Human Self-Domestication by Intersexual Selection: Female Social Status and Stature Sexual Dimorphism
Date
2016
Authors
Gleeson, Ben Thomas
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Abstract
This research examines one of the three primary mechanisms
currently proposed to explain apparent self-domestication in Homo
sapiens—that is, intersexual selection against reactive
aggression. My central hypothesis is that human
self-domestication has been, at least in part, caused by
context-dependent female preferences for less-aggressive males.
Following from this, I expect that societies where women have
both higher social status and secure access to nutritional
resources will tend to show relatively elevated signs of human
self-domestication—as indicated by lower stature sexual
dimorphism. In essence, I predict an interaction between female
status and food security in shaping stature sexual dimorphism.
To facilitate a cross-cultural test of my functional hypothesis,
I collected male and female stature data for 92 of the 186
societies in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. These data
allowed for a multivariate-regression, multimodel-inference
analysis of the relationship between stature sexual dimorphism,
and female social status and food security. Controlling for
confounding factors such as shared cultural ancestry and mean
body size, the analysis revealed strong evidence for the
hypothesized interaction between the two predictors of interest
in shaping the outcome variable.
Overall, this study expands upon the findings of several previous
investigations into human stature sexual dimorphism, whilst
contradicting some others and providing directions for further
investigation. The principle conclusion of this work is that
context-dependent female mate choices significantly contribute to
a lessening of stature sexual dimorphism and, therefore, are
likely to have played an important role in the self-domestication
of our species.
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Human Self-domestication, Female Social Status, Stature Sexual Dimorphism, Human Evolution
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Thesis (Masters sub-thesis)
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