women that they select a mate who is not ‘miswired’ with bad programming. Women observe our behavior patterns to insure that we are programmed properly, because their own survival and that of their offspring benefits by selecting males who display emotional traits such as sincerity, commitment, kindness, ambition, protector of loved ones, and so on. There are various “fitness indicators” that convey the presence of survival and replication value traits.16 Women’s emotional programming is designed so that when she detects these fitness indicators, a feeling of attraction will be triggered inside of her. Attraction is not a single emotion. It is a set of emotions. Each emotion activates from one of a woman’s preferences and represents a discrete value switch. “Each separate attribute constitutes one component of a man’s value to a woman as a mate. Each of her preferences tracks one component.”17 A woman’s preference for an energetic gait allows her to select for physical health. Her preference for a fun conversation allows her to select for emotional health and intelligence. Her preference for unreactive behaviors allows her to select for higher social status. And so on. In every case, her preference for the fitness indicator helps her to select for actual survival and replication value. The fitness indicators that women respond to fall into three categories: Visual (the way you look), Behavioral (the way you act), and Social (the way that people react to you.) For example, if one man is stronger and better-looking than average, he would historically have an actual survival and replication advantage and thus it’s expected that the female of the species would OV E RV I E W O F T H E GA M E
The Mating Mind, Geoffrey Miller
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37 The Evolution of Desire, David M. Buss
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