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HannahMR

So the idea here is that comparison is good for men... as in males specifically?

Please give me some evidence here.

nout 1y ago

I don't have a great soundbite evidence, but I can roll out the argument through indirect evidence:

- Hierarchy has direct effect on health (cardiovascular system, cortisone levels)

- Hierarchy can be effective way to divide goods and labor

- Male and female hierarchies are different - male are more strict structure (shown in mice and some studies on primates/humans)

- Social comparison has worse effects for women

- Countries pushing for gender equality resulted in more psychological differences between men and women.

This psychology journal explored hierarchy from different directions, but especially the effects on health:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/current-opinion-in-psychology/vol/33/suppl/C

The results (e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X19300946 ) show that the people on top of hierarchy end up being healthier, less stressed, etc. Fairly believable imo, matches my personal experience.

Further, hierarchy can be effective way to divide goods and labor (shown in

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5494206/#:~:text=Importantly%2C%20the%20organization%20of%20social,and%20labor%20among%20group%20members. with further evidence)

There is way more research in mice and monkeys, but not sure how much you believe that translates into humans, e.g. showing differences between male and female hierarchies: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43747-w#:~:text=Female%20mouse%20hierarchies%20exhibit%20several,directional%20consistency%20than%20male%20hierarchies.

Now to the point, this shows one example where social comparison is notably worse for women compared to men: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21642850.2024.2390939#references-Section

And just to highlight, if the countries/nations push more towards gender equality (in some dimension, like work), it actually ends up in causing larger psychological difference in personality, values, and emotions between men and women (as shown in https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-07951-011 ), which presumably would make the social comparison effects more pronounced.

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nout 1y ago

When I was "researching" this I tried my best to ask neutral questions, like "effects of social comparison on different gender", to make sure I don't just find the results that support my view.

HannahMR 1y ago

It's debatable if hierarchy is good for those at the top with primates, it can be very stressful to maintain that status. And certainly hierarchy is very bad for those at the bottom.

Also, humans are not chimpanzees... thankfully, and even more so, even Baboons are not doomed to hierarchy. here is an interesting case study.

https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/11/the-baboon-troop-that-mellowed-out-after-the-alpha-males-died-the-sapolsky-and-share-study.html

HannahMR 1y ago

Humans are not chimps, and human progress comes from cooperation, not from domination.

Here is a lovely article on the topic, https://freemansperspective.com/i-like-jordan-peterson-but-hes-wrong/

"The dominance strategies of animals generate animal results.

The cooperative strategies of humans generate human and humane results."

Where do you want humanity to go from here?

nout 1y ago

I agree with the push for cooperation & collaboration. We are on the same page there.

And on the note, Peterson, especially the recent version, is drunk on symbolism, saying stupid points with his "lecturing" voice and generally close to impossible to listen to. The initial lectures were really good though, made some good points that I have not heard before.

HannahMR 1y ago

Have you studied religion, or philosophy, or psychology? If you dig into any of these, they all point to comparison being the bringer of misery. And, unfortunately, given the state of most of the world in the past few thousand years, nearly all of that work was done by men(as in males).

nout 1y ago

I have not studied any of these.

If we were all ants dying for the glory of the ant queen, perhaps we would not feel misery and be eternally happy, but I'd rather be free with a small side dish of misery 😉