Lynn E. O'Connor - Male Dominance and Female Depression: Based on Ideas?

Lynn E. O’Connor, Ph.D. in her Psychology Today blog, Our Empathic Nature, published this interesting look at how our primate relatives might provide insight into our own social construction of gender stereotypes. The research seems to indicate that depression levels in females, both chimps and humans, is relatively identical to that of males, until puberty. Once puberty arrives, the males become more physically dominant and the females become much more likely to experience depression. Food for thought.

Male Dominance and Female Depression: Based on Ideas?

An explanation for cultural differences in orangutans might have relevance

Published on December 31, 2012 by Lynn E. O’Connor, Ph.D. in Our Empathic Nature

Chimpanzee's Emotions Similar to Ours

Over a decade ago I conducted a study with James King and Jack Berry on antecedents to psychopathology in chimpanzees. We used data that King had first collected in a study of personality in Chimps in 12 zoos, maintained under the auspices of the Jane Goodall Institute. Meaning the Chimps were living in as benign circumstances as zoos can provide, with efforts made to provide an interesting environment given the confines. The method used was to have zookeepers and volunteers who knew the Chimps well sit and observe them for hours and hours, and mark down how much they exhibited a variety of behaviors, derived from 43 specific personality attributes (used previously with people). This included behaviors like aggressiveness, friendliness, sociability, intelligence, and other obvious characteristics. King and his colleague Figueredo found the Chimps could be categorized on a scale very close to the most commonly used “Big Five Factor” personality scale used with people. There was one additional factor related to “Dominance” although I questioned its inclusion, as the attributes that went into it were also frequently found in “Extraversion,” one of the “big five factors.”

I began this new study by speaking at length to the zookeepers who had been part of the original study. Some of them had been with their “group” of Chimps for 15 years or longer. They really knew and spoke about their Chimps much as we speak of our children and family members. I heard stories, detailed fantastic stories of the Chimps behaviors. Some sounded quite screwy, along the lines of what, if it had been a person, we would have diagnosed her (yes it’s usually a “her”) as suffering from a “borderline personality disorder.” Others would –had they been people—been called “schizoid (personality disorder)” or “antisocial personality disorder” (we all know some of them, they take what they want, push to the front of the line, and don’t seem to worry whose feelings they hurt in the process). Others seemed to be quite normal, just ordinary, getting along with other Chimps kinds of behavior. After transcribing all of these extensive interviews, I read them over and over. Things just popped out at me, and I went to what was then our “diagnostic bible” the first version of the “DSM-IV” that psychiatrists and psychologists use to diagnose people with mental disorders. I started looking through disorders, characterized by “criteria” otherwise known as specific symptoms. I was limited to behavioral symptoms since I didn’t know what was in the Chimps’ minds, only how they behaved. My colleague Jack Berry joined me on this. Together we came up with five scales that were made up of “criteria” as laid out by the DSM-IV, and considered them antecedents to psychological problems we see in people. A few were the most commonly known psychological problems, like “depression” and “anxiety.” The others were “personality disorders (PD)” and specifically, “borderline PD”, “antisocial PD,” and “schizoid PD.” We then found the attributes from the original personality scales that fit into the characteristics or criteria for these disorders, thereby coming up with “antecedents to psychopathology in chimpanzee scales.”

What happened when we ran the statistics was amazing. Chimps I had thought were “schizoid” actually came out “schizoid” on our scales. One really mean girl, “Lila” sure enough showed up as “antisocial PD” on our scales. But most astounding was that we found that before adolescence, males and females were identical in proneness to depression. Sometime during adolescent however, the females zoomed ahead and became significantly more depressed than the males. What was so striking here was that they followed the exact pattern we have repeatedly found in people.

Our question then was –why did this happen (in Chimps or in our species)? Perhaps it was due to hormones and rising estrogen? Or was it because females were not as quick at metabolizing serotonin which left them more vulnerable. Biological considerations aside we wondered about the role of social environment – In other words - Is male dominance in any way related to the observed differences in proneness to depression between males and females. We wanted to look at Pygmy Chimps, better known as Bonobos. They’re the species that “makes love not war.” When they come upon a tree with ripe fruit, the first thing they do before jumping in – they all make love to one another. Males and females, males and males, females and females, they have a sex orgy. Then, apparently having reduced potentially competitive tension, they all enjoy the fruit together. Furthermore bonobos share often (so do chimps in their natural habitat, but not quite as much as Bonobos). Most striking -- in Bonobos culture, females are dominant because they stick closely together. If a male aggresses upon a female, the females gang up and go after the guy who flees as fast as he can. While there is infanticide among Chimps, there is no such thing with Bonobos. The women really stick together and thus their young are well protected, as well as one another. For all these years since we did this study, I’ve had this question – if we studied Bonobos in zoos, replicating the way we studied the Chimpanzees, would we find the females getting significantly more depressed than the males, around adolescence? Or would the female dominance protect them. Maybe the males would get more depressed. Is it social environment that leads to depression? We have no way to know. Frans de Waal, a world expert on Bonobos, told me he thought we’d be unable to find enough Bonobos to replicate the study, even if we looked at zoos world wide.

Orangutan culture transmitted by ideas

Then a few weeks ago I read a piece by Jason Goldman, a Scientific American blogger. He is summarizing research that demonstrates that Orangutan’s culture (which differs from group to group) is being passed on by ideas instead of by genetic differences, or some other physical or concrete environmental explanation.

In Orangutans, just seeing a behavior before a child has the physical skills to actually do it, allows them to do it quite easily when they are old enough to develop the skills. But Orangs from a group where the behavior was never done so the children never saw it, have a much harder time learning it, when exposed to the behavior under different conditions, in a shelter where Orangutans from differing cultures are mixed together. Maybe the same is true of male or female dominance, and subsequently, maybe the onset of female depression in adolescence is part of a cultural package, made up of ideas carried from generation to generation. Could this possibly hold an answer to the mystery of the onset of adolescent depression in Chimpanzees and in our own species. Could the cultural habit of male dominance be something the young have to see, long before they can actually do it. Could the cultural habit of females sticking together and chasing off males who grew offensive, thereby establishing a female dominant culture be something youngsters just have to see, in order to later imitate the same pattern? I don’t have the answer but Goldman’s summary of this new research really made me wonder if male dominance is based on cultural ideas and cognitions and thereby possibly subject to change, albeit with effort.

Male dominance at work, still very present

The story of our Chimpanzee research is sadly an example of how the idea of male dominance holds power in our culture. Our study was presented at the APA in 2001, over a decade ago. Then a young alpha male joined King’s group. I’m not naming names. He grabbed the data, began to dominate the show, claimed he added some Chimps to the data, re-analyzed it and came up with the same results. But when I tried to publish our findings, he refused to give me the original data, or the data set to which he’d added. Feeling uneasy at publishing something based on a data set I was unable to review myself, presenting findings while being unable to re-analyze data on my own --well that seemed potentially unethical. Why would I be denied the data set, having been the principal investigator on the study? Must be the pervasive idea of male dominance. I withdrew the piece from the Journal to which I’d sent it. The new alpha male who had nothing to do with the original study is now getting a bigger and bigger name in animal and human personality. I accept it (almost), we live in a culture that’s still unfortunately male dominated at least in science. But I found Goldman’s review of the orangutan research a comfort. If social differences or culturally specific skills are related to cultural ideas, this thing we know as male dominance may all change in the future. Ideas may be far more malleable than something wired into our genetic material.

References

Gruber T., Singleton I. & van Schaik C. (2012). Sumatran Orangutans Differ in Their Cultural Knowledge but Not in Their Cognitive Abilities, Current Biology, 22 (23) 2231-2235. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.09.041

King JE, Figueredo AJ. (1997). The Five-Factor Model plus Dominance in chimpanzee personality. J Res Pers 31:257–271.

O'Connor, L. E., Berry, J. W., King, J., Landau, V., & Pedersen, A., (2001). Chimpanzee subjective well-being and psychopathology. Presented at American Psychological Association, August, 2001, San Francisco California.

De Waal, F. & Lanting, F. (1998). Bonobo: The forgotten Ape. Berkeley: U. California Press.

Kevin Charles Redmon - The Rise and Fall of Sexual Promiscuity

According to this article in Pacific Standard, sexual promiscuity is on the decline - and has been for a very long time (don't tell that to the men and women who wait longer than ever to get married and have children, thus experiencing a greater number of sexual partners than previous generations).

The basic premise of a new research study (discussed in this article) is that at some point in our evolutionary history, males who were not alpha figured out that the only way to secure a mate to pass along those pesky selfish genes was to offer something the alphas did not - security. So females, in essence, traded the greater benefits of multiple male partners (better gene diversity, greater chance of fertilization, decreased infanticide, and more male providers) for the security of one male who provides food (for sexual access) and helps care for/protect the offspring.

This is the first model of this type that includes females as agents in the equation - in the past they have been relegated to passive roles. That, in itself, makes it a more viable model than others. 

The other interesting aspect is that this is still somewhat true today. Alpha males are "playas" and are not likely to settle with or be faithful to one female (obviously, this is a generalization). Non-alpha males, however, i.e. "nice guys," are more able to provide security and more likely to be faithful. And again, this is a generalization that has a lot to do with the developmental stage of the males in question. Those with less egocentric tendencies will likely be better mate material. It also depends on women to choose nice guys, and we know there are plenty of women who are only attracted to "bad boys," which is probably also a factor of ego development.

Anyway . . . this is interesting stuff (even if it only conjecture). Original abstract is at the bottom.

The Rise and Fall of Sexual Promiscuity

Sleeping around once had its benefits, but turns out women may have given up better fertility for better security.

August 2, 2012 • By Kevin Charles Redmon 

Long before Match.com and The Bachelor—even before yentas and oracles—there was the primal jungle, and finding a mate was messy business. Violence and hierarchy ruled the day. Alpha males got the girls; lesser competitors did not. Evolutionary biologists have long tried to trace the human path from combat to courtship: When did we crude animals trade polygamy and paternal absenteeism for “I do” and BabyBjörn?

A new study from Sergey Gavrilets, professor of ecology, biology, and mathematics at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, reviews the current evidence and offers an intriguing hypothesis. The transition from “promiscuity to pair-bonding,” Gavrilets writes in the journal PNAS, occurred only when lesser male hominids, realizing their physical inferiority, adopted a “provider” role in partnerships, and female hominids, in turn, began to show fidelity to these partners. (Others have postulated that the rise of agriculture helped smooth the way for the transition.) The role of female choice is not often considered in evolutionary biology, but if Gavrilets’ models are correct, it may be integral to explaining our past.

Scientists have also long debated the origins of pair-bonding, not because its advantages are in dispute, but because, according to evolutionary logic, it ought never to have happened.

Many species are indeed better off, Gavrilets explains, when their males live cooperatively in societies, helping raise families, rather than warring over mates and leaving their offspring fatherless. But males face a “social dilemma” when it comes to spreading their genes: if they choose to spend their energy providing for—rather than fighting for—mates, other males may cheat and “free ride” on their largesse. (So-called “free rider” problems show up not just in biology, but in every corner of economics, psychology, and environmental policy.) Of all the theories that explain why cooperation (i.e. pair-bonding) replaced competition (i.e. promiscuity) among our ancestors, Gavrilets argues, none account for this social dilemma.

The study highlights several current theories of pair-bonding: instead of fighting, male hominids began to devote effort to caring for offspring, protecting their mate, or provisioning food for sex. But Gavrilets builds mathematical models to show how each of these hypotheticals leads to a “sub-optimal” outcome—how “investing more in offspring means that there is more paternity for other males to steal.” Run the model, and instead of choosing cooperation, the males will choose to fight. It’s not the outcome any one male desires, but the free-rider problem effectively “traps” the whole group in a benighted state.

Gavrilets proposes a modification to existing theory. What if we assume that males began to provide for one—and only one—female, and females, likewise, began to depend on a sole mate for food and help with childcare? First, not all men are created equal; there are few Ryan Goslings and many Kevin Redmons. The weaker among us quickly learned the futility of direct competition, and turned to “alternative reproductive strategies” to spread our genes. (I may not be a dreamboat, baby, but I’ll bring you coffee in bed.) Second, females make choices. Whereas previous models ascribe females a passive role, Gavrilets asserts that “because they receive direct benefits from provisioning males, females should be choosy, and they may become, to some extent, faithful” to their providers.

Promiscuity is a funny thing in nature. Despite what your mother and youth pastor spent so many years telling you, sleeping around has real (genetic) benefits. Polyandry—in which females take more than one mate—allows for better gene diversity, boots the likelihood of fertilization, decreases infanticide, and means more male providers. Gavrilets acknowledges that in switching from promiscuity to monogamy, females actually risked lower fertility. The tradeoff was security.

When he runs the model again, with these two assumptions in place, the outcome is different: instead of a spiral into violent competition, male provisioning and female faithfulness “co-evolve in a self-reinforcing manner.” Males escape the “social dilemma” and pair-bonding replaces promiscuity.

Critically, Gavrilets notes, this process begins with the weakest males—those who have the worst chances of beating out Ryan Gosling for a mate—because they stand to gain the most from an alternative strategy like provisioning. Slowly, the strategy works its way up the dominance hierarchy, as females begin to reward the weaker males with their fidelity. Out of this sexual revolution comes self-domestication. A new kind of society is born, one in which, “except for a very small proportion of the top-ranked individuals, males invest exclusively in provisioning for females, who have evolved very high fidelity to their mates.”

A few million years hence, here we are—imperfect creatures, a long way from the jungle, somewhat closer to commitment.

About Kevin Charles Redmon
Kevin Charles Redmon is a Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism. He writes for The Washington Post, Minnesota Monthly, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, as well as at TheAtlantic.com, The Millions, and The Rumpus.

Full Citation:

Gavrilets, S. (2012, Jun 19). Human origins and the transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding. PNAS, 109(25): 9923-8. Epub 2012 May 29. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1200717109

Abstract for the original article:

Human origins and the transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding

Sergey Gavrilets

Abstract

A crucial step in recent theories of human origins is the emergence of strong pair-bonding between males and females accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the male-to-male conflict over mating and an increased investment in offspring. How such a transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding could be achieved is puzzling. Many species would, indeed, be much better off evolutionarily if the effort spent on male competition over mating was redirected to increasing female fertility or survivorship of offspring. Males, however, are locked in a “social dilemma,” where shifting one’s effort from “appropriation” to “production” would give an advantage to free-riding competitors and therefore, should not happen. Here, I first consider simple models for four prominent scenarios of the human transition to pair-bonding: communal care, mate guarding, food for mating, and mate provisioning. I show that the transition is not feasible under biologically relevant conditions in any of these models. Then, I show that the transition can happen if one accounts for male heterogeneity, assortative pair formation, and evolution of female choice and faithfulness. This process is started when low-ranked males begin using an alternative strategy of female provisioning. At the end, except for the top-ranked individuals, males invest exclusively in provisioning females who have evolved very high fidelity to their mates. My results point to the crucial importance of female choice and emphasize the need for incorporating between-individual variation in theoretical and empirical studies of social dilemmas and behaviors.