

Under Threat, Women Bond, Men Withdraw - fizx
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=under-threat-women-bond

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LiveTheDream
The article doesn't suggest higher-level reasons why men withdraw, but my
guess would be because they tend to become more focused on a task, at the cost
of human interaction. Maybe this is a result of making hard choices in
leadership/hunting scenarios - if your hunting buddies are injured by a
sabretooth tiger, worrying about them is probably the worst possible short-
term reaction because then the sabretooth will get you, too. Kill the beast
first and then save your buddies, or everyone dies.

Losing some ability to empathize would help one make hard decisions that
benefit the group at the expense of the few. That could be a bad thing if
"benefitting the group" becomes crossed with an arbitrary goal, and "the few"
becomes "those not in power", but that's well beyond the scope of this topic.

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LiveTheDream
I wonder if actual anthropologists hate when unqualified people make wild
guesses like the one I just made above...can anyone answer?

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mkramlich
I'd argue that the act of making such guesses, ideally based on some education
and insight, are at the heart of science. A professional anthropologist may or
may not have any more education in the relevant areas, but I can imagine lots
of cases where they might not have as much insight or creativity or natural
genius as some particular non-anthropologist.

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fizx
I don't know how true the whole article is, but I definitely get anti-social
under stress. Worst part of being a startup founder, if you ask me.

