Male Models and Female Behavior

• Female Aggressiveness and Courtship by Mary Elizabeth Coggins, 5/23/98
  
  

The comparative (animal) literature on sexual behavior might provide you with some interesting clues. Over the past decade or so, observers have begun to "see" different things in female courting and mating behavior. The reason appears to be, at least in part, due to the influx of very talented female investigators. Its a fascinating chapter that is still being written.

Early workers, such as Frank Beach, wrote of female rats (for example) as being basically passive. I have no doubt that is what they saw. But they did not see everything.

The new crop of woman behavioral endocrinologists have found that the passive model of female behavior, even in laboratory rats, was fundamentally incorrect. Coyness, ear twitching, etc., initiated by the female, play an essential role in successful mating. Martha MacClintock (Chicago), Ray Silver (Columbia), Judith Stern (Rutgers), and Meredith West (Indiana) are four names that come to mind. There are many more. There is also the classic work of Dan Lehrman and his group at Rutgers on ring doves. Female displays in these birds serve not only to attract the male but also contribute to alterations in male physiology. The list goes on and on. A good behavioral endocrinology or even animal behavior text might give you some material to think about.

On the sociological side its truly fascinating how members of one sex (males in this case) can construct models that simply miss facts relevant to the other sex....even in rats! For a number of years we have, as a mixed sex group, been observing courtship, mating and aggression in wolves. These highly social animals have mating dances that contain a subtlety that certainly exceeds what we have yet seen. More to the point, different members of our team have alerted other members to previously unnoticed subtleties in the behavior of our individual animals. Observers of human behavior (such as you!) have a rich field of inquiry.

[Its not just that some people are better observers than others (true); its that some people are more sensitive to certain cues (and less sensitive to alternative cues) than others - some unknown combination of overall sensitivity and selective filtering. Fascinating!]

As I suspect you and many others who read this site know, there are active controversies in the philosophy of science with respect to questions of objectivity in scientific observation and theory building. One problem historically has been that if all observers are inclined (by nature or training) to look at the world in one way, then they see the world in that way...and that way only. They feel they are being objective (whatever that means) because they agree with one another. We all look through the same lens and get the same view. Surprise!

I am a fan of multiple lenses. Some of these become available through everyday observations, such as teenage porch behavior. I would encourage you to keep your eyes open to these everyday events as well as probing the literature. There is little doubt that the literature, improving as it might be, still focusses through selective lenses whose existence we are often only dimly aware of, if that.

The lens metaphor has at least two parts. First, how focussed is the lens on {"relevant") details - and how broad is the focus? Second, where is the lens pointing?

A fun thought: Video tape (e.g. porch) interactions. Have males and females of different ages, backgrounds, etc. describe these interactions...their form and meaning. Compare the data sets. [Probably tricky on the ethical side..might need movie clips or the hiring of actors to protect "actors".] If differences fall out by groupings (age, sex, occupation, etc.) this could be fascinating material.

I close with a short story about my first graduate student, some years ago. She was watching social behavior, including reproductive behavior, in a group of captive rhesus monkeys. She worked at a primate center with many visitors. As you might expect, these visitors asked her what she was doing and what she was finding out. This got boring for her, so she turned the tables. She asked the visitors what THEY saw. She then kept a diary of visitor sex, age, occupation - and linked that with responses. Short clip: Middle aged male business types (IBM exec. image) saw intrigue, cunning, deception, teamwork, etc. Younger female artist types saw supportive behavior, caring, gentleness. Same animals. Sometimes same period of observation. This was not a formal study, but the lesson seemed clear. At some level we do filter our worlds. Can't help it. Its not a conscious dishonesty, or at least need not be. Behavior is so rich in its flow patterns that we simply have to select was we focus upon. How we do this is still poorly understood, indeed rarely studied in explicit terms.

In my view this opens a whole area for future work. Evolutionary psychologists could lead the way. But they better be careful. If only evolutionary psychologists do this they are also likely to see the same thing! Better get some artists, philosophers, musicians, street people, IBM execs.,.....involved. There is your dissertation!

Hope you keep pursuing this.

Good luck, John

• Thank you! by Mary Elizabeth Coggins, 5/23/98