Running Head: EVOLVED HUMAN PREFERENCES A 1B

Evolved Human Preferences and Healthy Offspring

Rosanna Barnes D

University of California Berkeley E

College Writing W3A F

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Evolved Human Preferences and Healthy Offspring G

Preferences can be a hard thing to explain. What makes a food taste so good, or the smell

of a lover’s t-shirt so enticing? From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, we simply like

the things that are good for us – or rather, good for our potential offspring.

One clear example of evolutionary psychology at work is the process of mate selection.

We may not be thinking about baby making when we go out on a date, or to single’s night at a

nearby club, but a variety of studies suggest that a desire to reproduce is what is actually driving

our decision making in these situations. Take, for instance, the characteristics that straight men

stereotypically find attractive in women, such as youthfulness, long blond hair, large breasts, and

a low waist-to-hip ratio. Such preferences seem arbitrary until we look closer and realize they are

all associated with fecundity, i.e., the ability to have healthy offspring (Miller & Kanazawa,

2007). The same goes for what women traditionally value in men (height, broad shoulders,

material wealth, status and so forth); these characteristics are indicators that a man will pass on

good genes to a baby, and then provide an environment in which that baby can flourish (Miller &

Kanazawa, 2007)I. Even our preferences for particular body odors can be explained by

evolutionary psychology. One study, for instance, showed that women preferred the scents of

men whose immune genes were unlike their own, and who would therefore give any resulting

offspring the best possible genetic defense against pathogens (faupsy1012, 2012).

J In fact, evolutionary psychology may be able to explain almost all of our preferences.

We like sweet and fatty food because we evolved a psychological preference for foods that are

high in calories (Miller & Kanazawa, 2007). A global survey of landscape art reveals a

preference for the sort of environs that best suited our Stone Age ancestors (Dutton, 2010). Even
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the skills we admire – from the ability to throw a football, to mechanical know-how- can be

traced back to our ancestors’ efforts to pass on their genes.

In the words of art historian and philosopher Denis Dutton (2010), when a person, place,

or object has innate appeal, it is “nature’s way of acting at a distance” K(para. 5). From this

perspective, our preferences are not things we develop – or are even simply born with. Rather,

they have been passed down to us by countless generations, a companion in our individual

efforts, and in our species’ effort, to survive and pass on our genes.
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References L

Dutton, D. (2010, February). A Darwinian theory of beauty. Retrieved from

https://www.ted.com/talks/denis_dutton_a_darwinian_theory_of_beauty?language=en

faupsy1012. (2012, September 9). Evolutionary psychology [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxwBCPGigko

Miller, A & Kanazawa, S. (2007). Why beautiful people have more daughters: from dating,

shopping, and praying to going to war and becoming a billionaire [Kindle

Version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com