Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters

According to one estimate, about 13–20 percent of children in the contemporary United States and 9–17 percent in contemporary Germany are not the genetic offspring of the man whose name appears on the child’s birth certificate.15 Another study shows that about 10–14 percent of children in Mexico have legal fathers different from their genetic fathers – page 16 2?
A recent study shows that individuals who watch certain types of TV programs are more satisfied with their friendships, as if they had more friends or socialized with them more frequently = page 22 2
Their analysis showed that more boys preferred to look at the mechanical mobiles, and boys on average gazed at them longer. In contrast, more girls preferred to look at the human face, and girls on average gazed at it longer – page 30 2?
male vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the masculine toys, and the female vervet monkeys showed significantly greater interest in the feminine toys. The two sexes did not differ in their preference for the neutral toys 31 2?
While males have a greater fitness ceiling than females in most species, there are a few exceptional species for which this is not true. Among some fish, frog, and bird species, the males carry the fertilized eggs during gestation, and as a result, the females have a higher fitness ceiling than males do. Females of these species can continue reproducing while the males are “pregnant” with the young. As predicted by evolutionary biology, among these species, females are more aggressive, competitive, and violent than males.10 Among these species, the females compete fiercely with each other for sexual access to the coy males 37 2
recent study shows that women in Iran, where they are generally not exposed to the Western media and culture, and thus would not know Jessica Simpson from Roseanne Barr, and where most women wear the traditional Muslim hijab that loosely covers their entire body so as to make it impossible to tell what shape it is, are actually more concerned with their body image and want to lose more weight than their American counterparts in the land of Vogue and the Barbie doll 51 3
women who simultaneously have large breasts and a tight waist have the greatest fecundity, indicated by their levels of two reproductive hormones (17-ß-estradiol and progesterone) 58 3?
Within the United States, both East Asian and white individuals28 and white and black individuals29 agree on which faces are more or less attractive. Cross-culturally, there is considerable agreement in the judgment of beauty among East Asians, Hispanics, and Americans;30 Brazilians, Americans, Russians, the Aché of Paraguay, and the Hiwi of Venezuela;31 Cruzans and Americans in Saint Croix;32 white South Africans and Americans;33 and the Chinese, Indians, and the English 65 3
Two studies conducted in the mid-1980s in dependently demonstrate that infants as young as two and three months old gaze longer at a face that adults judge to be more attractive than at a face that adults judge to be unattractive, indicating the infants’ preference for attractive faces.35 In the most recent version of this experiment, newborn babies less than one week old show significantly greater preference for faces that adults judge to be attractive.36 Another study shows that 12-month-old infants exhibit more observable plea sure, more play involvement, less distress, and less withdrawal when interacting with strangers wearing attractive masks than when interacting with strangers wearing unattractive masks 65 3
beauty appears to be an indicator of genetic and developmental health, and therefore of mate quality; beauty is a “health certification.”47 More attractive people are healthier,48 have greater physical fitness,49 live longer,50 and have fewer lower back pain problems51 (although some dispute this conclusion) 67 3
Sociologists and demographers have discovered that the presence of sons decreases the probability of divorce… the father has to make sure that his son will inherit his wealth, status, and power, regardless of how much or how little of these resources he has. A working-class father still has to make sure that his son will inherit what little wealth he has, because the more the son inherits, the greater his expected reproductive success. In sharp contrast, there is relatively little that a father (or mother) can do to affect the daughter’s expected reproductive success; once she is born, there is very little parents can do to keep her youthful or make her more physically attractive. The evolutionary psychological logic therefore predicts that the continued presence of (and investment by) the father is important for the son, but not as much for the daughter. Strictly in reproductive terms, there is very little fathers (or anyone else) can do for daughters beyond keeping them alive and healthy. The presence of sons therefore deters divorce and departure of the father from the family more than the presence of daughters, and this effect should be stronger among wealthy families… 93 4
only men who are capable of acquiring resources and willing to invest them can afford to give a woman expensive gifts, which are known as courtship gifts or nuptial gifts in evolutionary biology 95 4
Consistent with this evolutionary psychological logic, a recent analysis using game theory demonstrates that what the researchers call “extravagant” gifts—gifts to women that are “costly but worthless”—facilitate courtship 96 4
men can maximize their reproductive success by pursuing one of two different strategies: Seek a long-term mate, stay with her, and invest in their joint offspring (the “dad” strategy); or seek a large number of short-term mates without investing in any of the resulting offspring (the “cad” strategy) 96 4?
more attractive men have a larger number of extra-pair sex partners (sex partners other than their long-term mates).39 Another study shows that more attractive men have more short-term mates than long-term mates, while more attractive women have more long-term mates than short-term mates.40 More important, handsome men invest less in their exclusive relationships than ugly men. They are less honest with and less attentive to their partners 97 4
American Presidents, Vice Presidents, and cabinet secretaries have more sons than daughters.5 Poor Mukogodo herders in East Africa have more daughters than sons, both at birth and in the zero to four age group.6 Church parish records from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Germany show that wealthy landowners in Leezen, Schleswig-Holstein, had more sons than daughters, while farm laborers and tradesmen without property had more daughters than sons.7 Among the Cheyenne Indians on the American Plains, prestigious, high-status “peace chiefs” have more sons than daughters, while poor and marginal “war chiefs” have more daughters than sons in the zero to four age group.8 In the contemporary United States and Germany, the elite—judged by the listing in their respective country’s Who’s Who—have a greater proportion of sons among their offspring than does the population in general.9 In an international survey of a large number of respondents from forty-six different nations, more wealthy individuals are more likely to indicate a preference for sons if they could only have one child, whereas less wealthy individuals are more likely to indicate a preference for daughters.10 While there is some counterevidence,11 most evidence is in support of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis 100-101 5
Since brain types are heritable, the generalized Trivers-Willard hypothesis would predict that parents with strong male brains, such as engineers, mathematicians, and scientists, are more likely to have sons, while those with strong female brains, such as nurses, social workers, and school teachers, are more likely to have daughters. This is indeed the case.15 While the sex ratio at birth among the general population is 0.5122—that is, 105 boys for every 100 girls—the study shows that the sex ratio among engineers and other systemizers is 0.5833—that is, 140 boys for every 100 girls. The comparable sex ratio among nurses and other empathizers is 0.4255—that is, 140 girls for every 100 boys 102 5
tall and big parents have more sons and produce more male fetuses (because size was a distinct advantage in male competition for mates in the ancestral environment, while body size has no particular advantage for women), and short and small parents have more daughters and produce more female fetuses 102 5
Because violence was probably a routine means in the male competition for mates in the ancestral environment18 (as it is among our primate cousins),19 tendency toward violence was adaptive for ancestral men but not for ancestral women. Accordingly, violent men have more sons, both in the United States and the United Kingdom 102 5
Young Americans who are rated “very attractive” have a 44 percent chance of having a son for their first child (and thus a 56 percent chance of having a daughter). In contrast, everyone else has a 52 percent chance of having a son (and thus a 48 percent chance of having a daughter) for their first child 103 5
If physical attractiveness is heritable, such that beautiful parents beget beautiful children (and less attractive parents beget similarly less attractive children), and if beautiful people are more likely to have daughters than sons, then it logically follows that over time, women will become more attractive on average than men. Once again, studies confirm this implication of the new hypothesis.22 The average level of physical attractiveness among women is significantly higher than the average level of physical attractiveness among men. Women are more beautiful than men because beautiful parents have more daughters than sons 104 5
In three separate studies conducted in three different North American countries (Canada, Mexico, and the United States) in three different decades, mothers and maternal relatives are far more likely to allege the baby’s paternal resemblance than its maternal resemblance.26 This happens even when the newborn babies in fact do not resemble their fathers.27 Such allegations of paternal resemblance assure the fathers of their paternity, whether the babies actually resemble them or not 107 5
Developmental psychologists have known for nearly two decades that girls whose parents divorce early in their lives, particularly before the age of five, experience puberty earlier than their counterparts whose parents stay married.38 Such girls are also more likely to start having sex at an earlier age, have a larger number of sex partners, get pregnant while still a teenager, and experience divorce in their first marriage. 114 5
there is substantial evidence that a girl’s pubertal timing is largely heritable; about 50–80 percent of its variance is explained by genetic differences 115 5
Between 20 and 50 percent of pubertal timing is unaccounted for by the genes, so environmental conditions can still influence the actual onset of puberty within the windows set by the genes. One of the most important early childhood influences is the absence of the father.43 In this model, girls who grow up without a father learn that men do not form lasting relationships with women and invest in their offspring. These girls then adopt a more promiscuous reproductive strategy of undergoing puberty early and forming short-term relationships with a large number of sex partners because they sense they cannot rely on men to form a committed relationship with them and provide parental investment in their offspring. In contrast, girls who grow up with a father at home learn the opposite lesson—that men do form lasting relationships with women and invest in their offspring. These girls then adopt a more restrained reproductive strategy of delaying their puberty and forming a committed long-term relationship with a partner who will invest in their offspring 116 5
In polygynous societies, there is an incentive for girls to mature early because any pubescent girl can become a junior wife of a wealthy polygynist while a prepubescent girl cannot. In contrast, there is no incentive for girls to mature early in monogamous societies because all adult men in such societies are already married (and cannot marry again), given a 50–50 sex ratio, and pubescent girls can only marry young teenage boys, who do not have the wealth or status to support a family. Consistent with this logic, an analysis of cross-cultural data shows that girls undergo puberty significantly earlier in polygynous societies and in nominally monogamous societies with a high incidence of divorce 117 5
From this perspective, the average age of puberty has dropped precipitously in the United States in recent decades47 because the divorce rate (and thus the incidence of remarriage for men, that is, serial polygyny) has increased dramatically. 117 5
Predatory rapists are overwhelmingly men of lower class and status, who have very dim prospects of gaining legitimate reproductive access to women. 12 3 6
In every society, for all social groups, for all races and both sexes, at all historical times, the tendency to commit crime and other analogous, risk-taking behavior rapidly increases in early adolescence, peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, rapidly decreases throughout the 20s and 30s, and levels off during middle age. Although there have been minor variations observed around the “invariant” age-crime curve,16 the essential shape of the curve for serious interpersonal crimes is widely accepted by criminologists 127 6
The relationship between age and productivity among male jazz musicians, male painters, male writers, and male scientists, which might be called the “age-genius curve,”19 is essentially the same as the age-crime curve.20 Their productivity—the expressions of their genius—quickly peaks in early adulthood, and then just as quickly declines throughout adulthood. The age-genius curve among their female counterparts is much less pronounced and flatter; it does not peak or vary as much as a function of age… A single evolutionary psychological theory can explain the productivity of both creative geniuses and criminals over the life course.21 According to this theory, both crime and genius are expressions of young men’s competitive desires, whose ultimate function in the ancestral environment would have been to increase reproductive success… Their violence serves the dual function of protecting their status and honor, and discouraging or altogether eliminating their rivals from future competition for mates. Their competitiveness also inclines them to accumulate resources to attract mates by stealing from others, and the same psychological mechanism can probably induce men who cannot gain legitimate access to women to do so illegitimately through forcible rape. Men who are less inclined toward crime and violence may express their competitiveness through their creative activities in order to attract mates 128-129 6
A comparison of the “age-genius curve” among scientists who were married at some point in their lives with the same curve among those who never married shows the strong desistance effect of marriage on scientific productivity. Half as many (50.0 percent) unmarried scientists make their greatest contributions in their late 50s as they do in their late 20s. The corresponding percentage among the married scientists is 4.2 percent. The mean age of peak productivity among the unmarried scientists (39.9) is significantly later than the mean peak age among married scientists 134 6
childless research chemists are more productive than those with children 135 6
men are significantly more likely to rank income as an important criterion for selecting a job than women are… women place significantly greater emphasis on the criterion “the work is important and gives me a feeling of accomplishment” for selecting a job – 147 7
One of the discoveries by Baron-Cohen and his team of researchers is the high prevalence of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians among the families of autistics and those afflicted with Asperger’s syndrome 152 7
The male-female differences in the desire for short-term casual sex are exacerbated by another male-female difference in evolved psychological mechanisms: the woman’s desire to understate her sexual desire in a particular man and to engage in “token resistance.”38 In one study,39 nearly 40 percent of undergraduate women admitted to saying no to sexual advances from a man even though they actually wanted to have sex with him. More than a third of these cases where the women initially said no eventually resulted in consensual sex. As the late behavior geneticist Linda Mealey eloquently puts it: “That females are selected to be coy will mean that sometimes saying ‘no’ really does mean ‘try a little harder.’ 154 7
whether one is religious or not, especially in adulthood, is largely genetically determined 158 8
Not only are women more risk-averse and more religious than men, but more risk-averse men are more religious than more risk-seeking men, and more risk-averse women are more religious than more risk-seeking women 164 8
So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status, who are most likely to be left without reproductive opportunities when older men of high status marry polygynously. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates because they have little to lose and much to gain by doing so compared to men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny increases violent crimes, such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors like economic development, economic in equality, population density, the level of democracy, and world regions.30 So the first unique feature of Islam, which partially contributes to the prevalence of suicide bombings among its followers, is polygyny, which makes young men violent everywhere. This is the first line in the Koran that partially explains it 166 8
nearly all suicide bombers are single 167 8
mates are probably the only ornamentation or lekking device men can display that is cross-culturally meaningful. There is evidence that females of species as varied as guppies,57 Japanese medaka,58 black grouse,59 and Japanese quail60 prefer to mate with males who have recently mated 176 8

References

Matrilateral Biases in the Investment of Aunts and Uncles: A Consequence and Measure of Paternity Uncertainty, Estimation of Nonpaternity in the Mexican Population of Nuevo Leon: A Validation Study with Blood Group Markers
Bowling with Our Imaginary Friends
Sex Differences in Human Neonatal Social Perception
Sex Differences in Response to Children’s Toys in Nonhuman Primates (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus).
Sexual Selection and the Potential Reproductive Rates of Males and Females
Eating Disorder Symptoms and Body Image Concern in Iran: Comparisons Between Iranian Women in Iran and in America
Large Breasts and Narrow Waists Indicate High Reproductive Potential in Women
Ratings of Facial Beauty by Asian-American and Caucasian Females, Cross-vs. Within-Racial Judgments of Attractiveness; Age, Sex, Race, and the Perception of Facial Beauty, Their Ideas of Beauty Are, on the Whole, the Same as Ours’: Consistency and Variability in the Cross-Cultural Perception of Female Physical Attractiveness, Criteria of Physical Attractiveness in Five Populations, Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Physical Attractiveness: Ratings of Photographs of Whites by Cruzans and Americans, The Eye of the Beholder: A Neglected Variable in the Study of Physical Attractiveness, “Cross-Cultural Comparisonsin Interpersonal Attraction of Females Toward Males
Aesthetic Perception of Faces During Infancy, “Newborn Infants Prefer Attractive Faces, Infants’ Differential Social Responses to Attractive and Unattractive Faces
Developmental Stability, Disease and Medicine, Maxims or Myths of Beauty?: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review; Facial Attractiveness and Physical Health, “Facial Attractiveness, Symmetry, and Physical Fitness in Young Women, Facial Attractiveness Predicts Longevity, Fluctuating Asymmetry and Low Back Pain., Does Human Facial Attractiveness Honestly Advertise Health?: Longitudinal Data on an Evolutionary Question
Why Monogamy
Sexual Selection and Nuptial Feeding Behavior in Bittacus apicalis
“Costly but Worthless Gifts Facilitate Courtship
The Evolution of Human Mating: Trade-Offs and Strategic Pluralism, Father Absence and Reproductive Strategy: An Evolutionary Perspective.
The Evolutionary Psychology of Extrapair Sex: The Role of Fluctuating Asymmetry, Attractiveness and Sexual Behavior: Does Attractiveness Enhance Mating Success?”, The Evolution of Human Mating: Trade-Offs and Strategic Pluralism
Presidents Preferred Sons, “Low Socioeconomic Status and Female-Based Parental Investment: The Mukogodo Example, Human Sex-Ratio Manipulation: Historical Data from a German Parish, The Reproductive Success of Cheyenne War Chiefs: A Contrary Case to Chagnon’s Yanomamö, “Social Status and Sex, Where Do Cultures Come From, “Social Status and the Second Sex Ratio: New Evidence on a Lingering Controversy; Sociobiology, Status, and Parental Investment in Sons and Daughters: Testing the Trivers-Willard Hypothesis; “The Trivers-Willard Hypothesis of Parental Investment: No Effect in the Contemporary United States, Preferential Parental Investment in Daughters over Sons; Trivers-Willard Effect in Contemporary North American Society; Why We Love Our Children
Engineers Have More Sons, Nurses Have More Daughters: An Evolutionary Psychological Extension of Baron-Cohen’s Extreme Male Brain Theory of Autism and Its Empirical Implications.
Big and Tall Parents Have More Sons: Further Generalizations of the Trivers-Willard Hypothesis
First, Kill All the Economists….’: The Insufficiency of Microeconomics and the Need for Evolutionary Psychology in the Study of Management
Beautiful Parents Have More Daughters: A Further Implication of the Generalized Trivers-Willard Hypothesis (gTWH).”.
Beautiful Parents Have More Daughters: A Further Implication of the Generalized Trivers-Willard Hypothesis (gTWH).”; Attractiveness and Cooperation in Social Exchange.”
Whom Are Newborn Babies Said to Resemble; Ascription of Resemblance of Newborns by Parents and Nonrelatives; “Whom Are Mexican Infants Said to Resemble?: Monitoring and Fostering Paternal Confidence in the Yucatan, Ascription of Resemblance of Newborns by Parents and Nonrelatives
Father Absence and Reproductive Strategy: An Evolutionary Perspective, Quality of Early Family Relationships and Individual Differences in the Timing of Pubertal Maturation in Girls: A Longitudinal Test of an Evolutionary Model, Does Father Absence Place Daughters at Special Risk for Early Sexual Activity and Teenage Pregnancy; Father Absence, Parental Care, and Female Reproductive Development
Common Genetic Influences on BMI and Age at Menarche; On Genetic Variation in Menarche and Age at First Sexual Intercourse: A Critique of the Belsky-Draper Hypothesis
Father Absence and Reproductive Strategy: An Evolutionary Perspective..
Why Father Absence Might Precipitate Early Menarche: The Role of Polygyny.”
“Secondary Sexual Characteristics and Menses in Young Girls Seen in Office Practice: A Study from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings Network
Human Rape: An Evolutionary Analysis
Age, Crime, and Social Explanation; “Age and Crime, Logic and Scholarship: Comment on Greenberg; Age and the Distribution of Crime; Youth Violence, Guns, and the Illicit-Drug Industry.; Few Good Men: Evolutionary Psychology and Female Adolescent Aggression; Killing the Competition: Female/ Female and Male/Male Homicide
Scientific Discoveries as Cultural Displays: A Further Test of Miller’s Courtship Model; Why Productivity Fades with Age: The Crime-Genius Connection
Scientific Discoveries as Cultural Displays: A Further Test of Miller’s Courtship Model
Productivity and Reproductivity: Fertility and Professional Achievement among Research Scientists.
Is ‘Discrimination’ Necessary to Explain the SexGap in Earnings
Is Autism an Extreme Form of the Male Brain, Autism Occurs More Often in Families of Physicists, Engineers, and Mathematicians
“Do Women Sometimes Say No When They Mean Yes? The Prevalence and Correlates of Women’s Token Resistance to Sex, Double Standard/ Double Bind: The Sexual Double Standard and Women’s Communication about Sex, Alternative Adaptive Models of Rape
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religiousness: Genetic and Environmental Influences and Personality Correlates; “Genetic and Environmental Influences on Religiousness: Findings for Retrospective and Current Religiousness Ratings
“Risk and Religion: An Explanation of Gender Differences in Religiosity; Gender and Religiousness: Can Socialization Explanations Be Saved?; Physiology and Faith: Addressing the ‘Universal’ Gender Difference in Religious Commitment.; Sexuality and Religious Commitment: An Empirical Assessment
Why Men Commit Crimes (and Why They Desist
Genesis of Suicide Terrorism.”; “Evidence about the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism among Palestinians
Genes, Copying, and Female Mate Choice: Shifting Thresholds, Mate Copying Versus Preference for Actively Courting Males by Female Japanese Medaka (Oryzias latipes).”, Mate-Choice Copying in Black Grouse, Mate-Choice Copying in Japanese Quail