Female status, food security, and stature sexual dimorphism: Testing mate choice as a mechanism in human self-domestication

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Ben Thomas Gleeson, Geoff Kushnick

Abstract

Humans exhibit multiple anatomical and behavioral signatures of domestication syndrome, leading evolutionary-minded scholars to suggest Homo sapiens is a "self-domesticated" species. We examined one of three mechanisms proposed to explain human self-domestication-that is, intersexual selection against reactive aggression. We hypothesized that this process has been, at least in part, caused by context-dependent female preferences for less-aggressive males. We predicted that societies where women have higher social status will show relatively elevated signs of self-domestication-as indicated by lower stature sexual dimorphism (SSD)-and that this relationship should be mediated by food security. To test our prediction, we used male and female stature data for 28 societies from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. We applied multivariate regression to examine our hypothesis while controlling for theoretically important confounders. We found convincing support for the prediction that the relationship between SSD and female status is mediated by food security. As predicted, higher female status was associated with less sexual dimorphism and the effect is stronger when food resources are secure. Context-dependent female mate choices si...Continue Reading

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Citations

Sep 6, 2018·Archives of public health = Archives belges de santé publique·Jose Luis AlvarezAndré Briend
Jan 11, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Ljiljana Progovac, Antonio Benítez-Burraco
Apr 25, 2020·International Journal of Tryptophan Research : IJTR·Adrian C Williams, Lisa J Hill
Jan 7, 2021·Cognitive Processing·Antonio Benítez-Burraco
Apr 30, 2021·Frontiers in Psychology·Adam Bode, Geoff Kushnick
Jun 26, 2021·Cognitive Science·Antonio Benítez-BurracoLjiljana Progovac

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