status can contribute to sexual attraction [… it] involves women being more attracted to high-status men[...] I think it would have to be a specific innate mechanism installed into our brain by the genome
I think it can be explained as an incidental side-effect of other stuff that you’ve talked about.
It could be that women’s brains learn that they can channel influence via men interested in them. A stereotype I have heard is that men are interested in women. This leaves the question of how that is genetically wired, maybe via selective attention, but we can maybe take it as an empirical fact. So, if women learn many strategies to harness men’s influence, they will naturally learn that some men have more of it.
I understand your comment as kinda saying “ultimately it is beneficial to women to have relationships with high-status men”.
If so, I think that’s not a satisfactory explanation because:
I think people basically don’t voluntarily choose who they’re sexually attracted to,
Relatedly, I think if Person X expects to benefit (for whatever reason) from feeling sexual attraction towards Person Y, there’s no (within-lifetime) mechanism that translates that fact into an actual feeling of sexual attraction towards Person Y.
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).
An idea on 4.6:
I think it can be explained as an incidental side-effect of other stuff that you’ve talked about.
It could be that women’s brains learn that they can channel influence via men interested in them. A stereotype I have heard is that men are interested in women. This leaves the question of how that is genetically wired, maybe via selective attention, but we can maybe take it as an empirical fact. So, if women learn many strategies to harness men’s influence, they will naturally learn that some men have more of it.
I understand your comment as kinda saying “ultimately it is beneficial to women to have relationships with high-status men”.
If so, I think that’s not a satisfactory explanation because:
I think people basically don’t voluntarily choose who they’re sexually attracted to,
Relatedly, I think if Person X expects to benefit (for whatever reason) from feeling sexual attraction towards Person Y, there’s no (within-lifetime) mechanism that translates that fact into an actual feeling of sexual attraction towards Person Y.
Right? Or sorry if I’m missing your point.
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).