Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Human Emotions

Human emotions. There are differences--but is it man/woman differences or is it individual differences? In relationships, it SEEMS that men cah have an intimate relationship & walk away with no remorse. Women, on the other hand, seem to get more emotionally involved. What makes these differences?

It seems to me that some men get want the sex for pleasure like a sport and most women's minds want the emotional connection more. I heard that men are programed for breeding and women are programed for the nest builders. When you think of the way back when.. men where hunters/gathers and women stayed home and kept the fire burning and took care of the cleaning, cooking, sewing and taking care of the kids. Some where way back the brains were programed for those roles and now with out the need to hunt and gather and women having to help with the house hold incomes.. the roles have slowly been changing and so has the mind set.

A wishy-washy answer: it's a combination of both.

I think men are more likely to develop long-term, meaningful relationships when they have to put a lot of effort into it.

When mothers tell their daughters not to "give it up" easily, it's age-old wisdom. Men need to develop that connection with a woman in order to stay with her, and just having sex won't do it (for most).

So a woman feels more emotionally involved with more deep feelings & a man has more "want/needs" emotions?

I don't know, Beth. All I was saying is that a sex act does not tie a man emotionally the way it seems to tie a woman.

Deep feelings, for men, take longer to develop than for women, I think. Sex CAN have strong emotional meaning to men, but it's certainly not necessary.

Beth: The difference between the emotions experienced by males and females are regulated by hormones. And the levels of these hormones, for the most part, are different depending upon gender.

The implications for a male involved in sex is that he has done his biological duty in a matter of seconds (something quite a few women complain about I might add). For a woman it is the beginning of a commitment that even in primitive societies lasted roughly 14 years.

The emotions are designed to further the biological imperative: Nothing more.

A human can make a conscious choice to not engage in instinctive behavior. For example I didn't kill the numbskull that cut me off in traffic this morning. But that doesn't change the fact that he deserved to be fed to a giant squid.

A quote i remember from a tv report on the difference between men and women sex atitudes, went some thing like this. (this quote was about all animals, not just humans)

"a woman is program (on a deep subconcious or perhaps biological) level) to look for the best mate. a man is program to look for the most mates."

While there is some truth to what dehammer wrote the biological imperative is to do that which, however poorly, will produce the largest number of viable copies of one's DNA in future generations.

Ah! Reproduction. But how about in later years?

Later years don't figure into evolution. Evolution is about surviving to sexual maturity, attracting a mate or mates, reproducing and successfully raising offspring, period.

Beth asks:
"Ah! Reproduction. But how about in later years?"

From a biological standpoint we are expendable as soon as you no longer can reproduce. And if one looks at the vast majority of human history, with life expectancies in the 30s - 40s, that is precisely what happened.

Were it not for modern medicine in the last couple of hundred years ... that would still be the case for the vast majority of those born.