Evolution and Sex Differences in Political Engagement

Abstract

The sex differences in political interests and engagement are fascinating topics and Heck and colleagues (this issue) provide an interesting model as to how explicit and implicit social messages might contribute to these differences. There are clearly myriad social influences on human behavior and on many associated sex differences, but there are deeper, biological influences as well (Geary, 2021). The latter need to be considered in any thorough analysis of complex behavior, especially for behaviors directed toward the attainment of social influence and control of resources that likely influenced survival and reproductive prospects during the species’ evolutionary history. For highly-social, group-living species the associated social dynamics are politics and are not unique to humans. In the following, I first illustrate some of these dynamics in non-human primates to show that many aspects of human political behavior are not unique to our species. I then use this comparative (cross-species) and evolutionary approach to place human sex differences in political interests and engagement in this broader context. The approach here is not necessarily an alternative to the mechanisms proposed by Heck et al., but it does indicate that there is more to sex differences in political motivations and behaviors than they imply by their model.