Video summary
The video explores a study on mate preferences and trade-offs, revealing how men and women prioritize different traits when resources are limited versus abundant. When given a generous budget to create an ideal partner, both genders tend to want everything, including good looks, high status, and a great job. However, under conditions of scarcity that mirror real-life situations for most people, distinct gender differences emerge: men generally allocate more resources toward acquiring attractive partners, while women prioritize partners with financial stability and status. This dynamic suggests that when money is tight, evolutionary instincts regarding resource acquisition versus physical attractiveness become more pronounced in mating strategies.
As socioeconomic landscapes have shifted over the last century, particularly following women's financial emancipation, these traditional patterns have begun to converge and evolve. Men are increasingly investing heavily in their own appearance through "male beautification," a trend that has intensified from the 1990s to today with activities like weightlifting, grooming, and even makeup use becoming common among young men. While women still often signal resources through luxury items like handbags and shoes, which can serve as deterrents to other potential rivals or signals of high status, men are responding by competing in domains like parenting effort and physical fitness. This shift indicates that as the economic gap between genders narrows, men are seeking alternative ways to demonstrate value and attract mates beyond just financial provision.
The discussion also highlights a counterintuitive finding regarding makeup usage, where men who wear it often spend significantly more time on it than women, possibly due to less natural proficiency or a specific cultural niche of male beauty influencers. Furthermore, the increase in male parenting efforts since the 1970s, especially among college-educated men, reflects a response to changing social expectations and feminist arguments about shared domestic responsibilities. Ultimately, the video concludes that while women may use expensive accessories to signal status and deter competitors, men are increasingly competing through self-improvement, physical discipline, and emotional investment in family life, adapting their courtship strategies to a world where they no longer hold a monopoly on financial resources.
Read the full video transcript
What about that um make budget study
that normally did because that was about
trade-offs, right? And typically some
people generally have good things that
come along with good things, but for the
most part there are there are some sorts
of trade-offs with with someone's spent
an awful lot of time dedicated on one
thing, they've maybe neglected another
part of another area.
>> It's an interesting study there, right?
So basically,
>> can you explain for the normies?
>> Sure. Um so
>> normalies. [laughter]
So yeah, normally normally he uh did a
did a study where he gave people a
budget of $8 and then asked them create
create the um ideal mate that you can
with this budget. Some people got a big
budget and where that was the case men
and women they both um wanted
everything. They um they wanted good
looks, they wanted uh they wanted like a
good job, high status, blah blah blah
the works. Um but if they had a smaller
mate budget, which I think is probably
more like most people's situation in
life, no offense, um if they had that
they um sex differences became more
pronounced and so people uh men would
spend more to get an attractive partner
uh whereas women would would spend more
to get a um a partner with resources and
status.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. He also did a study where he had
people allocate for themselves if I'm
not mistaken. And it it mirrored the uh
it mirrored that that same pattern where
it's like when men were kind of RPG
style building their own character. I
think it was him. I don't I don't mean
to give him credit if it wasn't, but
>> um basically men tried to make
themselves richer relative to women and
women tried to make themselves prettier
relative to men. That's the reason why
we don't see women turning up in
supercars with expensive Rolexes at a
nightclub or guys spending tons of time
doing the beautifification thing. But we
know we have an intuition about what is
effective.
>> Yeah.
>> It's that the failures just continue to
stack up in really interesting ways.
>> Well, this is something that we proposed
actually in our PNAS paper. uh in the
discussion section we talked about this
where it's like it is interesting and
quite conspicuous but also quite
circumstantial that over the 1900s
there's pretty good data from David Bus
it's hard to do it's hard to gather this
survey data but it does seem that over
time throughout the 1900s um especially
in the period after women's kind of
financial emancipation let's call it uh
mate preferences converged quite a bit
between men and women
>> that's interesting
>> and then also we're now seeing this
tremendous behavioral conversion where
it's like women aren't doing sports cars
and flashy watches, but they do have
pretty nice handbags, pretty nice shoes,
and they are pretty ritzy in terms of
their financial
>> only signaling to women.
>> And then well, maybe and then uh but men
are definitely even if you say for the
women's side that's not true. On the
men's side, we see that men have tripled
their parenting effort since the 1970s.
>> Um and male beautifification, I know
that it's really trendy right now with
the whole looks maxing thing. Uh but
this is actually just the newest
instantiation of a documented trend
going back to the 1990s. You can read
the historian Lin Luciano's work on this
uh where male beautifification has
increased decade on decade to a point
where basically everyone even like a
normal man who doesn't consider himself
like a beautifying person. Uh his behav
his daily routine would be
unrecognizable to his grandfather. Like
the average
>> shave your head dude. Shave your head.
you don't need to think about.
[laughter]
>> We did a we did a little data analysis
um on using health data essentially
seeing like how much has weightlifting
actually increased and generation on
generation it's like you go from
basically like not a behavior to every
young man is now like every every me
like every other me member of Gen Z
essentially is like a recreational
bodybuilder. That's
>> women do find that attractive though,
right? um they do find uh some some
muscularity attractive and uh good
grooming attractive. They find parenting
attractive, but I'm not I'm not
persuaded at all. In fact, I don't think
it's the case that men think that um
she's really hot. I love that handbag.
>> Yeah,
>> I don't think I don't think so either.
Maybe those a bit cheeky, but I do think
that it is I do think it's conspicuous.
Um, and so it's worth pointing out where
it's like I don't think that women are
necessarily signaling their resources to
attract men, but it's interesting that
they're signaling resources more over
the same time period. And in the male
beautifification, I would really put my
foot down and say no, that that is to
attract women. And I think it is because
they have their own money.
>> Right. Okay. So your this is your pet
theory, right? that because the
socioeconomic imbalance between men and
women has been reduced or even reversed,
men need to find a different way. They
need to compete on another domain of
attractiveness. And that has been self-
beautifification. I'm going to make
myself look nicer. Now, I
>> beauty is the beauty is the flashy one.
Uh parenting is the quiet one that's
actually better evidenced where it's
like men used to
>> Yeah. Exactly. where it's like, and we
see this even in um in Lee's 2015 study,
um where it does seem that when women
have their own money, they recognize
where it's like, well, I have the
financial thing kind of sorted. I really
need like a helper at the nest a little
bit more. And that's been the preference
shift, and men have definitely responded
to that. I mean, men have tripled their
A man today spends more time with
children, I believe, I I think I heard
this from you that it was, than women
did in the 1950s. dramatic difference
though at least in the US context. I've
read that this differs by socioeconomic
status and education where educated
upper middle class men are spending far
more time with their children than
fathers in the past. Whereas non-ol men
um are spending the same amount as uh
decades past or even slightly less. The
average is getting brought up by
>> primarily by college educated men.
Although those those women don't
necessarily have as much money.
>> Yeah.
Well, but then the men are also spending
less. Well, yeah.
>> It's part of it though, just that people
are um guys are thinking it's only fair.
>> You know, they're responding to
arguments that have been made by by
feminists and others just that guys
haven't been pulling their weight in the
past and they think that they should
>> to a degree. Can I ask on this handbag
point? I think I heard this from Tanya
Reynolds that um
>> she suggested that that it's not it's
not that uh men obviously aren't
attracted to you know these luxurious
handbags and uh in some cases women uh
you know they're they're buying these
handbags or wearing them to impress
women but but it's about deterring
deterring look at how much my husband is
in the hole for this stupid bag
[laughter]
>> that he doesn't understand what it is.
None of his friends understand what it
is. I'm not even doing it for other
guys. Yeah,
>> it's not my boobs, right? Which would be
the sort of thing that wouldn't be a
deterrent. It would actually probably be
the cause of a from other women. Whereas
>> women would compliment handbags more
than they would compliment boobs.
>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Imagine that we're in an environment of
uh you know increasing mate competition
if you were in a few big engagement. Why
the massive engagement?
>> Look at how much he's in the hole. Yeah.
So ultimately still
>> But what's the benefit though of
intimidating other women and saying,
"Look at this great handbag."
>> To keep them away from the the partner
that
>> if guys don't care about it, why would
other women think, "Well, I better stay
away cuz I don't have as as nice a
handbag."
>> Well, I I if if he's so invested in her
that he spent 20 grand on a handbag,
then it's probably not worth my time to
poach him or to attempt to poach him.
>> I see.
>> So, it could be a mate it could be mate
poaching deterrence. It could also be
just kind of classic high status to low
status threat behavior. Um, I remember
literally the first day of my PhD,
arrived in Melbourne, um, and went for a
walk with Candace and I asked her this
exact question. I was just like, why why
do you think women love their handbags?
Because I knew that she was really into
the beautifification stuff and that she
really had her head around those things
and she just immediately said to scare
young women just immediately. Yeah.
Yeah. And so I was like, okay,
interesting. And I do think that it is
um I I feel like I've I've since then
maybe tried to observe it as like a
second order thing. And I think it's
kind of maybe the male equivalent of
like a guy who's really jacked walking
into the room when a woman walks in and
she's very glamorous. She's got the
expensive shoes, the expensive bags,
throws it on the table, long hair. It's
like I like I I run this Like it's
kind of like that atmosphere.
>> But there's also a sense at least with
guys that have got a ton of muscle on
them.
>> You have to have spare time. You have to
have spare time. You have to have spare
money to be able to afford the food and
the peeds. You need to be at least
somewhat disciplined. You need to have
the time to be able to plan your
training sessions and, you know, not be
at work every single hour of the day in
the same way as the long nails that a
woman might have and the well done hair
and the good beauty regime is costly in
terms of time and that indicates an
awful lot more about lifestyle than just
resources to. But I totally didn't think
about the fact that guys going to the
gym as a form of male beautifification.
If you class that in, which I just like
totally did not consider, if you add in
guys going to the gym as a form of male
beautifification, it's got to be 4x 5x
6x 10x what it would have been 100 years
ago for male beautifification.
>> Yeah. I mean that's what the best uh
that's what the best study on
beautifification did. It's it's Marco
Wall study. Um it's and she found that
in all except for seven countries women
beautified more. Uh there were there
were seven that men beautified more um
slightly. Um, and this was the
weightlifting side of it essentially was
was the behavior where men were uh
>> a big Pac-Man chunk that's been taken
out the side.
>> Yeah, it is. And uh and some might say,
"Oh, well, a lot of men beautify. A lot
of men hit the gym." Sorry. For health,
not beautifification. And some of them
do it for status competitions. They
actually, but they thought of that. They
had a question in there that it's like,
"Okay, doing it for beauty though,
basically. How much time are you like
bodybuilding?" And so they they they
really were able to drill down on that.
And there was one other behavior, this
is so counterintuitive, where among the
people who did it,
men actually did this behavior more. So
think about different beautifification
behaviors.
>> I won't bore you by making you guess,
but it was makeup. Um, among people who
wear makeup, the men who wear makeup
spend way more time on it than the
women. Um,
>> just because they're less good at it.
[laughter]
>> They even grown up on YouTube tutorials.
Yeah, I think that it's um what she said
to me was that she thinks that it's um
essentially men who wear makeup have
some kind of special qualitative
difference. Maybe it's that they're like
I told her, "Look, you're picking up on
like male beauty influencers essentially
like like who is and so they just have
different usual."
>> Yeah.
>> But I thought that was interesting is
that the um is that in terms of numbers
among the people
>> James Charles on repeat.
>> Yeah. It's just James Charles pling in
16 hours a day and causing the
difference. But it was it was
interesting. So it was basically Yeah.
was this uh that the second biggest
difference technically was the
weightlifting. The biggest was the
makeup. Um but it was because of that
effect.
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