Weird: more gender equality correlating with not less, but more psychological gender differences:
“high gender egalitarian nations also exhibit larger sex differences in Big Five personality traits and the Dark Triad traits of Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and psychopathy; in romantic attachment and love styles; in sociopolitical attitudes and personal values; in clinical depression rates and crying behavior; in tested cognitive and mental abilities; and in physical attributes such as height and blood pressure[51]. If the sociopolitical gender egalitarianism found in Scandinavian nations is supposed to produce smaller psychological sex differences, it’s not doing a very good job of it.”
My tentative hypothesis: the less difference there is, the more important it becomes to signal it. More weird stuff in the article.
My tentative hypothesis: the less difference there is, the more important it becomes to signal it. More weird stuff in the article.
Wealth seems like the best explanation, since it empowers self-expression in a general sense. One of the main comparisons I saw focused on comparing Scandinavia and India / China, and asking the women why they went into whatever career they went into. Indian or Chinese women go into STEM fields not because they like them more than alternatives, but because they represent a stable, high-status job or a path to America or so on.* Scandinavian women are happy being nurses because the job is more enjoyable and they’re wealthy enough to want a larger share of their compensation in job satisfaction instead of money.
*It’s not the thing I read on gender differences, but Peter Chang’s story seems interesting and relevant. The government decided that he would go to culinary school, and he wasn’t interested, since he wanted to be a scholar, not a chef. His dying grandmother gave him advice to learn any skill at all:
She told her grandson that “you should not just think about yourself, whether you’re happy or not,” Chang recalls. “You have to consider that you’re the eldest son of this family. On your shoulders, there are your parents and your younger siblings, and you have to think for them.”
And then he goes on to become a master chef and gets to America and is now running a chain of restaurants. But the advice seems very un-Scandinavian.
John Adams, one of America’s Founding Fathers, reportedly wrote in one of his letters:
The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
Very Confucian, family first, no individualism. I respect that, actually, my own culture suffers from being in the middle, longing for the idea of an extended family tribe / gang, but yet too focused on individual desires to actually make that happen.
Funny thing is, it is not immediately obvious, but both red-stater American, and social democratic Scandinavian cultures are individualists. They just differ in the opinion of what kind of economic setup brings the most individual freedom. One is more about focusing on not letting anything taken away from you, the other focusing on having everything given to you that you may need to live according to your individual desires.
A properly non-individualist culture is not actually socialist or social democratic in the modern sense. It is more tribal. Share, but only with people I am closely tied to. Sharing with millions of strangers can only be justified by a form of individualism: they did not earn by being part of your tribe, they earned by being individuals who need it and repay it.
I am just saying it because I am kinda tired about debates about individualism vs. socialism. This is a non-issue. The issue is individualist socialism vs. individualist non-socialism vs. communal tribalism.
both red-stater American, and social democratic Scandinavian cultures are individualists.
I don’t think this is true about Scandinavia. Not sure about the Finns, but both Norwegian and Swedish culture have been described as enforcing a LOT of conformism.
I am fairly astonished—this is a fairly obvious definition of modern social democracy / social liberalism?
Old, collectivist socialism was about common social goals of basically the pyramid-building type. Enter liberal individualism. Everybody lives for their own goals. At some point people realize that the current distribution of wealth does not lead to the maximization of individual goal achievement. Some people want to be artists, but it is hard to make a living that way unless you are really good. Some people want to play the business mogul, but they own five businesss and they could still play it if they owned only one. So four (or their profits) can be redistributed to the artists. Of course it is a highly theoretical unreal example, but just making a point. Socialist, because the wealth belongs to the society, not the individual, can be spread around. Individualist, because the goal is not pyramid-building but enabling individuals to get the resources to live as they want to.
Sort of look at like this: individualism is people living for hobbies, personal goals, not socially determined duties. Socialist wealth redistribution is about enabling more people to live for a hobby instead of doing what it takes to make a living.
Disclaimer: not an endorsement, but a description of other people’s goals
Some people want to be artists, but it is hard to make a living that way unless you are really good. Some people want to play the business mogul, but they own five businesss and they could still play it if they owned only one.
It seems to me that this rests on a bad model of motivations. Not bad because inaccurate, though; it’s a simplified model but it’s about as accurate as any equivalently simple one. Bad because it creates bad incentives.
I’ve met a ton of people that want to be artists, i.e. to fill the social role of “artist”, and I’ve also met a ton of people that want to be entrepreneurs, i.e. to fill the social role of Tony Stark. (You can’t swing a dead cat in California without hitting one or the other.) Most of them stop at wanting, but the ones that don’t universally produce bad art and bad companies. Good art comes from the people that want to produce good art, which is hard, takes a lot of directed effort, and doesn’t actually have much to do with the social role.
One could argue, of course, that that implies extrinsic policy goals and you’re rather concerned with intrinsics. I don’t live in these people’s heads, so I don’t know how intrinsically satisfied they are, and I haven’t seen any research covering that ground either; but even if we’re concerned only with pure hedonics, I can’t help but wonder how good an idea it is to set people up to be frustrated in their ambitions.
this is a fairly obvious definition of modern social democracy / social liberalism?
Nope, not to me.
because the wealth belongs to the society, not the individual
Not in any “modern social democracy” that I know.
I feel you’re confusing feel-good propaganda with how things actually work in real life.
individualism is people living for hobbies, personal goals, not socially determined duties. Socialist wealth redistribution is about enabling more people to live for a hobby instead of doing what it takes to make a living.
This calls for a quote usually attributed to Maggie Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” To redistribute wealth you first need to create it and “people living for hobbies” tend not to create much.
Rawls is the most used philosopher in these circles and he basically re-implemented socialism from am collectivist to an individualist philosophy in A Theory Of Justice.
I think this is more of a central idea than just propaganda. I think it began as people trying to live as individualists first, living for their hobbies, then figured the market does not support it. So basically hoped to increase freedom by less reliance on the market, figuring if take money form rich people they still have enough to live for their own hobbies and thus you increased the total social sum of hobby-living. True, probably the whole thing does not work economically because it is a “how to spend money on xmas presents to make the most people happy” kind of philosophy and not a “how to make money” kind. I am just saying the basis of it is individualistic. No common goal, but individual pleasure. No pyramids.
Rawls is the most used philosopher in these circles and he basically re-implemented socialism from am collectivist to an individualist philosophy in A Theory Of Justice.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that he’s right or that his theory makes much sense. I have a fairly low opinion of “these circles”.
it began as people trying to live as individualists first, living for their hobbies
First of all, I don’t think that “living for a hobby” has anything at all to do with being an individualist. The markets are individualistic, a fact much lamented by a variety of authors (e.g. Karl Marx), and hobbies can perfectly well be communal.
to increase freedom by less reliance on the market
This is basically “if someone gives me resources for free (gratis) I’ll be more free (libre) in the sense that more options will be available to me”. That is trivially true, but still has nothing to do with individualism—the principle works in the same way for tribes, governments, AIs, etc. etc.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that he’s right or that his theory makes much sense. I have a fairly low opinion of “these circles”.
I used to, too, but lately I figured I should not really write off ideas so easily that are basically shared by the majority of professors more or less. I did not sign up them either but learned to put them into a “gray zone”, neither affirm nor deny, but more like watch where they lead neutrally. One thing is clear, I suck at empathy, lately I am even thinking I may be schizoid a bit, and it would not be safe (in the sense of my calibration) to scoff too much on bleeding-heart stuff, as it can be my inner indifference speaking instead of my rational judgement.
Markets are individualistic because there is no such thing as fads, bandwagons, fandom, network effect and stuff like that? :) Sorry, I must say with a high probability that this 19th century idea is falsified. Just look at “Apple fanboys”. Basically a religion, attire and all that. The 21st century market does not even resemble individuals looking like the buying the best things for their individual goals. More like people buying things that signal membership in a community...
Hobbies can be communal, but I guess what makes them individualistic is the lack of commitment. Stop when no longer fun.
This is basically “if someone gives me resources for free (gratis) I’ll be more free (libre) in the sense that more options will be available to me”. That is trivially true, but still has nothing to do with individualism—the principle works in the same way for tribes, governments, AIs, etc. etc.
No offense, but do you too have a similar empathy deficiency problem I am struggling with? It is trivially easy to imagine people having all kinds of individual aspirations but the sheer necessity of needing to pay rent, bills, support a family etc. overrides it and basically they have to accept any job they can.
Again I don’t endorse socialism, but it deserves more empathic understanding than you seem to give to it. Imagine four men, each having to support a family and each wanting to be a not too good violinist, not too good means not expecting to get paid for it. A has no money, B has €5M, C has €20M and D has €100M. B, C, and D will all be able to live for their hobby as they don’t need a wage to live. A will have to work as an accountant. Redistributing from D to A enables all four to live as a violinist. Yes, the model is not complete, as it lacks the model to generate wealth, yes, there are economic arguments against it, but can’t we give some empathic understanding how A feels coerced, forced, unfree, due to the lack of money, to follow his impulse and B, C, D not? Can’t we at least empathically understand that there is at least a freedom advantage gained from this, even if other disadvantages created, by D saving A from “wage slavery” ?
do you too have a similar empathy deficiency problem I am struggling with?
Hard to say—I do not struggle with such a problem and in my experience people who proclaim that I should have more empathy towards X just want my money.
but can’t we give some empathic understanding how A feels coerced, forced, unfree, due to the lack of money, to follow his impulse and B, C, D not?
Some. Very very small empathetic understanding. Certainly not enough to base economic systems of societies on.
But if you think you should feel so much empathy for the poor bloke who can’t be a violinist, let me ask you something. Have you ever been to a very poor third world country? Say, India, or something in Tropical Africa. I recommend you go, and not in a tour bus either. I suspect this will recalibrate your empathy a lot.
No, I was never outside Europe, don’t really like to travel long distances, I am more familiar with the Eastern European style of poverty and yes, most of what empathy I am capable of having goes to people outside the first world, inside the first world it seems more doable to compromise personal goals with the need to make a living.
My point is simply libertarian capitalism cannot really claim to maximize personal freedom, of course, we could say that it does optimize the combined goal of personal freedom and coming up with an economic system that can survive more than 50 years, economists understand it, I am just saying some understanding should be given to non-economists who look for alternatives where most people are not stuck in having to make a living doing things they don’t like. That libertarian capitlaism should not be defined as an individualist or freedom based system, but more like a stability based system, we could easily imagine far more freedom based or far more individualist systems (say based on basic income where most people are not expected to get a job) but they would not last for more than 2 generations, so it would be more proper to call it stability based, not individuality based, that is only my point, not that it is bad or that there are currently better alternatives, but merely that its virtue is its stability, not its individuality nor its freedom.
We should probably not confuse preference and necessity. Some people enjoy being in a tribe. Other people don’t enjoy being in a tribe, but it is their only (or most likely) way to survive in their situation.
Just because you miss not being in a tribe is not a proof that if you were a member of an actual tribe, you would enjoy it. Actual tribe might differ from your idea of a tribe; it could be full of people you would hate, and in some kind of society you could have no reasonable way to escape.
We should probably not confuse preference and necessity. Some people enjoy being in a tribe.
I don’t think there are some people who enjoy every kind of tribe and others who hate every kind of tribe.
It largely depends on the other people in the tribe and your relationships with them.
Sure, there are different tribes, and different personalities. Let’s assume that an “average tribe” is… well, average; not very abusive, but also not perfect.
I think some people, if given realistic free choice, would prefer to live in that tribe, and some people would prefer to live in an individualist society. So let’s say the former are “voluntary tribesmen”, although they may have bad luck and end up in an abusive tribe. The latter, if they live in a culture that does not give them a choice, are “involuntary tribesmen”.
From the outside, the “voluntary” and “involuntary” tribesmen may look the same for an observer from our culture. Both stick with their tribe. But one of them enjoys it, and the other one only does it to prevent starvation of themselves or their relatives. Just because we sometimes feel that we would enjoy living in a tribe, we should not believe that all people living in tribes are of the “voluntary” type.
My tentative hypothesis: the less difference there is, the more important it becomes to signal it.
Me too.
I noticed that at least here in Germany childrens toys are presented much more gender specifically than they used to—think pink ponys and armed space rangers. But also boys books and girls books. I think this is more than just improved marketing. The entire domains of boys toys and girls toys diverge. Previously often one set of toys was sold for and used by boys and girls alike. The play differentiated along roles but still overlapped. But ot any longer. I wondered: Why is that?
TLDR: When roles do no more work to match expectations of the other gender the need to do so is satisfied by choosing other aspects of interests and behavior that pattern-match against these expectations.
My reasoning was as follows:
Assume that there are optimum male and female stereotypes with respect to preferrability and that these are known to both genders. Stereotypes mean combinations of observable properties or behaviors that pattern-match against the optimum stereotype.
This is plausible: At least for body attractiveness preferences are closely modelled by the other gender according to this study so I’d guess that basically the same holds for other aspects of preferrability (and status in case status being gender-specfic).
Traditionally many properties did align with (gender-specific) roles—roles actually being kind of stereotypes—or more precise: The optimum stereotypes projected down to the properties captured by the roles. So matching a role automatically netted you a fair match on the optimum stereotype.
But if roles do no longer work as a vehicle for this pattern-match because the roles are stripped of their differentiation potential via societies changed perception of roles—by precisely taking gender out of the roles the remaining pattern-match is weak. But the need to learn and aquire a match of the optimum stereotype doesn’t go away. The pressure just goes to other areas—interests, preferrences—that pattern-match against the stereotype (which presuably also slowly changes).
Side-note: In the toy-case whether this pattern-matching was done by children or by their parents doesn’t matter much for this discussion.
The entire domains of boys toys and girls toys diverge. Previously often one set of toys was sold for and used by boys and girls alike. The play differentiated along roles but still overlapped. But ot any longer. I wondered: Why is that?
I think I’m seeing the opposite (in Brazil). I see a lot of for-girls versions of toys that used to be made for boys when I was a child. Like RC Barbie racing cars, or pink Nerf guns with matching fashion accessories. Traditional girl toys also look more varied than they used to be (e.g. horror-themed dolls).
Interesting. I wonder what is the pattern behind this. And how successful this kind of marketing is. It looks suspiciously like marketeer trying to push successful brands into the other gender.
Not sure if (a) kids prefer more gendered toys… and parents learn the preference, or (b) parents prefer to buy their kids more gendered toys… and kids learn to identify with that.
If I had to make a guess (without any real data), I would guess that many children would object to strongly genered toy for the opposite sex, but most children would be okay with a non-gendered toy. That is, a boy would probably refuse a pink barbie, but would be okay with a puzzle; and a girl would refuse a mechanical fighting warrior, but would be okay with a puzzle. (Okay, maybe puzzle is not the best example.)
Well, we would need data on how many parents complain vs how many parents buy a strongly gendered toy when an less gendered alternative is available.
Because, you know, anytime something politically incorrect happens, someone will complain, and maybe even write a clickbait article. But how do people vote with their wallets?
I admit I don’t know. Situations like this often seem to me like chicked-and-egg problems, where producers say “we have to make what people buy, and people buy X”, while consumers say “if it isn’t in the shop, I can’t buy it, and the shops usually only have X”.
I admit I don’t know. Situations like this often seem to me like chicked-and-egg problems, where producers say “we have to make what people buy, and people buy X”, while consumers say “if it isn’t in the shop, I can’t buy it, and the shops usually only have X”.
Producers make more complicated decisions. They also care about marketing and branding.
Oh sure they can be shared. If the child overcomes the patterns impetus. Can be creativity, counter signalling or a lot of other reasons. But that is not the default.
My Little Pony says you’re wrong.
I don’t know the percentages. I do not know a single person or child playing with my little pony.
I have some darker interpretations. If you look at pictures on childrens school bags, workbooks etc. the boy version is a spiderman sending the message to hang on net ropes like some idiot tarzan and the girl version is some little magic fairy princess sending the message just be there, be pretty, don’t do much. So both are very, very detached from what they are supposed to do at school or in adult life. It is a “be useless!” kind of message. Is it perhaps an anticipation of a world where 80% will be unemployed?
Without this hypothetical anticipation of a world of 80% unemployment, would you expect children’s bags, books, etc., to be decorated with pictures of people sat at office desks working on spreadsheets, or plumbers fitting pipes together, or something? Were children’s bags, books, etc., ever decorated that way before?
I think the explanation is much simpler. Children enjoy imagining themselves as superheroes, princesses, etc.; movies, television shows, books, etc., featuring such characters become popular; children buy (or get their parents to buy) products with their favoured characters on. No conspiracy needed. And why are the superheroes and princesses and suchlike not shown doing anything interesting? Because extra clutter in the imagery would make the presence of the characters less obvious and so reduce the immediate appeal of the products to their target market.
My view on economics: businesses exist to serve customers, where the customer is defined as the person who pays, not the person who uses. For example we are mere users of Google, not its customers, those are the advertisers. And in this case it is the parent. The rational vendor caters to parents, not children. He thinks: what kind of message do parents want to send to children? And while of course it is not something boring or dull, Dexter the cartoon scientist beats the Spiderman and the fairy-princess in the cater-to-parents domain. BTW before, as far as I can remember, they were pretty plain items, not too decorated, in my childhood, that is not ideal either.
Right, probably not a conspiracy, it just happens to send wrong messages...
Dexter the cartoon scientist beats the Spiderman and the fairy-princess in the cater-to-parents domain
because the things parents want include (1) happy children and (2) children who aren’t complaining about not having the stuff they want. Accordingly, if children prefer Spiderman and fairy princesses, they will often get them.
Sounds like too many parents being a bit undisciplined and giving in too easily. I can empathize with that, having a 14 month old, but still I wish we could be as adamant as our parents, whose “no” was really a 99% no, and not like our “no, well, unless you yell a lot, in which case yes, as my nerves aren’t made of steel and avoiding pain for me is not always less important than principles”.
Happiness is not simply getting what one wants, often it is closer to learning to be content with what one can have. Seriously, simply fulfilling childrens wishes, hoping this will make them happy would be seriously bad parenting, they would quickly become spoiled and basically want everything right now, the difficult yet necessary trick is figuring out how to make them happy while not getting everything they want to.
My tentative hypothesis: the less difference there is, the more important it becomes to signal it. More weird stuff in the article.
To me signal doesn’t account well for factors such as height. I do accept that psychological factors can influence height.
It still seems a stretch to think that stronger pressure on male signaling that they are tall because of egalitarianism leads to taller males.
In a world with 1.80m female models a lot of woman also want to be taller than they are. I doubt that there psychological pressure on women to be small.
I think there’s been a shift, with tall women being much more valued than they used to be some decades ago, but I’ve heard that tall teen-aged girls still get harassed for their height.
The OkCupid date indicates that men are more likely to write messages to shorter woman.
At the same time the gay dominated fashion industry values tall women and a lot of woman define “being beautiful” as looking like a model and that means being tall. On a runway being tall is very useful.
As far as harrassment goes I would expect teen-aged girls on both sides of the bell curve to get harassed.
Thanks. The OkCupid data is relevant, but what I was thinking of is that I think there’s been a shift in movies, with romantic pairings where the woman is taller than the man.
Yes, Hollywood leading men are shorter than they used to be, but I don’t think that the characters are any different. There are films portraying romantic pairings where the actress is taller than actor, but very, very few that let the audience see that.
The question about what values happen to be popular in Hollywood and what values happen to be popular in normal social interaction aren’t the same thing.
Despite endless theories about height and the relative success of Hollywood figures, analysis of the heights of today’s top 10 grossing male actors shows the group only about 3 cm taller than average. It’s a different story for leading ladies however, with the top 10 women at the box office standing an average of 6 cm above the norm.
I can’t find exact data on romantic pairings but I would expect that in liberal hollywood some directors purposefully do make choices about romantic pairings where the woman is taller than the man.
I think there’s been a shift, with tall women being much more valued than they used to be some decades ago, but I’ve heard that tall teen-aged girls still get harassed for their height.
Just in case you’re not aware, this is a double-comment. I’ve seen this with another comment of yours recently. Probably happens when one double-clicks the comment button.
What happened is that I had a couple of days of very erratic internet connection, so that it was hard to tell whether my efforts to post had worked out. My connection is good now.
Evo psyc is always bullshit, so what else could be causing this?
Two minutes of thinking later… and now I am suddenly getting extremely worried about teen and earlier eating habits among women.
Caloric deficits negatively impact height and a slew of other outcomes. To a first approximation, noone in the first world is short of calories growing up due to inability to get enough food.
But there is immense social pressure on women to be thin. Anorexia skews female to a very extreme degree.
It’s entirely, and frighteningly, plausible that women are diverging in height because they are not eating enough during their teen years. Even short of outright disorder, just not eating their fill when it is available would not only cost them a fair few centimeters of height, but also, and far worse, points of IQ, focus during critical educational years.. Ugh.
This is a very bloody worrying possibility, which needs investigating, and stopping.
Go to any high school and look at the girls, see how many malnourished to the point of stunted growth you’ll find.
To answer that question we would know to what extend on has to be malnourished to stunt growth. Given average changes in Western height for the last century I don’t think that you need to be extremely malnourished to reduce growth.
The thing is, how would you distinguish a world in which the female population of said high-school are missing five centimeters and 4 points of IQ due to dieting from the one we inhabit? Where do we get a baseline from? Arrgh.
The thing is, how would you distinguish a world in which the female population of said high-school are missing five centimeters and 4 points of IQ due to dieting from the one we inhabit? Where do we get a baseline from?
That’s no great mystery.
Contemporary medicine has a pretty good idea about what kind of deficiencies, caloric and otherwise, stunt growth and IQ. There is a trove of empirical data available, most of it from the third world, and the subject is well-researched.
Moreover, the second half of the XX century provided a few natural experiments in which some chronically malnourished populations stopped being malnourished (Japan and Korea come to mind) so we know quite well how it works and what to expect.
If you want to do your own empirical research, that’s easy, too. All you need is a data set of height and weight for a sample of teenage girls. Off the top of my head, you would start by temporarily discarding the left tail of the distribution (the could-possibly-be-underweight girls) and estimating the scaling factor, the weight/height ratio. That’s basically how BMI works except that they got the factor somewhat wrong (for ease of pen-and-paper calculation). Once you know the known-to-be-not-malnourished scaling factor, you go back to the full data set and use the factor to calculate the “fatness” (aka height-adjusted weight) from height and weight—again, that’s basically BMI—and plot height on the Y axis and fatness of the X axis.
If your sample is big enough (or drawn from the appropriate population), you would see that at the extremes the relationship between fatness and height would break down—in the left tail that would be when malnourishment seen here as very low fat would affect height. Take a sample from someplace like Somalia and you should be able to see it in empirical data easily enough. Take a sample from a Western country and you would have to go far into outliers in the left tail to see that breakdown if it’s there at all.
People with stunted growth likely exist in the West, but their numbers are miniscule.
There are certain statements where we don’t know whether or not they are true. They might be true. They also might not be true.
If I think of an hypothesis that compatible with my understanding but where I don’t have certainty that it’s true “might” is the appropriate word.
If you think that there no way that it’s true than it should be possible for you to prove that it’s not true. For me proving that you can’t prove that it’s not true for claim where I don’t know whether they are true is a complicated matter.
Wait, what?! There are some bad evo psy, especially the “pop”, not actually peer reviewed kind, but to write off the whole discipline… I mean, are you aware it is mostly just about getting ideas from evolution, but their experimental testing is with the methods of “normal” mainstream psychology? This is precisely what the article talks about. After they got these ideas, they tested them with normal psychological tests.
Weird: more gender equality correlating with not less, but more psychological gender differences:
“high gender egalitarian nations also exhibit larger sex differences in Big Five personality traits and the Dark Triad traits of Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and psychopathy; in romantic attachment and love styles; in sociopolitical attitudes and personal values; in clinical depression rates and crying behavior; in tested cognitive and mental abilities; and in physical attributes such as height and blood pressure[51]. If the sociopolitical gender egalitarianism found in Scandinavian nations is supposed to produce smaller psychological sex differences, it’s not doing a very good job of it.”
My tentative hypothesis: the less difference there is, the more important it becomes to signal it. More weird stuff in the article.
https://evolution-institute.org/article/on-common-criticisms-of-evolutionary-psychology/
Wealth seems like the best explanation, since it empowers self-expression in a general sense. One of the main comparisons I saw focused on comparing Scandinavia and India / China, and asking the women why they went into whatever career they went into. Indian or Chinese women go into STEM fields not because they like them more than alternatives, but because they represent a stable, high-status job or a path to America or so on.* Scandinavian women are happy being nurses because the job is more enjoyable and they’re wealthy enough to want a larger share of their compensation in job satisfaction instead of money.
*It’s not the thing I read on gender differences, but Peter Chang’s story seems interesting and relevant. The government decided that he would go to culinary school, and he wasn’t interested, since he wanted to be a scholar, not a chef. His dying grandmother gave him advice to learn any skill at all:
And then he goes on to become a master chef and gets to America and is now running a chain of restaurants. But the advice seems very un-Scandinavian.
John Adams, one of America’s Founding Fathers, reportedly wrote in one of his letters:
Very Confucian, family first, no individualism. I respect that, actually, my own culture suffers from being in the middle, longing for the idea of an extended family tribe / gang, but yet too focused on individual desires to actually make that happen.
Funny thing is, it is not immediately obvious, but both red-stater American, and social democratic Scandinavian cultures are individualists. They just differ in the opinion of what kind of economic setup brings the most individual freedom. One is more about focusing on not letting anything taken away from you, the other focusing on having everything given to you that you may need to live according to your individual desires.
A properly non-individualist culture is not actually socialist or social democratic in the modern sense. It is more tribal. Share, but only with people I am closely tied to. Sharing with millions of strangers can only be justified by a form of individualism: they did not earn by being part of your tribe, they earned by being individuals who need it and repay it.
I am just saying it because I am kinda tired about debates about individualism vs. socialism. This is a non-issue. The issue is individualist socialism vs. individualist non-socialism vs. communal tribalism.
I don’t think this is true about Scandinavia. Not sure about the Finns, but both Norwegian and Swedish culture have been described as enforcing a LOT of conformism.
Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
I am fairly astonished—this is a fairly obvious definition of modern social democracy / social liberalism?
Old, collectivist socialism was about common social goals of basically the pyramid-building type. Enter liberal individualism. Everybody lives for their own goals. At some point people realize that the current distribution of wealth does not lead to the maximization of individual goal achievement. Some people want to be artists, but it is hard to make a living that way unless you are really good. Some people want to play the business mogul, but they own five businesss and they could still play it if they owned only one. So four (or their profits) can be redistributed to the artists. Of course it is a highly theoretical unreal example, but just making a point. Socialist, because the wealth belongs to the society, not the individual, can be spread around. Individualist, because the goal is not pyramid-building but enabling individuals to get the resources to live as they want to.
Sort of look at like this: individualism is people living for hobbies, personal goals, not socially determined duties. Socialist wealth redistribution is about enabling more people to live for a hobby instead of doing what it takes to make a living.
Disclaimer: not an endorsement, but a description of other people’s goals
It seems to me that this rests on a bad model of motivations. Not bad because inaccurate, though; it’s a simplified model but it’s about as accurate as any equivalently simple one. Bad because it creates bad incentives.
I’ve met a ton of people that want to be artists, i.e. to fill the social role of “artist”, and I’ve also met a ton of people that want to be entrepreneurs, i.e. to fill the social role of Tony Stark. (You can’t swing a dead cat in California without hitting one or the other.) Most of them stop at wanting, but the ones that don’t universally produce bad art and bad companies. Good art comes from the people that want to produce good art, which is hard, takes a lot of directed effort, and doesn’t actually have much to do with the social role.
One could argue, of course, that that implies extrinsic policy goals and you’re rather concerned with intrinsics. I don’t live in these people’s heads, so I don’t know how intrinsically satisfied they are, and I haven’t seen any research covering that ground either; but even if we’re concerned only with pure hedonics, I can’t help but wonder how good an idea it is to set people up to be frustrated in their ambitions.
Nope, not to me.
Not in any “modern social democracy” that I know.
I feel you’re confusing feel-good propaganda with how things actually work in real life.
This calls for a quote usually attributed to Maggie Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” To redistribute wealth you first need to create it and “people living for hobbies” tend not to create much.
Again: I am reporting it, not endorsing it.
Rawls is the most used philosopher in these circles and he basically re-implemented socialism from am collectivist to an individualist philosophy in A Theory Of Justice.
I think this is more of a central idea than just propaganda. I think it began as people trying to live as individualists first, living for their hobbies, then figured the market does not support it. So basically hoped to increase freedom by less reliance on the market, figuring if take money form rich people they still have enough to live for their own hobbies and thus you increased the total social sum of hobby-living. True, probably the whole thing does not work economically because it is a “how to spend money on xmas presents to make the most people happy” kind of philosophy and not a “how to make money” kind. I am just saying the basis of it is individualistic. No common goal, but individual pleasure. No pyramids.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that he’s right or that his theory makes much sense. I have a fairly low opinion of “these circles”.
First of all, I don’t think that “living for a hobby” has anything at all to do with being an individualist. The markets are individualistic, a fact much lamented by a variety of authors (e.g. Karl Marx), and hobbies can perfectly well be communal.
This is basically “if someone gives me resources for free (gratis) I’ll be more free (libre) in the sense that more options will be available to me”. That is trivially true, but still has nothing to do with individualism—the principle works in the same way for tribes, governments, AIs, etc. etc.
I used to, too, but lately I figured I should not really write off ideas so easily that are basically shared by the majority of professors more or less. I did not sign up them either but learned to put them into a “gray zone”, neither affirm nor deny, but more like watch where they lead neutrally. One thing is clear, I suck at empathy, lately I am even thinking I may be schizoid a bit, and it would not be safe (in the sense of my calibration) to scoff too much on bleeding-heart stuff, as it can be my inner indifference speaking instead of my rational judgement.
Markets are individualistic because there is no such thing as fads, bandwagons, fandom, network effect and stuff like that? :) Sorry, I must say with a high probability that this 19th century idea is falsified. Just look at “Apple fanboys”. Basically a religion, attire and all that. The 21st century market does not even resemble individuals looking like the buying the best things for their individual goals. More like people buying things that signal membership in a community...
Hobbies can be communal, but I guess what makes them individualistic is the lack of commitment. Stop when no longer fun.
No offense, but do you too have a similar empathy deficiency problem I am struggling with? It is trivially easy to imagine people having all kinds of individual aspirations but the sheer necessity of needing to pay rent, bills, support a family etc. overrides it and basically they have to accept any job they can.
Again I don’t endorse socialism, but it deserves more empathic understanding than you seem to give to it. Imagine four men, each having to support a family and each wanting to be a not too good violinist, not too good means not expecting to get paid for it. A has no money, B has €5M, C has €20M and D has €100M. B, C, and D will all be able to live for their hobby as they don’t need a wage to live. A will have to work as an accountant. Redistributing from D to A enables all four to live as a violinist. Yes, the model is not complete, as it lacks the model to generate wealth, yes, there are economic arguments against it, but can’t we give some empathic understanding how A feels coerced, forced, unfree, due to the lack of money, to follow his impulse and B, C, D not? Can’t we at least empathically understand that there is at least a freedom advantage gained from this, even if other disadvantages created, by D saving A from “wage slavery” ?
Hard to say—I do not struggle with such a problem and in my experience people who proclaim that I should have more empathy towards X just want my money.
Some. Very very small empathetic understanding. Certainly not enough to base economic systems of societies on.
But if you think you should feel so much empathy for the poor bloke who can’t be a violinist, let me ask you something. Have you ever been to a very poor third world country? Say, India, or something in Tropical Africa. I recommend you go, and not in a tour bus either. I suspect this will recalibrate your empathy a lot.
No, I was never outside Europe, don’t really like to travel long distances, I am more familiar with the Eastern European style of poverty and yes, most of what empathy I am capable of having goes to people outside the first world, inside the first world it seems more doable to compromise personal goals with the need to make a living.
My point is simply libertarian capitalism cannot really claim to maximize personal freedom, of course, we could say that it does optimize the combined goal of personal freedom and coming up with an economic system that can survive more than 50 years, economists understand it, I am just saying some understanding should be given to non-economists who look for alternatives where most people are not stuck in having to make a living doing things they don’t like. That libertarian capitlaism should not be defined as an individualist or freedom based system, but more like a stability based system, we could easily imagine far more freedom based or far more individualist systems (say based on basic income where most people are not expected to get a job) but they would not last for more than 2 generations, so it would be more proper to call it stability based, not individuality based, that is only my point, not that it is bad or that there are currently better alternatives, but merely that its virtue is its stability, not its individuality nor its freedom.
We should probably not confuse preference and necessity. Some people enjoy being in a tribe. Other people don’t enjoy being in a tribe, but it is their only (or most likely) way to survive in their situation.
Just because you miss not being in a tribe is not a proof that if you were a member of an actual tribe, you would enjoy it. Actual tribe might differ from your idea of a tribe; it could be full of people you would hate, and in some kind of society you could have no reasonable way to escape.
I don’t think there are some people who enjoy every kind of tribe and others who hate every kind of tribe. It largely depends on the other people in the tribe and your relationships with them.
Sure, there are different tribes, and different personalities. Let’s assume that an “average tribe” is… well, average; not very abusive, but also not perfect.
I think some people, if given realistic free choice, would prefer to live in that tribe, and some people would prefer to live in an individualist society. So let’s say the former are “voluntary tribesmen”, although they may have bad luck and end up in an abusive tribe. The latter, if they live in a culture that does not give them a choice, are “involuntary tribesmen”.
From the outside, the “voluntary” and “involuntary” tribesmen may look the same for an observer from our culture. Both stick with their tribe. But one of them enjoys it, and the other one only does it to prevent starvation of themselves or their relatives. Just because we sometimes feel that we would enjoy living in a tribe, we should not believe that all people living in tribes are of the “voluntary” type.
Here is the cited paper.
Me too.
I noticed that at least here in Germany childrens toys are presented much more gender specifically than they used to—think pink ponys and armed space rangers. But also boys books and girls books. I think this is more than just improved marketing. The entire domains of boys toys and girls toys diverge. Previously often one set of toys was sold for and used by boys and girls alike. The play differentiated along roles but still overlapped. But ot any longer. I wondered: Why is that?
TLDR: When roles do no more work to match expectations of the other gender the need to do so is satisfied by choosing other aspects of interests and behavior that pattern-match against these expectations.
My reasoning was as follows:
Assume that there are optimum male and female stereotypes with respect to preferrability and that these are known to both genders. Stereotypes mean combinations of observable properties or behaviors that pattern-match against the optimum stereotype.
This is plausible: At least for body attractiveness preferences are closely modelled by the other gender according to this study so I’d guess that basically the same holds for other aspects of preferrability (and status in case status being gender-specfic).
Traditionally many properties did align with (gender-specific) roles—roles actually being kind of stereotypes—or more precise: The optimum stereotypes projected down to the properties captured by the roles. So matching a role automatically netted you a fair match on the optimum stereotype.
But if roles do no longer work as a vehicle for this pattern-match because the roles are stripped of their differentiation potential via societies changed perception of roles—by precisely taking gender out of the roles the remaining pattern-match is weak. But the need to learn and aquire a match of the optimum stereotype doesn’t go away. The pressure just goes to other areas—interests, preferrences—that pattern-match against the stereotype (which presuably also slowly changes).
Side-note: In the toy-case whether this pattern-matching was done by children or by their parents doesn’t matter much for this discussion.
I think I’m seeing the opposite (in Brazil). I see a lot of for-girls versions of toys that used to be made for boys when I was a child. Like RC Barbie racing cars, or pink Nerf guns with matching fashion accessories. Traditional girl toys also look more varied than they used to be (e.g. horror-themed dolls).
Interesting. I wonder what is the pattern behind this. And how successful this kind of marketing is. It looks suspiciously like marketeer trying to push successful brands into the other gender.
Not sure if (a) kids prefer more gendered toys… and parents learn the preference, or (b) parents prefer to buy their kids more gendered toys… and kids learn to identify with that.
If I had to make a guess (without any real data), I would guess that many children would object to strongly genered toy for the opposite sex, but most children would be okay with a non-gendered toy. That is, a boy would probably refuse a pink barbie, but would be okay with a puzzle; and a girl would refuse a mechanical fighting warrior, but would be okay with a puzzle. (Okay, maybe puzzle is not the best example.)
I’ve seen complaints about toys being much more strongly gendered than they were a few decades ago.
Well, we would need data on how many parents complain vs how many parents buy a strongly gendered toy when an less gendered alternative is available.
Because, you know, anytime something politically incorrect happens, someone will complain, and maybe even write a clickbait article. But how do people vote with their wallets?
I admit I don’t know. Situations like this often seem to me like chicked-and-egg problems, where producers say “we have to make what people buy, and people buy X”, while consumers say “if it isn’t in the shop, I can’t buy it, and the shops usually only have X”.
Producers make more complicated decisions. They also care about marketing and branding.
I agree with your last paragraph.
Puzzle used to be a good example. But nowadays you have puzzles with pink ponys and puzzles with fighting warriors...
These cannot be shared any more.
My Little Pony says you’re wrong.
Oh sure they can be shared. If the child overcomes the patterns impetus. Can be creativity, counter signalling or a lot of other reasons. But that is not the default.
I don’t know the percentages. I do not know a single person or child playing with my little pony.
Google up “Bronies” :-)
That doesn’t give percentages. Looks more like a fringe thing.
I have some darker interpretations. If you look at pictures on childrens school bags, workbooks etc. the boy version is a spiderman sending the message to hang on net ropes like some idiot tarzan and the girl version is some little magic fairy princess sending the message just be there, be pretty, don’t do much. So both are very, very detached from what they are supposed to do at school or in adult life. It is a “be useless!” kind of message. Is it perhaps an anticipation of a world where 80% will be unemployed?
Without this hypothetical anticipation of a world of 80% unemployment, would you expect children’s bags, books, etc., to be decorated with pictures of people sat at office desks working on spreadsheets, or plumbers fitting pipes together, or something? Were children’s bags, books, etc., ever decorated that way before?
I think the explanation is much simpler. Children enjoy imagining themselves as superheroes, princesses, etc.; movies, television shows, books, etc., featuring such characters become popular; children buy (or get their parents to buy) products with their favoured characters on. No conspiracy needed. And why are the superheroes and princesses and suchlike not shown doing anything interesting? Because extra clutter in the imagery would make the presence of the characters less obvious and so reduce the immediate appeal of the products to their target market.
My view on economics: businesses exist to serve customers, where the customer is defined as the person who pays, not the person who uses. For example we are mere users of Google, not its customers, those are the advertisers. And in this case it is the parent. The rational vendor caters to parents, not children. He thinks: what kind of message do parents want to send to children? And while of course it is not something boring or dull, Dexter the cartoon scientist beats the Spiderman and the fairy-princess in the cater-to-parents domain. BTW before, as far as I can remember, they were pretty plain items, not too decorated, in my childhood, that is not ideal either.
Right, probably not a conspiracy, it just happens to send wrong messages...
It’s not clear to me that
because the things parents want include (1) happy children and (2) children who aren’t complaining about not having the stuff they want. Accordingly, if children prefer Spiderman and fairy princesses, they will often get them.
Sounds like too many parents being a bit undisciplined and giving in too easily. I can empathize with that, having a 14 month old, but still I wish we could be as adamant as our parents, whose “no” was really a 99% no, and not like our “no, well, unless you yell a lot, in which case yes, as my nerves aren’t made of steel and avoiding pain for me is not always less important than principles”.
No, it sounds like a lot of parents prefer to have happy kids without a message rather than unhappy ones with one.
Happiness is not simply getting what one wants, often it is closer to learning to be content with what one can have. Seriously, simply fulfilling childrens wishes, hoping this will make them happy would be seriously bad parenting, they would quickly become spoiled and basically want everything right now, the difficult yet necessary trick is figuring out how to make them happy while not getting everything they want to.
To me signal doesn’t account well for factors such as height. I do accept that psychological factors can influence height. It still seems a stretch to think that stronger pressure on male signaling that they are tall because of egalitarianism leads to taller males.
In a world with 1.80m female models a lot of woman also want to be taller than they are. I doubt that there psychological pressure on women to be small.
I think there’s been a shift, with tall women being much more valued than they used to be some decades ago, but I’ve heard that tall teen-aged girls still get harassed for their height.
Anyone have more solid information?
The OkCupid date indicates that men are more likely to write messages to shorter woman.
At the same time the gay dominated fashion industry values tall women and a lot of woman define “being beautiful” as looking like a model and that means being tall. On a runway being tall is very useful.
As far as harrassment goes I would expect teen-aged girls on both sides of the bell curve to get harassed.
Thanks. The OkCupid data is relevant, but what I was thinking of is that I think there’s been a shift in movies, with romantic pairings where the woman is taller than the man.
Yes, Hollywood leading men are shorter than they used to be, but I don’t think that the characters are any different. There are films portraying romantic pairings where the actress is taller than actor, but very, very few that let the audience see that.
The question about what values happen to be popular in Hollywood and what values happen to be popular in normal social interaction aren’t the same thing.
Quick googling finds:
I can’t find exact data on romantic pairings but I would expect that in liberal hollywood some directors purposefully do make choices about romantic pairings where the woman is taller than the man.
I think there’s been a shift, with tall women being much more valued than they used to be some decades ago, but I’ve heard that tall teen-aged girls still get harassed for their height.
Anyone have more solid information?
Just in case you’re not aware, this is a double-comment. I’ve seen this with another comment of yours recently. Probably happens when one double-clicks the comment button.
What happened is that I had a couple of days of very erratic internet connection, so that it was hard to tell whether my efforts to post had worked out. My connection is good now.
Evo psyc is always bullshit, so what else could be causing this?
Two minutes of thinking later… and now I am suddenly getting extremely worried about teen and earlier eating habits among women.
Caloric deficits negatively impact height and a slew of other outcomes. To a first approximation, noone in the first world is short of calories growing up due to inability to get enough food.
But there is immense social pressure on women to be thin. Anorexia skews female to a very extreme degree.
It’s entirely, and frighteningly, plausible that women are diverging in height because they are not eating enough during their teen years. Even short of outright disorder, just not eating their fill when it is available would not only cost them a fair few centimeters of height, but also, and far worse, points of IQ, focus during critical educational years.. Ugh.
This is a very bloody worrying possibility, which needs investigating, and stopping.
Eh, no, not plausible. Go to any high school and look at the girls, see how many malnourished to the point of stunted growth you’ll find.
I am also pretty sure that by late teens IQ is set and undereating will not affect it.
To answer that question we would know to what extend on has to be malnourished to stunt growth. Given average changes in Western height for the last century I don’t think that you need to be extremely malnourished to reduce growth.
I’d guess you’d see very different things in certain high schools than in others.
Don’t guess. Go look.
The thing is, how would you distinguish a world in which the female population of said high-school are missing five centimeters and 4 points of IQ due to dieting from the one we inhabit? Where do we get a baseline from? Arrgh.
That’s no great mystery.
Contemporary medicine has a pretty good idea about what kind of deficiencies, caloric and otherwise, stunt growth and IQ. There is a trove of empirical data available, most of it from the third world, and the subject is well-researched.
Moreover, the second half of the XX century provided a few natural experiments in which some chronically malnourished populations stopped being malnourished (Japan and Korea come to mind) so we know quite well how it works and what to expect.
If you want to do your own empirical research, that’s easy, too. All you need is a data set of height and weight for a sample of teenage girls. Off the top of my head, you would start by temporarily discarding the left tail of the distribution (the could-possibly-be-underweight girls) and estimating the scaling factor, the weight/height ratio. That’s basically how BMI works except that they got the factor somewhat wrong (for ease of pen-and-paper calculation). Once you know the known-to-be-not-malnourished scaling factor, you go back to the full data set and use the factor to calculate the “fatness” (aka height-adjusted weight) from height and weight—again, that’s basically BMI—and plot height on the Y axis and fatness of the X axis.
If your sample is big enough (or drawn from the appropriate population), you would see that at the extremes the relationship between fatness and height would break down—in the left tail that would be when malnourishment seen here as very low fat would affect height. Take a sample from someplace like Somalia and you should be able to see it in empirical data easily enough. Take a sample from a Western country and you would have to go far into outliers in the left tail to see that breakdown if it’s there at all.
People with stunted growth likely exist in the West, but their numbers are miniscule.
Such a world would not have an incredible 30.4% of girls aged 2-19 being overweight or obese.
Like Lumifer, I am stunned at the notion of today’s high-school girls being dangerously underfed.
A overweight girl who eats too much for a few months then diets and eats to little for a few months might still get negative effects on height and IQ.
You got evidence for that statement?
Statements qualified with “might” inherently don’t need evidence.
Yes, they do.
Prefacing nonsense with “might” does not make it any less nonsense.
There are certain statements where we don’t know whether or not they are true. They might be true. They also might not be true.
If I think of an hypothesis that compatible with my understanding but where I don’t have certainty that it’s true “might” is the appropriate word.
If you think that there no way that it’s true than it should be possible for you to prove that it’s not true. For me proving that you can’t prove that it’s not true for claim where I don’t know whether they are true is a complicated matter.
Well, ones like “Mortimer Q. Snodgrass might be the culprit” do.
Follow the citations: malnourishment stunts male height more than female.
Wait, what?! There are some bad evo psy, especially the “pop”, not actually peer reviewed kind, but to write off the whole discipline… I mean, are you aware it is mostly just about getting ideas from evolution, but their experimental testing is with the methods of “normal” mainstream psychology? This is precisely what the article talks about. After they got these ideas, they tested them with normal psychological tests.