sNot quite. But I didn’t think the sexual attraction thing thru either. I think sexual attraction could be two different but correlated things: Seeking out powerful men and sexual feelings toward attractive men. Because power and health correlate and because the halo effect emphasizes this, we may conflate these two.
So I’m saying (medium to low confidence, just-so-story):
A) Women seek out powerful men because of general reward prediction:
Men are paying attention to women (however that happens, but the story is probably alike).
Women learn that their behaviors influence men’s attention and behavior (model prediction).
Women learn that their influence on men is benefiting them (in the sense of grounding out in well-being inputs to the steering system) more if the men are more powerful (reward prediction).
That makes women seek out more powerful men.
B) Independently, women seek out healthy men because of specific sexual attraction:
Men have observable health/fitness/beauty attributes that can be sensed by simple detectors feeding into the steering system (symmetry, depth of voice, some smells).
Women’s steering systems reward some sexual behaviors (“genital friction”).
Women learn to predict reward for such interactions (typically with men).
There must be some randomization for when this mechanism triggers because, as you say, it is quite unpredictable.
But, it is more likely to trigger and get learned to be associated with powerful men because these are sought out more as per A).
sNot quite. But I didn’t think the sexual attraction thing thru either. I think sexual attraction could be two different but correlated things: Seeking out powerful men and sexual feelings toward attractive men. Because power and health correlate and because the halo effect emphasizes this, we may conflate these two.
So I’m saying (medium to low confidence, just-so-story):
A) Women seek out powerful men because of general reward prediction:
Men are paying attention to women (however that happens, but the story is probably alike).
Women learn that their behaviors influence men’s attention and behavior (model prediction).
Women learn that their influence on men is benefiting them (in the sense of grounding out in well-being inputs to the steering system) more if the men are more powerful (reward prediction).
That makes women seek out more powerful men.
B) Independently, women seek out healthy men because of specific sexual attraction:
Men have observable health/fitness/beauty attributes that can be sensed by simple detectors feeding into the steering system (symmetry, depth of voice, some smells).
Women’s steering systems reward some sexual behaviors (“genital friction”).
Women learn to predict reward for such interactions (typically with men).
There must be some randomization for when this mechanism triggers because, as you say, it is quite unpredictable.
But, it is more likely to trigger and get learned to be associated with powerful men because these are sought out more as per A).