Living Donors Online Message Board
Living Donation Discussion and News => Living Donation in the News => Topic started by: Clark on November 17, 2016, 08:06:48 PM
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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/altruistic-people-have-more-sexual-partners/
Altruistic People Have More Sexual Partners
We are drawn to those who do good deeds
… Do nice guys truly finish last?
One area of research which seems to contrast this notion is the study of altruism as a sexual signal. Altruism involves behaving in ways that benefit another individual at some cost to one’s own fitness. Recently, converging evidence (http://www.professormarkvanvugt.com/publications/articles/21-evolution-and-cooperation/125-the-evolutionary-psychology-of-human-prosociality-adaptations,-byproduct,-and-mistakes.html) has suggested that altruism may play an important role in mate selection, thus highlighting a potentially important avenue along which good deeds done toward unrelated individuals (exemplified today by acts like donating blood or helping to push a stranger’s car out of the snow) may have evolved.
This theory suggests that altruism may serve, in part, to convey one’s value as a mating partner, including one’s concern for others and likelihood of cooperating with future mates. Research has shown that we prefer altruistic partners (http://evp.sagepub.com/content/5/2/147470490700500205.short), all else being equal; especially for long-term mating (the evidence for altruism being preferred in short-term mates is mixed). Not surprisingly, then, the pull to demonstrate one’s altruism can be strong.
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Indeed, one of us has a female friend who would explicitly screen potential boyfriends based on whether they had donated blood: Others, it seems, may doing the same.
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When can I expect this to kick in? It has been almost 15 years since I donated a kidney, and I'll be 71 next month.
Fr. Pat