Why men are like chimps and women are not

Women behave like chimps as well, female chimps. But female chimps are boring, so the behaviour we think of when we think of chimps is male behaviour because they are doing things which are interesting and worth filming/writing about.
If we had nature documentaries on humans it would have stuff like men fighting and hunting and building and doing things, not women gossiping to eachother while pummeling grain (or getting a haircut).
 
Dr Lou Natic said:
Women behave like chimps as well, female chimps. But female chimps are boring, so the behaviour we think of when we think of chimps is male behaviour because they are doing things which are interesting and worth filming/writing about.
If we had nature documentaries on humans it would have stuff like men fighting and hunting and building and doing things, not women gossiping to eachother while pummeling grain (or getting a haircut).
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Lesbianism is the answer. :p

...as early as 1974, researchers in Gombe National Park in Tanzania had been startled to observe chimpanzee males organizing gangs of a half-dozen or so members and launching lethal raids into the territory of neighboring chimps. These were clearly not food-gathering expeditions. The chimps did not stop to eat, and they did not make any of their normal calls and shouts. Instead, they crept silently into the territory of a neighboring group and hid until they saw a lone chimp. Screaming with excitement, they would ambush the victim, hold him immobile and beat him to death, sometimes twisting the victim's leg until the muscles ripped, or tearing off flaps of skin while he was still alive. In one well-documented case in Tanzania, a group of male chimpanzees used such ambushes to eliminate a whole band of neighbors.

Further research found that such violence was not limited to chimpanzees. Male gorillas, for example, were observed ripping infants out of their mothers' arms and smashing them to the ground in often-successful attempts to entice the mothers to mate with them. One theory is that the male gorillas do this to demonstrate their strength and to show how valuable they would be as protectors.

Violence is present in every human culture, from contemporary New York City to the primitive Waorani people of the Andean foothills, whose frequent raids on each other cause a startling violent-death rate of 60 percent, according to anthropologists Clayton and Carole Robarchek. Given these facts, it might appear that the primate family tree has blood in all its roots. But anthropologists were happy to discover more restrained behavior among the bonobos. Living principally in Zaire, bonobos are slightly smaller than chimpanzees and make calls like twittering birds. Genetically, these apes are more closely related to human beings than they are to orangutans.

Although bonobo males are occasionally aggressive, they are usually discouraged from killing or raping by tight-knit bands of females that gang up on and attack aggressive males. The glue for these closely bonded groups of females is regular female-to-female, missionary-position sex, Wrangham writes. Such female-to-female sexual bonding is thought to be unique in the nonhuman animal world.
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This study is interesting, but not at all surprising. Anyone who's ever worked in an office knows that women are not team players.

Hell, look at family relations. You always hear about trouble with mother in laws. Never with father in laws.

Men might get in a fight, but when its over, it's over. Women declare jihad and go on and on for thirty years. My wife of sixteen years still brings up crap I can't even remember from high school!

It all makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Men had to fight/hunt in groups. If they couldn't get along, the whole tribe suffered. Perhaps the entire tribe might even be wiped out in war if the men couldn't fight together effectively.

Meanwhile, the women were back in the village/cave taking care of the kids. The better each female was at backstabbing and politics, the larger share of the tribe's resources she could get for her offspring. Selfish, manipulative women would have more of their offspring survive. So each generation of females was more selfish and manipulative until these traits reached their pinicle in the person of Hilary Clinton!
 
samcdkey said:
'Male warrior effect'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5333794.stm


Having a common enemy brings out the best in men, a new study has shown.

Psychologists created an economics game, asking groups of volunteers to decide whether to keep money for themselves or invest in a group fund.

Some 300 participants in the games were each initially paid three pounds and divided into groups of six.

They could then choose whether to keep the money, or invest it in a group fund.

They were told that the group fund would later be doubled and divided equally amongst all group members.

The strategy that would make the most money in many situations would involve holding onto your own money, and hoping that others invested in the fund.

The researchers therefore used the amount of money that an individual gave to the fund as a measure of altruism, or kindness to other people.

The scientists found that when people thought that their group was competing against outsiders from other universities, the group dynamic became different to when everyone was competing for themselves.

The men in each group became less self-orientated, and were more altruistic than before, approximately doubling their donations.

"The men actually helped their group by becoming more altruistic towards them," said Professor van Vugt.

"We've labelled it the male warrior effect."

For the women, there was no difference in their behaviour between when they were playing for the group, or for themselves.

Professor Van Vugt believes that the findings may explain some elements of human warfare.

"We believe that men may have evolved a psychology which makes them particularly interested in war," he said.

"Men are more likely to support a country going to war. Men are more likely sign up for the military and men are more likely to lead groups in more autocratic, militaristic ways than women," he added.

"We all know that males are more aggressive than females, but is that always true?

"In situations in which you have inter-group encounters, yes, men start becoming more aggressive than women, but with that comes a lot of co-operation within their group."

Professor Van Vugt said is was likely that the traits observed in the experiment were present in the common ancestor of humans and chimps.

The latter display similar behaviour, albeit in a more primitive form, when they raid neighbouring chimpanzee groups.
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You deserve a banana for that post.
 
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