Social proof theory and women : is it real?

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Yea in before stereotypical reply about how money means nothing etc etc. My favorite excuse is when women claim they were with their husbands when the guys were still students so how could money be involved in their choice? Then they mention the guy was in medical school or training to be an air force pilot. I laugh evrtm.

I don't know why you care unless you are poor yourself

Reply 21

username878045

Original post by StevieA

It's just another way to conform and subscribe to what seems like ''correct behavior''.

But anyway, why do you think women act like this but men don't?

I think both of them act like this, although possibly more so with women. I don't really know what your point is, though.

Reply 22

StevieA

Original post by PythianLegume

I think both of them act like this, although possibly more so with women. I don't really know what your point is, though.

Pretty much everyone in the thread and poll agrees with me. I'm not making any points, I'm saying it's an easily observable phenomenon (as confirmed by most replies itt) and asking why it doesn't affect men the same way. A decent looking woman will get a huge number of ''offers'' whether she has social validation or not. Her ''aura'' is irrelevant. So I'm asking is it evolutionary adaptation, is it social influence or both? And what are the reasons? ****in' magnets, how do they work?

Reply 23

username878045

Original post by StevieA

Well almost certainly both social influence and evolutionary influences. Hardly rocket science.

Reply 24

vickidc18

Original post by yo radical one

Tbh, I've noticed lots of really extroverted girls ending up with guys like that and usually the guy is really successful or good at something :dontknow:

Original post by StevieA

He was unemployed when I first met him for a year, lol

Reply 25

Mequa

Proof that young women (in general) suck?

I can't say I consider such behaviour an appealing or respectable trait. Relying on social proof to such an extent tends to be what is derogatively considered "being a sheep".

One consequence of this effect is likely to be that introverted males will be undervalued by young females compared with extraverted males, something which also seems evident. Thus, with such sexual appeal strongly related to social status, a social hierarchy is maintained with extraverted males on top and introverted males at the bottom. Not surprisingly, a lot of introverted men get pissed off at this state of affairs.

Interestingly, when a feminist contemptuously tells such men "you are not entitled to sex", by privileging such animalistic behaviour of females over the sexual needs of such males (interpreting slavery to blind animal impulses as "freedom of choice"), what she is actually doing is affirming the existing social hierarchy and power structure with such men at the bottom (something far more in common with the political far right than the usual left wing leanings of such feminists), inadvertently affirming the tactics used by sexually successful males who she would otherwise condemn as "manipulative players" (the flip side of affirming the status quo), since the implication is that sex is always earned and thus men who get it by definition earn it - and moreover affirming traditional gender roles in so far as she is demanding the low-status males act "stoical" and "suck it up", demanding they coolly "know their place" at the bottom of the pecking order without "whining" - with a complete lack of empathy and sympathy for them. So much for equality and compassion.

As for the general male trait of going for physically attractive young women - such sexual attraction doesn't imply respect. Such women often complain about being seen as a pair of boobs rather than a person, many get "pumped and dumped", and so forth.

Reply 26

StevieA

Original post by vickidc18

He was unemployed when I first met him for a year, lol

I ain't sayin' you a gold digger. All I'm saying is that women subconsciously look for qualities that makes that man a potentially great father and provider. That's why women love ambitious and intelligent men , not because women are more ''mature'', but because they are both prerequisites for success . The same way a nice set of T&A indicates to a man that woman will make a good mother. I'm not saying you married him for money, just that your instincts subconsciously figured out his potential and it looks like they were right . I had almost nothing when I met my wife and she stuck with me through the great and the awful, but I'm sure her spidey senses could feel that I had it in me.

Listen , men go mostly for looks, but the difference is we don't lie to ourselves about it and act all self-righteous. None of the sexes is morally superior or more mature for having these preferences, we simply act according to our DNA script most of the time.

Reply 27

miser

Yes. We know it can be a legitimate evolved behaviour because of its appearance in other animals, for example the grouse. A lone male grouse has a hard time getting female attention; take the same grouse and put a couple of female grouses next to him and he becomes the grouse equivalent of Don Juan.

Reply 28

StevieA

Original post by miser

Stuff like this is important to discuss and not be ignored or blamed on socialization as an unquestionable default because understanding where the sexes differ and why could explain a million things that some people (especially social ''scientists'' and the leftist media) refuse to associate with a biological/evolutionary basis : why boys are almost always the ones medicated at a very young age for not behaving like girls (submissive) during classes, why girls don't want to be engineers, why men kill themselves a lot more, why women care more about status or social validation, why boys are less likely to get a college degree and the number is shrinking almost every year, why girls play with dolls, why men are always the ones doing mass shootings , why there is a wage gap and many, many others.

More money and work needs to be invested into open minded research on this and other similar issues. And if feelings are hurt in the process, so what? Are feelings more important than understanding human nature and saving lives?

Reply 29

ClickItBack

Original post by miser

Quite an amusing image there :tongue:

.

I think I read somewhere that the more attractive a woman considers herself, the more she tends to seek out such 'social proof'. Women who think they are less attractive supposedly auto-filter themselves from trying for the more desirable men - probably because they want to minimise the chances of rejection?

Also, I can't say my observations at university fit with the theory mostly. Plenty of my friends got with guys who weren't necessarily lookers, nor anywhere close to being popular with girls/the life of the party (and not medics either). After uni, while working in London, such behaviour is somewhat more apparent but still far from universal. At the risk of making a very tenuous hypothesis, I'd say the more intelligent the woman in question, the less she'll act in accordance with social proof theory.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 30

miser

Original post by ClickItBack

Quite an amusing image there :tongue:

Interesting.

I think the whole social-proof thing seems like a kind of heuristic for determining who's likely to have attractive qualities. It's like being wealthy - it's not the money itself that tends to keep the girl around (unless she's a gold digger), but the attraction I think stems from the wealth implying that a person has other desirable characteristics (i.e., that they tend to be successful). The same with the social proof: chatting to a girl in a bar where every 2 minutes someone interupts to say 'hey' to you, or you are surrounded by other attractive women, there must be a reason why that is the case, i.e., that you have attractive qualities that draw people to you.

Reply 31

Rakas21

Original post by yo radical one

Tbh, I've noticed lots of really extroverted girls ending up with guys like that and usually the guy is really successful or good at something :dontknow:

I agree.

From my personal experience I've overhead random girls commenting (on the bus ect..) when I've been fondling other women (positive comments) but equally I've always only ever had a few close friends and women have always seemed more bothered about the fact that I was confident and smart.

There's s lot of ONS value in popularity but I think its overdone.

Reply 32

StevieA

Original post by ClickItBack

Quite an amusing image there :tongue:

Smarter women are also much less likely to want children or have a ''motherly'' side. It seems that the more intelligent a woman is the more likely she is to deviate from evolutionary do's and don't's. Probably why nature blesses so few women with high IQ's when compared to men.