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The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies Of Human Mating Hardcover – March 20, 1994

by David M. Buss (Author)

4.1 36 ratings

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Evolution of Desire
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How we chooseand loseour mates has always been a source of fascination. This controversial book is the first to present a unified theory of human mating behavior. The Evolution of Desire is based on the most massive study of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than 10,000 peoples of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide. If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question, we must look into our evolutionary past, according to David M. Buss. For in attracting, keeping, and even breaking up with our mates, we are closer to our ancestral forebears than many of us think.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Basic Books
Publication date

March 20, 1994
Dimensions

1.1 x 6.37 x 9.51 inches
ISBN-10

0465077501
ISBN-13

978-0465077502
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the pursuit of a mate, women prefer men who possess money, resources, power and high social status, while men tend to seek attractive, youthful women who will remain sexually faithful. This finding emerged from a global survey by Buss and colleagues of 10,047 persons in 37 cultures, from Australia to Zambia. Women and men are often at cross-purposes in mate selection, sexual relations and affairs. In a provocative study, Buss, a University of Michigan psychology professor, attributes these differences to ingrained psychological mechanisms which he argues are universal across cultures and rooted in each gender's adaptive responses over millennia of human evolution. One area, however, where Buss finds common ground between men and women is in their ruthless use of deception, sexual display and denigration of rivals in the pursuit of a partner.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Evolutionary psychology--or, in the vernacular, "instinct"--rules the dating and mating game, and this scientist's discoveries are bound to clash with theories of patriarchy that purport to account for male dominance of wealth. Buss' synthesis of many studies conforms with popular wisdom: Women want an older man with actual or potential means; men want an attractive, younger woman; and men have a much greater proclivity for promiscuity than do women. Why? The reasons reside in vestigial "cues" that favored reproduction in the pre-agricultural epoch of human development. Then, when a poor decision in mate selection imposed devastating material costs on the female, a dialectic of attraction strategies developed so that a desirable mate could be gained, held, and defended against interlopers. The ancestral origin, Buss explains, is apparent in courting techniques (such as his researchers recorded in singles bars) or in the emotion of jealousy, the actuator in alerting and defeating rivals. Libraries may be overrun by anecdotal accounts of sex, even the good ones like Sex: An Oral History by Harry Maurer . But Buss steps back from the mechanics and emotions of the matter and insightfully complements the multitude. Gilbert Taylor

From Kirkus Reviews

In a study involving over 10,000 people from 37 cultures, Buss (Psychology/Univ. of Michigan) uses evolutionary theory to explain the psychological mechanisms behind how and why people choose, keep, and discard their mates. Mating, according to Buss, is not a sentimental or humane activity: it is, rather, as competitive, conflictual, and manipulative on the human level as it is among the insects. To provide for themselves and their offspring, women seek providers- -men with money, power, maturity, ambition, stability, commitment, health, and cooperative natures. Men, for similar reasons, invest their time, resources, and sperm in young, beautiful, and fertile women who will give them heirs and status. At the same time they retain a primitive ability for casual sex as well--a sexual mechanism that is less selective and can be satisfied in more primitive ways such as fantasy, homosexuality, and incest. The capacity for multiple partners, casual sex, jealousy (a series of protective responses), and divorce are all adaptive mechanisms to help people--though mostly men--achieve their reproductive potential. Detailed analysis of various forms of mating rituals considered in large anthropological and biological contexts explain adaptive techniques for attracting and keeping mates and what happens when they get out of hand, ancestral instincts becoming destructive (abuse and rape). Scientifically rigorous, the study, on a human level, is abstract and statistical (75 societies reported infertility as a cause of conjugal dissolution); the detail is found on the animal level, as in a lurid scene of mating between scorpion flies. However incomplete sociobiology and evolutionary psychology may be in explaining human relationships, they clearly affirm the value of raising the instinctual to the level of consciousness and the miracle, as Buss eloquently concludes, of modern marriage as a ``crowning achievement of humankind.'' -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author

David M. Buss is Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; First Edition (March 20, 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465077501
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465077502
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 0.01 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.1 x 6.37 x 9.51 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,827,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,462 in Medical Psychology of Sexuality
- #2,313 in Psychology & Counseling Books on Sexuality
- #5,613 in Sex & Sexuality

Customer Reviews:
4.1 36 ratings

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David M. Buss

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After completing his doctorate in at the University of California, Berkeley, David Buss spent four years as Assistant Professor at Harvard University. He then migrated to the University of Michigan, where he taught for 11 years before accepting his current position at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary interests include the evolutionary psychology of human mating strategies; conflict between the sexes; prestige, status, and social reputation; the emotion of jealousy; homicide; anti-homicide defenses; defenses against sexual victimization; and stalking.

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hijodeganas

The ultimate source for understanding men and women

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2013

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David Buss is absolutely amazing. No, this is not a self help guide for learning how to pick up or attract the opposite sex. There is no advice here on how to handle your wife or girlfriend. This is also not a polemic rant on either why women are supposed to stay in the kitchen or how men and women are still unequal. This is pure, unadultered, exhaustively researched and scientific information on differences between men and women, as well as similarities, as well as what drives us to seek out sex and why.

I was intrigued by this book and its premise after reading some articles the author wrote as sources for a paper I did on attraction. Purchasing this book was not a disappoint at all, and I only hope his other books are just as insightful, informative and well-written as this one.

One person found this helpful

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Steve Brooks

A complete survey of evolution psychology theories about mating

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2012

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The sub-title, Strategies of Human Mating, is more descriptive of the book than the title, The Evolution of Desire. It isn't so much about desire - feelings of love are guides to helps us identify and keep an evolutionary fit mate. It is really about the strategies used to battle other suitors and attract mates.

The material can be found other places - mating is a common topic of evolutionary psychology books. The presentation seems repetitive; the same basic strategies have implications for finding, keeping, and leaving a mate and also explain how we pursue casual or extramarital sex. What makes this book worth reading, above similar books, is Buss test the theories by tying them to survey results. The theories explain the results.

For humans, much of the competing is verbal - using social influence to degrade competitors. This is a minor topic.

The focus is on how we select mates so that our genes are given every possible advantage to dominate future generations. Men and women have competing goals. Men want to maximize the quantity and quality of their mates and invest as little as possible in their offspring. Women want to maximize the quality of their mates and extracts as much parental investment from the fathers as possible.

Mating customs - monogamy, marriage - are an uneasy truce between the sexes. Monogamy - for example - benefits average to below average men the most. Marriage and child support laws are a way of codifying parental investment.

Despite our traditions of monogamy and marriage, we constantly try to assess our value as a mate. Your reproductive value and your behavior are not static. Decisions to leave mates are based upon assessment of relative value. Casual sex and affairs are attempts to assess our value.

7 people found this helpful

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bowen zhao

Great book on human nature!

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2014

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David Buss's book is great. He lays out a very clear and coherent theory behind how human sexuality evolved and compares our sexuality with that of other species.

A must read for anyone who is interested in human nature!

One person found this helpful

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E. N. Anderson

Mating happens....

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2004

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The other reviewers have pretty much said it--this is a good book with some problems, and the rest--so I will confine myself to some things they don't mention.
First, Buss continues his long campaign of featuring women's desire for wealth and men's desire for beauty, in spite of the fact that his own data show wealth is far behind love, reliability, caring, intelligence, and other goods in women's esteem, and (to a lesser extent) the same for men and beauty. Moreover, wealth and beauty matter much more for dates and one-night stands than for real relationships, where love, commitment, sympathy, and compatibility are most of the picture. Buss' exaggeration of the role of wealth and beauty has led to some real errors in the popular press.
Among mysteries yet unexplained, he lists homosexuality--certainly hard to explain by Darwinian factors. He does not mention the theory that it may stem from a hormonal glitch in fetal development. He also does not deal with the fact that in some societies--ancient Greece and parts of the Middle East and New Guinea--homoerotic behavior is essentially universal among men, at least at some time in life.
Another mystery is rape. Buss does not emphasize enough that rape is a crime of violence, almost always intended to hurt and harm and/or to assert dominance. It is not primarily sexual or about sex or reproduction. Hence its universality in war (including gang rumbles) and its rarity elsewhere; otherwise, thugs and very disturbed people are the usual perpetrators. There are always frat rats counting coup, but they aren't much of the story. Evolutionary psychologists make much of the fact that women of reproductive age are the usual victims, but forget that those are the women who are out and about, and the ones whose rape is most humiliating to their menfolk and their people (remember Bosnia). The surprising thing is that so many little girls and elder women get raped.

16 people found this helpful

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LF2050

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2015

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Book came as advertised... in a timely manner...

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A Customer

A Failed First Attempt at Evolutionary Psychology

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2011

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Prior to Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality [Hardcover ] this was the accepted explanation of human monogamous pair bonding. The problem is that this view is very negative. One way to put it is that all women are whores, if single: retail, and if married: wholesale. There's quite a bit of space in Sex at Dawn to show that Buss is wrong in this book. If you're considering buying this book you would be much better off getting Sex at Dawn.

8 people found this helpful

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Julius Huguenin

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2016

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excellent

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Matthew Felgate

Amazing Scientific Explanation Of Desire

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2012

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This is an amazing book explaining men and women and desires in science, questionnaires and evolutionary biology. You read things that make you think "That's so obvious, yet I never thought of it like that before!"

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