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2008-03-28

Why beautiful people have more daughters

Have you ever wondered why men on average are taller, more aggressive, more competitive and earn more than women do? And why death penalty would not stop them from committing a crime? Or why woman would rather prefer flowers and diamonds to a material gift of an equal value? How about this: why man likes porn and woman doesn't (unless everybody gets married at the end :-) Well, there is a perfect theoretic explanation to all these behavioral tendencies.

Why beautiful people have more daughters : from dating, shopping, and praying to going to war and becoming a billionaire : two evolutionary psychologists explain why we do what we do by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa answers all these and many other interesting questions:

Why do Men Like Blonde Bombshells (and Why do Women Want to Look Like Them)?
Why is Beauty not in the Eye of the Beholder or Skin-Deep?
Why is Prostitution the World's Oldest Profession, and Why is Pornography a Billion-Dollar Industry?
Why Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but not Lauren Bacall and Brad Pitt?
Why do Men and Women Perceive the Same Situation Differently?
Why are There Virtually No Polyandrous Societies?
Why (and How) are Contemporary Westerners Polygynous?
Why does Having Sons Reduce the Likelihood of Divorce?
Why are Diamonds a Girl's Best Friend?
Why might Handsome Men Make Bad Husbands?
Boy or Girl? What Influences the Sex of Your Child?
Why does the Baby Have Daddy's Eyes, but Not Mommy's?
Why are There So Many Deadbeat Dads but So Few Deadbeat Moms?
Why is Family More Important to Women than to Men?
Why do Girls of Divorced Parents Experience Puberty Earlier than Girls Whose Parents Remain Married?
Why are Almost All Violent Criminals Men?
What do Bill Gates and Paul McCartney Have in Common with Criminals?
Why does Marriage "Settle" Men Down?
Why do Some Men Beat Up their Wives and Girlfriends?
Why do Politicians Risk Everything by Having an Affair (but Only if They are Male)?
Why do Men Earn More Money and Attain Higher Status than Women?
Why are Most Neurosurgeons Male and Most Kindergarten Teachers Female?
Why is Sexual Harassment So Persistent?
Where does Religion Come from?
Why are Women More Religious than Men?
Why is Ethnic and Nationalist Conflict So Persistent throughout the World?
Why are Single Women More Likely to Travel Abroad -- and Why are Young Single Men More Likely to be Xenophobic?

The book is surely a fun read even though you'll find quite a few results and methods questionable. One of its biggest values is that it is a source of discussion topics that would be interesting to virtually any audience.

If you prefer listening to reading, the book is also available on an MP3 CD as audio book.

And if you got as interested in the book as I did, you may want to read a critique of some of the facts from the book.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There is one chapter from the book here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20070622-000002.xml