Evolutionary explanations of human reproductive behaviour

• Sexual selection


  The idea that features that succeed in attracting the opposite gender have developed to enable enable the attraction of the opposite sex as there is no point in survival if there is no one to mate with as genes won’t be passed on
• What do sexually selected characteristics do?


  Increase our reproductive success
• What does evolution supposedly explain?


  The differences in male and female sexual and reproductive behaviour as a result of anisogamy
• Anisogamy - Intra-sexual selection

  The male strategy is to mate with as many females as possible as minimal energy is required to produce enough sperm to fertilise every woman on earth, and lack of responsibility
• What are the two types of sexual selection?

  • Inter-sexual selection (preferred strategy for females, quality over quantity )
  • Intra-sexual selection(preferred strategy for males, quantity over quality)
• Inter-sexual selection

  • Ova are rarer than sperm and require more energy to produce
  • Females invest more time, commitment and other resources before during and after birth
  • Females have more to lose if they make the wrong choice of partner = mating strategy is to select a genetically fit partner who is able and willing to provide resources: males compete to mate with females
  • Female preference for a fit male which determines which features are passed onto offspring
• Sexy sons hypothesis(Fischer) - Inter-sexual selection

  Females mate with male who has desirable characteristics -> passed to son = increases likelihood successive generations of females will mate her offspring
• Intra-sexual selection

  • Competition between males to be able to mate with female
  • Winner of competition reproduces and gets to pass on to his offspring the characteristics of his victory
  • This gave rise to dimorphism
  • Has behavioural and psychological consequences like how males benefit from acting aggressively/ thinking a certain way to acquire fertile females
  • Behavioural consequence of anisogamy = preference for youth and indicators of youth
• Dimorphism 


  The obvious differences between males and females e.g. height