Long, long ago (I was in 6th grade) I went to a YMCA dance with some friends. Kids from all over my home town went and most of us tended to hang out with the kids from our own schools.

I still remember one boy I didn’t know who wanted to dance with Linda Greenstreet. Phil Llewellyn was dancing with her. This other boy pushed Phil (who was a big, strong but gentle lad) away from Linda. He didn’t ask if he could cut in, he pushed Phil hard then put his fists up.

Naturally, all of Phil’s friends circled this intruder. Linda and a bunch of the other girls from my school huddled together and talked (no idea what they said). Linda said out loud that it was okay, she’d dance with this newcomer.

His dance, more than anything else, is what causes me to remember this incident. Even in 8th grade I recognized it as a territorial display. I didn’t know the term but knew the dance — a large step with hands up not quite in fists, a facial grimace with eyes wide open and watching all the other males in our group, and an almost perfect square with Linda essentially dancing by herself at its center — was a demonstration of male dominance and possession. Years later, remembering his steps and posture, I was saddened to think of what his family life must have been like.

In any case, after that dance was over the girls from my school and several others mysteriously disappeared. I did find out that while Linda danced the other girls called parents to come get them.

This one fellow through his efforts alone closed the dance down.

Interestingly enough, research now has social models of the hyperaggressive male and sure enough, one overly aggressive male zeroes out the dating possibilities for all of us. Females avoid all males, not just the hyperaggressive one, because they know the most likely outcome of such encounters is that everyone gets harmed.

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How much time do you spend listening to the other half of the species Homo? Let me ask this a bit differently…Guys, how much time do you spend listening to, paying attention to, women talking to themselves, to each other, to other males and to you? Ladies, … well I don’t need to ask this question because studies show that women pay a lot more attention to male chatter than the reverse.

This is not surprising for so many reasons, many cultural, many anthropological, many evolutionary and all of them survival based.

And those reasons are pretty much the same reasons men (generally speaking) don’t spend a lot of time listening to women.
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Research going back to 2003 indicates that women are attracted to men based on the size of their…
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If you’ve following my last few posts you know I’ve been studying how sounds affect people. This is known as psychophysics and more directly, psycho-acoustics. It’s fascinating stuff.

For example, did you know that the parts of the brain that respond to music are involved in the response mechanisms to addictive substances and behaviors? The evidence for this comes from various brain-scanning technologies (PET, fMRI, etc) and targeted drug therapies.

And it gets a little better, too. Not only abuse drugs, but it seems these neuronal circuits also are involved in our enjoyment of food and sex.

Food, sex, music and drugs.

Reminds me of Yasgur’s Farm.

Seriously, there’s a reason responses to food, sex, abuse drugs and music all occur in similar brain areas.
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I’ve written a few times (see links at the end of this post) about how sound affects relationships, specifically the sounds are partners and possible partners make and how our conscious and non-conscious responses to those sounds make and break relationships.

The latest piece of research I’ll share is (to me) a logical outcome of what we’ve studied previously; partners who sing together — what’s called duetting — tend to have stronger relationships than partners who only talk to each other.

Remember, talking is extremely important. It’s just that couples who duet — not professionally, not in front of audiences, simply when they’re together and it doesn’t matter if it’s in private or public — tend to bond at much deeper levels than their less vocal peers.

The reason duetting adds to relationship bonds is because (as noted previously) it engages different parts of the brain, more primitive parts of the brain (from an evolutionary perspective, that is).
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There is, sorry to share, some truth to the dictum that short males don’t get as many dates as their taller peers. I’m reminded of the MASH episode in which Radar buys lifts for his shoes so he’ll be more appealing to the women of the 4077th. And while I do not know any males who’ve had themselves surgically enhanced heightwise, I do know such methods exist.

So, is it a truism that women prefer taller men?

It is from an evolutionary standpoint. It goes back to something I often mention in my marketing classes and trainings; size equals power. In the evolutionary sense, a tall male regardless of any other morphological tendencies must be more powerful — hence a better provider, protector, etc. — than a shorter male with the same morphological tendencies.

And there have been numerous studies demonstrating that taller males do better academically, socially, healthwise and economically.

But the question is…
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Male friends in college were often envious of my abilities with the womens. It was not uncommon to hear comments such as “How do you rate?”, “I knew you’d know her” and some less respectable phrases.

Even after Susan and I got together women had no problem sharing their intimacies with me, the secrets they’d normally only share with other women, seeking me out for this or that. Fortunately I’m amazingly dense and Susan usually has to let me know when girltalk becomes flirting (too much of an anthropologist, me).

What makes me so attractive to women?

In a word, I’m average.
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Do you ever wish someone would just listen to you? That you could find someone who could understand not just the words but the emotions behind them?

Well, it turns out that’s very easy to do. First, find a musician. If not a musician, someone who’s had a great deal of music in their life. From an early age. The earlier the better, in fact.

At least that’s what researchers at Northwestern University are saying. Or singing.

Studies show that people with musical backgrounds from an early point in their lives are wired differently than those without that musical background. Especially those who played music or sang, not just passively listened.

People — both males and females and regardless of culture — with music in their blood are much better at detecting and responding to the subtleties in our voices that indicate stress, anxiety, worry, doubt, fear…hopefully we don’t need musical training to recognize and respond to positive emotions in someone’s voice.

This auditory advantage takes another form with some of us; if we had lots of sounds in our childhood we can decode the sounds of speech better and faster than those of us who came from quiet families.
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Are you happy? Do you have a positive outlook on life? Is the glass usually half full when you take a drink?

If so, there’s a better than even chance you’re from Latin American countries, possibly the US and could have northern Mediterranean ancestry. Not so happy? Chances are your from Asia or the Pacific Rim countries.

What…did you think I was going to suggest you blame your parents for your outlook on life? Maybe in another column, but this time out we’re going to look at how ethnic origins — ancestry, what part of the globe your family comes from — often pre-determines how you’ll deal with life’s situations big and small.

According to a now long standing study involving five dominant ethnic groups, ethnic origins play a significant role in how people view their world. These results don’t surprise me and I’m sure they don’t surprise anyone with a cultural anthropology background.

But why is one culture happier than another?
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Do you have a little voice inside your head that warns you about things you’re about to do? Maybe it goes beyond warning you, perhaps it out and out chides you or even yells so loudly it stops you dead in your tracks?

Congratulations, you’ve been in touch with what people studying learning models call your critic (not a surprising name considering what it does, is it?).

Do you have a little voice inside your head that makes suggestions on how to get the most out of whatever you’re about to do? Maybe it goes beyond suggestions, maybe it reminds you of what worked and what didn’t in the past? Maybe it demands this path be followed over that path?

Congratulations again, now you’re talking with your actor.

Want to learn how to confuse them or even shut them up completely?
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