later it may be the only way to get a teething baby the most precious form of nutrition: meat. Rather than passing masticated food to the baby with fingers that may be dirty, food is passed mouth-to-mouth. It's easier and cleaner and very pragmatic, just the solution evolution favors.

So how then do you get from kiss-sharing food to adult romantic kisses? Perhaps kissing can be explained by paedmorpism. It's just a childish ritual adults have stretched into adulthood because it's what our species does, kind of like bonobos. But I think there's a little more to it. I think it's hi-jacked behavior - an exaptation, not an adaptation. Originally, kisses solved an important problem of getting food, but once humans started to form pair bonds and parent with a mate, kissing took on a new ritual, that of courtship.

If you consider that adult courtship rituals all over the world involve the kind of caregiving behaviors we see parents displaying for their kids, you'll recognize kissing is an effective form of courtship and pairbonding because it signals a desire and ability to care for the children that union might produce.

Male Dominance

After presenting some information on the practice of female genital mutilation or as it is sometimes euphemistically called female circumcision, MWR at Don't Trust Snakes raises an excellent question about why religions are so consistently misogynistic.

I was going to leave a comment but quickly realized I had more to say on the topic than would fit for a comment.

Modern day religion reflects patriarchal society; the real question is why we as a species so consistently come up with male-dominated societies. There are of course lots of opinions on this subject.

The party line EP opinion is that male dominance is a function of mate preference. Women prefer taller, more muscular men while men who are taller and more muscular enjoy more mating success and research suggests they also produce more children. Men tend to be larger, pound for pound and inch for inch, than women. This sexual dimorphism, as scientists call it, contributes to male social dominance. For some statistics on how height translates to dollars and influence, check this out.

This assumes size is what determines social hierarchy. However, any cursory study of primatology shows that dominance is maintained through alliances - not brute strength. This may be true for within sex dominance struggles, but when it comes to a battle of the sexes, females who team up can sometimes assert some level of authority over a male or two for some time. The fact remains that even in so-called "female bonded" groups, males are still dominant. Very few primate societies are truly female dominant (lemurs come to mind) and they are really only dominant during the mating season.

Size matters in the animal kingdom. The vast majority of animal species are sexually dimorphic and male dominated. The two go hand-in-hand. Exceptions are for monogamous species, who don't really live in groups and therefore aren't hierarchically organized, and species in which males provide most of the infant care. In those species, male competition for mates (the thing that drives sex differences in size), is attenuated. Instead, females compete intensely with each other for males who will invest a huge amount of energy, time, and resources in infant care. Once a female secures an investing male, she ditches him and looks for another who will take care of her next set of offspring. Females in such species call the shots and have all of the power. They also tend to be physically larger, though for monogamous species, size and power tend to be distributed equally.

In the realm of animal biology, there are definite relationships between social dominance, sexual dimorphism, and brood care. Where females assume primary care of offspring, males tend to be larger and more dominant. Where males assume primary infant care, the roles are reversed.

Human patriarchy is a relic of sexual dimorphism produced by a quirk of biology - women invest more heavily in infant care than men do. Under this scenario, male patriarchy will fade around the same time women a) date and mate with men who are shorter and smaller than they are, and b) are freed from the responsibility of raising children.

Good Advice

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from the person I credit for making me into a psych major. He suggested that when you have trouble going to sleep, don't just lie there in bed counting the sheep, get up and do something. Eventually you will be tired enough to fall asleep. I took that lesson to heart and now have another two pages written on my dissertation discussion as well as a more complete outline. And, true to form, I am now more tired. I cannot say I am actually ready to fall asleep though.

So, I'll tell you about this other time I couldn't fall asleep. Looking for a guaranteed soporific, I picked up Elbow Room, a dense but very thin book, almost a pamphlet really, by Daniel Dennett. The first time I tried reading it, I couldn't. I just muddled through it, barely comprehending his message. It was over my head, or so it seemed. Then, insomnia hit and I picked it up again, hoping for a cure, if not a panacea for my situation. As you might have guessed, this all happened during the dark days of graduate school.

Well, wouldn't you know it - I got sucked into the thing. I read it for hours, enthralled in the wee hours of the morning by stuff like sphexishness. I can't recall if the dawn greated me before I admitted defeat and let the paper sleeping pill work its magic, but I can say that Dennett kept me awake even when I desperately wanted nothing but to fall asleep.

It all reminds me of the ancient story of Scheherazade, the Persian virgin who kept herself alive for at least 1,001 nights at the mercy of her murderous and jealous husband by enticing him with story after story that never ended in one night.

Unlike each of his previous wives who were executed each night before they ran the risk of cheating on him, Scheherazade stayed alive because her husband wanted to hear the end of the story.

Not only is this a lesson to women to stay interesting to their husbands - or else(!) - it is also a favorite example of evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller who uses it in his fantastically entertaining book The Mating Mind to illustrate mate guarding gone wild.

Mate guarding is a term used to describe what one individual does to prevent his/her mate from cheating. This can take a variety of forms from "vigilance to violence" in the words of David Buss. You can read the JPSP article yourself by downloading the PDF here. It's required reading in my EP seminar.

Vigilance is just paying close attention to where the mate is and who s/he interacts with, but actual mate guarding, i.e. behavior that may actually prevent rather than simply monitor a potential cheater can take some extreme and violent forms. Think domestic violence. EPs, at least some of them, think domestics are essentially about jealous people attempting to prevent cheating. Whether or not this is the case, I do think it is a very interesting theory worthy of investigation.

But back to the Daniel Dennett story and it's relevance to Ms. Scherezade. Was I kept awake by a guy who wrote the book in effort to get laid with pretty young ladies like myself? Who knows, but if you believe the theory Geoffrey Miller puts forth in his book and several academic papers, the answer is YES! And, duh.

Interestingly, I later met Mr. Dennett at a conference. He happened to walk by a poster I was presenting and looked, well, lost. I knew damned well who he was and so, naturally was eager to make his acquaintance. I ended up giving him the location of the poster he was looking for and then kindly and subtly invoked the principle of reciprocity by suggesting that he come back afterward to take a look at my poster. I really did not think I would see him again, however, he returned. Not only did he return, but he mock-groomed an imaginary bug from my hair. Between primates, this sort of thing is certainly socially significant. I could only conclude that Mr. Dennett was interested.