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provided by MIT OpenCourseWare

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under a Creative
Commons license.

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Additional information
about our license and MIT

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OpenCourseWare in general is
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PROFESSOR: There's no
new handout today.

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We're working off
the old handout.

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If you don't have the old
handout you'll probably

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survive without it.
 

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The last thing to say before I
say something is that between

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this morning and this afternoon
I changed the end

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of the lecture.
 

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I decided I had a new idea and
we will discover whether it

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turns out to be a new idea when
I hear it coming

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out of my mouth.
 

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But if it slightly confuses the
handout I'm sorry, it's the

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product of actual thought.
 

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All right, it is my belief,
somebody remind me if I'm wrong

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that we had gotten to the
incidence part of this story

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about coercive sexual behavior
and we had not gotten

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to the etyology part.
 

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Does that sound about
right to people?

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Yep, OK.
 

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Let me see then.
 

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What I want to do is to talk
about some risk factors then

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and rather like the eating
disorders story, risk

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factors are risk factors.
 

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They're not by
themselves causative.

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And again, most of this is
coming off of survey data.

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So for example, one of the
things that turns out to be a

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risk factor for some sort of
coercive relations taking

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place is who pays for dinner.
 

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And this is not because guys
who pay for dinner are rapists,

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it's because some small
fraction of folks who pay for

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dinner somehow think they paid
for something else perhaps.

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It's not clear what the actual
causality is, but if you go and

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take some giant body of data
and you ask, what's correlated

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with something that looks like
date rape as the end product?

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One of the correlated factors
turns out to be things

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like, who pays?
 

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A similarly, not terribly
powerful correlation is found

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with whose car it is or whose
room it is or things like--

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these are issues of control.
 

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That it's more likely that
again, as sort of a weak

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correlative bit of data, his
car is more dangerous than

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her car from that point.
 

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Does it mean that everybody
with a car is a rapist?

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No of coure not, doesn't
mean anything of the sort.

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But there's a
correlation there.

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These are smallish effects.
 

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If you want a big
effect go for alcohol.

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If you read this literature--
this somewhat depressing

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literature-- but if you read
this literature you find that

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at least a majority of cases
reported seemed to involve

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consumption of alcohol.
 

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Generally, fairly large
amounts of alcohol.

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In several of the studies it's
anywhere between 50% and

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75% of cases involve
consumption of alcohol.

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This is alarming if it's taken
along with the rise in binge

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drinking on college campuses.
 

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That's something that's risen
over the last twenty years and

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if you assume that a big risk
factor for coercive sexual

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relations is alcohol it's not
going to be a good thing if

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there's a lot of binge
drinking around.

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Some of this appears to be, in
a sense, deliberate where some

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guys pressure some women
to drink too much in the

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interests of promoting sexual
activity of some variety.

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But mostly, this is a case
of what Floyd Alexander--

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is it Floyd or Lloyd?
 

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I can't remember.
 

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It says on the handout, right?
 

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AUDIENCE: Floyd.
 

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PROFESSOR: Floyd.
 

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Where'd he go?
 

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Franz.
 

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Well, it's neither
Floyd nor Lloyd.

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No, Lloyd Alexander--
that's a lovely blend.

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Lloyd Alexander is an author of
young adult fantasy novels,

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which some of you
may have read.

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Franz Alexander is the
American Freudian.

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So if you put Franz and Lloyd
together apparently you get

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Floyd Alexander, who's nobody.
 

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But Franz Alexander, this early
American Freudian, had the

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felicitous line that the
superego is soluble in alcohol.

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We might be more inclined today
to look at the neuroimaging

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data that says "Oh look, here's
this chunk of the frontal lobe.

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It seems to monitor errors.
 

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Oh look, here's this chunk of
the frontal lobe on alcohol.

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Wow, it's really suppressed."
Alcohol has an inhibitory

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effect on the nervous system.
 

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It has a particularly strong
inhibitory effect on the chunk

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of the brain that, to the best
of our knowledge, is there for

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doing things like
error monitoring.

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If your error monitoring
device is off all sorts

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of stupid things happen.
 

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If you're error monitoring is
off in the context of sexual

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activity all sorts of stupid
sexual activity sorts

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of things happen.
 

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That looks to be the most
likely path for the

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effects of alcohol.
 

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It's simply makes people
do stupid things.

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Both the man and the woman.
 

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It's an equal opportunity
stupidifier.

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While it is an equal
opportunity stupidifier,

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suppose that she subsequently
thinks or-- well, let's suppose

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this ends up in court.
 

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She charges him with date rape
in some fashion or other.

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If everybody's drunk,
what's the chance that

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there's a conviction?
 

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Grr, That's about right.
 

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You don't end up getting a
conviction typically if there's

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a lot of alcohol involved and
if everybody's drunk, blame

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tends to migrate to the woman
in these sorts of cases.

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I'm not arguing that that is
the right thing or anything,

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it's just an interesting
factoid about responsibility.

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It turns out, at least in legal
settings, to be very difficult

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to get a conviction for any of
this if everybody is

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apparently drunk.
 

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These days in a dubious sort of
progress we can improve on

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alcohol with so called
date rape drugs.

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I put the name of the date rape
drug, I mean, one gets sort of

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labeled that on the handout.
 

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But there's a whole class
of these out there.

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The one on the handout in
particular is part of a family

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of tranquilizers that are
like Valium, basically.

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Their effects are to produce
disinhibition, relaxation of

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voluntary muscles,
and great amnesia.

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They produce an
anterograde amnesia.

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Review time.
 

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Anterograde amnesia-- that's
amnesia from after the

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point of the insult.
 

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So in this case, getting hit
over the head is taking the

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drug so you have an amnesia
for events subsequent

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to taking the drug.
 

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So you're disinhibited,
stuff happens, and

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you don't remember.
 

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Here there are repeated reports
of cases of drinks being spiked

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with drugs and things
of that sort.

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So there is more of a sense
that these may be being used in

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a deliberate sort of a sense.
 

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The alcohol by the way,
potentially aids the effects of

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these sort of tranquilizers.
 

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So a mixture of alcohol and one
of these drugs is a really

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potent way to end up doing
things that you don't have any

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intention of doing and would
not to do were all of your

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neurons functioning in a
halfway reasonable fashion.

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Let's see.
 

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Other risk factors that
I put on the handout.

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What do you do with time a
is a risk factor for time

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b it says on the handout.
 

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That just says what your
nervous aunt used to say

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or something like that.
 

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If you're holding hands with
somebody the next thing you

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know you're hugging them.
 

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And if you're hugging them the
next thing you know-- so each

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progressive act increases the
likelihood of the next act.

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Again, that's just the sort of
thing that you're going to

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pull out of correlative data.
 

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The other biggie in risk
factors is miscommunication.

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Did anybody talk to
anybody in the process

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of this interaction?
 

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Just as you get in report after
report you get reports of

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alcohol use, you also hear a
recurring litany-- she said,

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he said sorts of reports.
 

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She thought she said this,
he thought he heard that.

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So there's some variety of
miscommunication there.

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This raises the
issue of consent.

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That the notion is-- the
foundational notion is that you

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want all sexual relations to be
consenual in some fashion.

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Most people will sign onto
that notion in a pretty

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straightforward kind of manner.
 

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But exactly what consent
means is rather difficult

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to make concrete.
 

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If you're in a laboratory
situation consent is

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spectacularly concrete.
 

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You have to fill out forms.
 

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But nobody fills out forms
in sexual relations.

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Every now and then you get some
well- meaning-- Antioch College

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had a behavior code that boiled
down to a consent form for

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interpersonal relations.
 

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But nobody really runs
their life that way.

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Hi, I think our relationship
has gotten to a certain point,

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would you please sign the
following sixteen page form?

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It doesn't quite ring true.
 

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Though in fact, it might be a
marvel-- most of these efforts

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sound a little like softcore
porn for the academic class.

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You know, long, written out
forms that describe in

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detail, who's going to
do what to whose body?

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It might be a kind of an
interesting exercise, but

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suffice it to say that
communication in intimate

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relationships doesn't
look like that.

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And the possibilities are ripe
for miscommunication and when

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you ask in survey data about
relationships that became

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coercive in some fashion, what
you find out is that there

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often seems to be a core
chunk of miscommunication.

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So this gives us some sort
of an epidemiological

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look at the problem.
 

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It doesn't have any
explanatory power in itself.

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It just says that look,
there are these things

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that are risk factors.
 

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It's more likely that if you're
drunk in the back of his car

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that something's
going to happen.

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How can we understand this
from a more theoretical

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point of view?
 

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Well, that's why it says
theories on the handout, I see.

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Again, one of the reasons we're
talking about this is that

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gives me a lovely chance to go
back and review the

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entire course.
 

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The theories run the usual run
that you should be extremely

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familiar with at this point.
 

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Well, since we're in the chunk
of course on abnormal

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psychology there are
psychopathological theories

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that say that the guys who end
up accused of date

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rape are sick.
 

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That they are mentally
ill in some fashion.

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That is not a bad theory for
what's known as blitz rape.

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For the stranger in the
bushes kind of rape.

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Those guys, and again, it's
overwhelmingly males who commit

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stranger-- well, blitz rape is
the term for some stranger

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grabs a person and rapes them.
 

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Those guys, those rapists when
they are studied don't look

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psychologically normal,
typically, as a population.

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They look deviant.
 

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However, there's nothing in
these date rape population

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that looks like that.
 

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The standard description in a
court case, I think I mentioned

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is, oh, just a regular guy.
 

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Just the guy next door and that
really seems to be the case.

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There's some evidence for
instance, that they might drink

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more than the population as
a whole, but that's not

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telling you very much.
 

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So if it's not an individual
pathology there are a class of

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theories out there that suggest
that it's a gender pathology.

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That it's a problem
of guys in general.

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The name, at least that I most
closely associate with this is,

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Thornhill or Thornhill and
Thornhill since there appear to

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be two of them from the
reference on the handout.

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I think only one of them
wrote the book, two of

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them wrote the article.
 

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There's an MIT Press book that
made quite a bit of a stir in

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the media-- oh, must be five
years ago now or so-- that

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addressed the argument, the
evolutionary psych argument

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that rape is adaptive.
 

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Again, to explain
is not to condone.

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This is not that Thornhill
was busy saying it's

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adaptive, so it's good.
 

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They're saying that it's got an
evolutionary, adaptive function

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to it and it doesn't take a
genius to figure this out if

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you were following the
earlier arguments.

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If a male's goal is well, let's
go propagate our genes-- and

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because he doesn't get pregnant
and she does there's

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this asymmetry.
 

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She wants somebody who's
going to have commitment

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to the whole project.
 

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He just wants to impregnate
women and get those genes

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into the next generation.
 

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Taken to the extreme, somebody
who goes out and just forcibly

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goes and impregnates people has
a chance of getting more of

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their genes into the next
generation and maybe

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that's adaptive.
 

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One can argue that there is no
specific adaptation toward

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sexual violence, but that it is
the combination of a general--

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males are on average, more
aggressive than females.

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There's lots of data for this.
 

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At the start of the women's
movement there was a fairly

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strenuous effort to argue that
the differences in aggression

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between males and females were
all just driven by culture.

282
00:17:22 --> 00:17:26
That little boys were trained
to be soldiers and little girls

283
00:17:26 --> 00:17:29
were trained-- they were
playing with the dolls and the

284
00:17:29 --> 00:17:35
guys were playing with the guns
and so in the 70s, 80s that

285
00:17:35 --> 00:17:39
thing you did if you were a
parent of feminist sort of

286
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42
inclinations is you made sure
that your little girl had guns

287
00:17:42 --> 00:17:46
and your little boy had dolls
and the experience over the

288
00:17:46 --> 00:17:52
course of, I suppose, the
generation or so now is that if

289
00:17:52 --> 00:17:55
you're a little boy you can
make a gun out of Barbie too,

290
00:17:55 --> 00:17:58
if you hold her just right she
looks like a submachine gun.

291
00:17:58 --> 00:18:05
 
 

292
00:18:05 --> 00:18:09
To recapitulate a large
literature in a line or so

293
00:18:09 --> 00:18:17
there is plenty of evidence at
this point that human males are

294
00:18:17 --> 00:18:21
bigger and more aggressive
than human females.

295
00:18:21 --> 00:18:24
Not true across the
entire animal kingdom.

296
00:18:24 --> 00:18:29
I don't think I've told
you about the octopus.

297
00:18:29 --> 00:18:34
The greatest case of sexual
asymmetry in the animal kingdom

298
00:18:34 --> 00:18:40
as far as I know is some
seagoing octopus that I think

299
00:18:40 --> 00:18:43
was actually only discovered as
a species within the

300
00:18:43 --> 00:18:44
last decade or so.
 

301
00:18:44 --> 00:18:54
But this is an octopus where
the male is small enough that

302
00:18:54 --> 00:18:58
he could fit into her eye.
 

303
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01
So this is an
asymmetrical species.

304
00:19:01 --> 00:19:05
 
 

305
00:19:05 --> 00:19:13
It's not clear-- and his goal
in life-- he's a little

306
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15
octopus harpoon.
 

307
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18
And his goal in life is to
impregnate one of these

308
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20
gigantic [UNINTELLIGIBLE]
 

309
00:19:20 --> 00:19:22
octopuses swimming around.
 

310
00:19:22 --> 00:19:25
It's abundantly unclear
that she knows what's

311
00:19:25 --> 00:19:27
happened at all, right?
 

312
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30
[UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE]
 

313
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33
Oh look, we've got
babies or something.

314
00:19:33 --> 00:19:33
I don't know.
 

315
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35
Do octopus bear
live young or not?

316
00:19:35 --> 00:19:36
I don't remember.
 

317
00:19:36 --> 00:19:43
Anyway, very dramatic asymmetry
running the other direction.

318
00:19:43 --> 00:19:50
 
 

319
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52
There are plenty of species
where the female is the more

320
00:19:52 --> 00:19:55
aggressive species-- did
I tell you about spiders?

321
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58
Yeah, I told you about spiders.
 

322
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00
Praying mantises are good too.
 

323
00:20:00 --> 00:20:03
 
 

324
00:20:03 --> 00:20:08
Praying mantis sexual relations
apparently involve her biting

325
00:20:08 --> 00:20:13
off his head, which apparently
doesn't impair his functions

326
00:20:13 --> 00:20:15
as a mate at all.
 

327
00:20:15 --> 00:20:19
One of the great advantages of
a distributed nervous system,

328
00:20:19 --> 00:20:23
the head is overrated in
praying mantises apparently.

329
00:20:23 --> 00:20:30
Everything is out there, but
in humans it's clear that

330
00:20:30 --> 00:20:32
males are more aggressive.
 

331
00:20:32 --> 00:20:36
Between being more aggressive
and being inclined to have more

332
00:20:36 --> 00:20:41
sexual partners again, probably
because of evolutionary forces.

333
00:20:41 --> 00:20:46
You could imagine that rather
than having sexual aggression

334
00:20:46 --> 00:20:52
as a specific adaptation it
ends up being sort of a

335
00:20:52 --> 00:20:57
byproduct of other
facts that occur.

336
00:20:57 --> 00:21:00
 
 

337
00:21:00 --> 00:21:07
The notion that rape is sort of
a male pathology, a gender wide

338
00:21:07 --> 00:21:11
pathology doesn't only show up
in biological theories it also

339
00:21:11 --> 00:21:15
shows up in very sociological
theories of sexual behavior.

340
00:21:15 --> 00:21:20
Notably, in feminist theories.
 

341
00:21:20 --> 00:21:25
One version of these would be
the theory that-- this I'm

342
00:21:25 --> 00:21:29
borrowing from a book
by [? Sandais ?]

343
00:21:29 --> 00:21:32
that rape is the means by
which men are programmed

344
00:21:32 --> 00:21:32
for violence.
 

345
00:21:32 --> 00:21:36
A way to induct younger
men into masculine roles.

346
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38
That it's somehow a
training ground.

347
00:21:38 --> 00:21:44
She argues that in cultures
where everybody sort of lives

348
00:21:44 --> 00:21:49
at harmony with nature and the
mother child bond is sacred and

349
00:21:49 --> 00:21:52
things like that, that
this doesn't happen.

350
00:21:52 --> 00:21:57
That rape happens in cultures
where you need guys to go out

351
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59
and deal with the
dangerous world.

352
00:21:59 --> 00:22:04
They gotta go out and do in
the bears and the lions or

353
00:22:04 --> 00:22:07
something and that rape is
in some sense, a training

354
00:22:07 --> 00:22:09
ground for that.
 

355
00:22:09 --> 00:22:14
It's an odd theory on two
grounds actually, this one.

356
00:22:14 --> 00:22:18
One reason is it's desperately
unclear that there are any of

357
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20
these lovely pastoral
societies out there.

358
00:22:20 --> 00:22:24
We used to think people like
Margaret Mead had told us that

359
00:22:24 --> 00:22:27
down in the South Seas there
were-- in Samoa-- there were

360
00:22:27 --> 00:22:33
people without sexual hang-ups,
everybody got along marvelously

361
00:22:33 --> 00:22:37
and it was all lovely.
 

362
00:22:37 --> 00:22:39
The data don't look so good
when you go back and look.

363
00:22:39 --> 00:22:42
Subsequently, she saw a little
bit of what she wanted to see

364
00:22:42 --> 00:22:48
and if you go and look at--
when you go and look at these

365
00:22:48 --> 00:22:51
nice simple cultures-- you get
these reports from time to time

366
00:22:51 --> 00:22:54
of hunter-gatherer cultures
that live in harmony with

367
00:22:54 --> 00:22:55
nature and stuff like that.
 

368
00:22:55 --> 00:22:57
When you actually go look at it
it turns out they murder and

369
00:22:57 --> 00:22:59
rape each other at exactly the
sort of rates that we murder

370
00:22:59 --> 00:23:02
and rape each other.
 

371
00:23:02 --> 00:23:07
There is no Garden of Eden out
there, at least not anymore

372
00:23:07 --> 00:23:10
where everybody's living
in beautiful harmony.

373
00:23:10 --> 00:23:13
 
 

374
00:23:13 --> 00:23:18
Another problem with the theory
that it's got a general role is

375
00:23:18 --> 00:23:23
that the culture as a whole, at
least explicitly, says

376
00:23:23 --> 00:23:26
that rape is illegal and
says that rape is bad.

377
00:23:26 --> 00:23:32
That makes it hard to argue
that the entire male gender is

378
00:23:32 --> 00:23:36
in on some plan to use this as
a training ground for going out

379
00:23:36 --> 00:23:38
and killing the bears or
something of that sort.

380
00:23:38 --> 00:23:42
A much more interesting, it
seems to me, feminist account

381
00:23:42 --> 00:23:48
of what's going on is that
rape is a giant protection

382
00:23:48 --> 00:23:50
racket run by males.
 

383
00:23:50 --> 00:23:53
 
 

384
00:23:53 --> 00:23:58
If you read feminist tracts on
this I think they write as

385
00:23:58 --> 00:24:03
though there's some group of
guys sitting around somehow

386
00:24:03 --> 00:24:07
deciding explicitly that
this is the way things are.

387
00:24:07 --> 00:24:10
But the theory makes more sense
if you think of it implicitly.

388
00:24:10 --> 00:24:14
Rather like if you think
about it in terms of

389
00:24:14 --> 00:24:15
the cuckoo story.
 

390
00:24:15 --> 00:24:15
Remember cuckoos?
 

391
00:24:15 --> 00:24:19
Cuckoos are going and
cheating and laying eggs

392
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21
in other bird's nests.
 

393
00:24:21 --> 00:24:24
But you can't have
too many cuckoos.

394
00:24:24 --> 00:24:28
The argument runs-- because
if you have too many cuckoos

395
00:24:28 --> 00:24:30
everybody dies, right?
 

396
00:24:30 --> 00:24:33
The argument runs in a similar
kind of way in this argument.

397
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36
 
 

398
00:24:36 --> 00:24:40
You can't have all
males being rapists.

399
00:24:40 --> 00:24:45
That just isn't a recipe
for civilization.

400
00:24:45 --> 00:24:54
But if the society condones or
spits up or creates a cadre of

401
00:24:54 --> 00:25:00
rapists then the rest of the
guys can take on the role of

402
00:25:00 --> 00:25:05
protecting women from
those bad guys.

403
00:25:05 --> 00:25:09
The argument is that rape is
condoned in the society,

404
00:25:09 --> 00:25:12
perhaps implicitly
rather than explicitly.

405
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14
I've got a useful,
normal curve here.

406
00:25:14 --> 00:25:20
You know, we'll have a few guys
out here who are bad and we,

407
00:25:20 --> 00:25:23
the rest of us, us good guys
can now protect women

408
00:25:23 --> 00:25:25
from those bad guys.
 

409
00:25:25 --> 00:25:26
Well, what's that
going to mean?

410
00:25:26 --> 00:25:29
Well, it might mean gee,
you shouldn't go out

411
00:25:29 --> 00:25:31
much, for instance.
 

412
00:25:31 --> 00:25:33
You know, you should
stay at home.

413
00:25:33 --> 00:25:38
 
 

414
00:25:38 --> 00:25:42
Or you should not be seen by
men, you should not wear this,

415
00:25:42 --> 00:25:43
you should not do this.
 

416
00:25:43 --> 00:25:49
In any case, feminist argument
argues that it can be a tool of

417
00:25:49 --> 00:25:56
control over women even if you
only have a very small minority

418
00:25:56 --> 00:26:02
of males engaging
in the activity.

419
00:26:02 --> 00:26:08
That strikes me as actually
a fairly clever argument.

420
00:26:08 --> 00:26:15
I don't know if it's true, but
it's an interesting argument.

421
00:26:15 --> 00:26:23
The feminist arguments often
point towards pornography as a

422
00:26:23 --> 00:26:31
culprit here, as a training
ground in the sense that if you

423
00:26:31 --> 00:26:38
took the earlier notion that
the mind gets to pick its

424
00:26:38 --> 00:26:41
abnormality-- gets to pick how
to go insane if you like, from

425
00:26:41 --> 00:26:46
the menu that's provided
by the broader culture.

426
00:26:46 --> 00:26:49
So currently, if you want to
have a dissociative disorder

427
00:26:49 --> 00:26:52
the way to have it is a
multiple personality disorder.

428
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54
Couple hundred years ago
it might have been to be

429
00:26:54 --> 00:26:56
possessed by a demon.
 

430
00:26:56 --> 00:26:59
These are the scripts if you
like provided by the culture.

431
00:26:59 --> 00:27:03
Feminist writers argue that
pornography and notably,

432
00:27:03 --> 00:27:09
violent pornography provides
the script for coercive sex.

433
00:27:09 --> 00:27:12
 
 

434
00:27:12 --> 00:27:15
A number of feminist legal
scholars have worked hard--

435
00:27:15 --> 00:27:18
Catherine MacKinnon is the most
famous name here-- have worked

436
00:27:18 --> 00:27:23
hard to make at least some
classes of pornography illegal

437
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26
on grounds that they are
actually dangerous to women.

438
00:27:26 --> 00:27:32
That it's not a free speech
issue, that it's really a

439
00:27:32 --> 00:27:37
health and safety
sort of issue.

440
00:27:37 --> 00:27:44
So you've got levels of
explanation that occur at

441
00:27:44 --> 00:27:50
psychological, biological,
sociological levels.

442
00:27:50 --> 00:28:00
Well, let me give you a version
that's perhaps a version that

443
00:28:00 --> 00:28:03
would fit the general ethos of
this course, which is that the

444
00:28:03 --> 00:28:06
answer is never-- it's all
biology or it's all sociology

445
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08
or something like that.
 

446
00:28:08 --> 00:28:12
It's some curious interaction
that's taking place.

447
00:28:12 --> 00:28:14
Well, what's going on here?
 

448
00:28:14 --> 00:28:20
What occurred to me between
this morning's version of this

449
00:28:20 --> 00:28:24
lecture and concourse and this
afternoon's is that the job may

450
00:28:24 --> 00:28:32
be less to explain coercive
sexual relations, which you can

451
00:28:32 --> 00:28:37
see as-- like everything else,
sexual relations are going to

452
00:28:37 --> 00:28:40
be distributed along
some normal curve.

453
00:28:40 --> 00:28:42
It's going to have multiple
dimensions but this one could

454
00:28:42 --> 00:28:47
be on a scale from extremely
consenual to extremely

455
00:28:47 --> 00:28:49
not consenual.
 

456
00:28:49 --> 00:28:53
I suppose the extremely
consenual abnormality one is

457
00:28:53 --> 00:28:56
the one where people really do
sign forms or something like

458
00:28:56 --> 00:29:00
that and talk to each other in
great detail about what's

459
00:29:00 --> 00:29:01
going to happen next.
 

460
00:29:01 --> 00:29:08
But the job may be not just to
explain or to explain this the

461
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11
extreme point on what's after
all going to be a normal

462
00:29:11 --> 00:29:16
function, but to explain how
the overall behavior gets

463
00:29:16 --> 00:29:18
put in place all together.
 

464
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21
 
 

465
00:29:21 --> 00:29:24
It's one of those behaviors
where high school health class

466
00:29:24 --> 00:29:28
not withstanding, nobody gives
you much in the way of lessons

467
00:29:28 --> 00:29:32
and the lessons that you get
are stupid lessons that you get

468
00:29:32 --> 00:29:36
from listening to your peers
lie their heads off

469
00:29:36 --> 00:29:39
in the locker room.
 

470
00:29:39 --> 00:29:42
Where is this behavior
coming from?

471
00:29:42 --> 00:29:47
People are learning this
behavior in some fashion, we're

472
00:29:47 --> 00:29:52
not after all, praying mantises
where the whole business is

473
00:29:52 --> 00:29:56
just wired into some ganglion
in your spinal cord and if you

474
00:29:56 --> 00:30:00
take off the head everything
works just fine anyway.

475
00:30:00 --> 00:30:02
So where is this
behavior coming from?

476
00:30:02 --> 00:30:04
The pieces, fortunately, for
the handout-- I'm not going

477
00:30:04 --> 00:30:07
to depart wildly from the
handout-- the pieces strike me

478
00:30:07 --> 00:30:10
as similar to the pieces I
was going to use anyway.

479
00:30:10 --> 00:30:14
One important piece and it's
back to this idea that you get

480
00:30:14 --> 00:30:21
to choose your disorder or just
your behavior in some fashion

481
00:30:21 --> 00:30:25
from the set of behaviors that
your culture presents to you.

482
00:30:25 --> 00:30:30
Part of that is what we can
consider to be the power of

483
00:30:30 --> 00:30:34
narrative thought in these
sorts of behaviors.

484
00:30:34 --> 00:30:36
What's narrative thought?
 

485
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38
To review, I think.
 

486
00:30:38 --> 00:30:43
So propositional thought is
moving symbols around and the

487
00:30:43 --> 00:30:47
sorts of things you might
do in problem set land.

488
00:30:47 --> 00:30:52
Narrative thought
is storytelling.

489
00:30:52 --> 00:30:53
You got the stuff?
 

490
00:30:53 --> 00:30:54
She's got the stuff.
 

491
00:30:54 --> 00:30:55
It's good.
 

492
00:30:55 --> 00:30:59
This is the evaluation
forms for later.

493
00:30:59 --> 00:31:04
So narrative thought is about
telling stories to yourself.

494
00:31:04 --> 00:31:08
And it's about telling
yourself who you are.

495
00:31:08 --> 00:31:12
If you ask, why
did that happen?

496
00:31:12 --> 00:31:14
You know, you don't generally
sit down and start writing

497
00:31:14 --> 00:31:15
equations about it.
 

498
00:31:15 --> 00:31:17
You run through
stories in your head.

499
00:31:17 --> 00:31:19
If you ask, what's
going to happen next?

500
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21
You very much start running
stories in your head.

501
00:31:21 --> 00:31:26
If I ask her out, what's
going to happen?

502
00:31:26 --> 00:31:28
That's sort of
narrative thought.

503
00:31:28 --> 00:31:30
Well, where did the
narratives come from?

504
00:31:30 --> 00:31:36
 
 

505
00:31:36 --> 00:31:42
In the case of relations
between the sexes-- well, let

506
00:31:42 --> 00:31:45
me give you a cartoon version
of an answer to that.

507
00:31:45 --> 00:31:46
But I think it is illustrative.
 

508
00:31:46 --> 00:31:49
 
 

509
00:31:49 --> 00:31:53
If you go to the romance aisle,
I mean, if you want to

510
00:31:53 --> 00:31:56
understand the narrative about
romance you might as well go to

511
00:31:56 --> 00:32:00
the aisle in Borders that
says romance on it.

512
00:32:00 --> 00:32:04
I mean, if you go to the aisle
that says engineering you can

513
00:32:04 --> 00:32:05
find something different.
 

514
00:32:05 --> 00:32:08
So you go to the romance
aisle and there's rack

515
00:32:08 --> 00:32:10
after rack of books.
 

516
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13
Conveniently enough I don't
know what's in these books, by

517
00:32:13 --> 00:32:17
and large, because it's not a
genre I read extensively, but I

518
00:32:17 --> 00:32:22
look at the covers and the
covers seem pretty well

519
00:32:22 --> 00:32:23
illustrative as it were.
 

520
00:32:23 --> 00:32:30
What's on the cover of your
typical romance novel?

521
00:32:30 --> 00:32:31
All right, we'll start
with the basics.

522
00:32:31 --> 00:32:34
How many people are
there on the cover of--

523
00:32:34 --> 00:32:34
AUDIENCE: Twp.
 

524
00:32:34 --> 00:32:35
PROFESSOR: Two.
 

525
00:32:35 --> 00:32:37
That's a good number.
 

526
00:32:37 --> 00:32:38
OK.
 

527
00:32:38 --> 00:32:43
I'm sure somewhere that there
is a genre of same sex romance

528
00:32:43 --> 00:32:47
novels, but they're not
typically what's on the shelf

529
00:32:47 --> 00:32:49
at Borders or Barnes &
Noble or something.

530
00:32:49 --> 00:32:52
There what you've got
is you got two people.

531
00:32:52 --> 00:32:57
One of them is a male and
one of them is a female.

532
00:32:57 --> 00:33:07
I will assert that in case
after case it's the same

533
00:33:07 --> 00:33:11
picture more or less.
 

534
00:33:11 --> 00:33:14
Drawn in some gaudy kind of
fashion, but the picture

535
00:33:14 --> 00:33:15
looks like this.
 

536
00:33:15 --> 00:33:18
 
 

537
00:33:18 --> 00:33:19
Right?
 

538
00:33:19 --> 00:33:21
Yeah?
 

539
00:33:21 --> 00:33:24
OK, so we got two people.
 

540
00:33:24 --> 00:33:26
We got this picture.
 

541
00:33:26 --> 00:33:29
Do we know which
one is the guy?

542
00:33:29 --> 00:33:32
AUDIENCE: Yes.
 

543
00:33:32 --> 00:33:36
PROFESSOR: So one person--
there's this guy.

544
00:33:36 --> 00:33:45
He's the guy-- the pirate, the
sailor, sometimes the doctor

545
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47
or something like that.
 

546
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49
You know, I don't think I've
ever seen one where it was

547
00:33:49 --> 00:33:50
the college professor.
 

548
00:33:50 --> 00:33:54
Doesn't seem to be
on the list at all.

549
00:33:54 --> 00:33:57
 
 

550
00:33:57 --> 00:34:00
Then there's the woman
who's having clothing

551
00:34:00 --> 00:34:01
issues typically.
 

552
00:34:01 --> 00:34:05
 
 

553
00:34:05 --> 00:34:09
And she's in this sort
of supine position.

554
00:34:09 --> 00:34:12
 
 

555
00:34:12 --> 00:34:16
This is telling you something.
 

556
00:34:16 --> 00:34:19
By the way, I was doing
research on this-- I kid you

557
00:34:19 --> 00:34:25
not-- I thought I'd better
check whether it's still true.

558
00:34:25 --> 00:34:29
You know, it could that in this
latter day, I mean, if you ask

559
00:34:29 --> 00:34:33
for instance-- actually, I
should ask again because

560
00:34:33 --> 00:34:35
these things keep shifting.
 

561
00:34:35 --> 00:34:41
The standard model when I was,
well, when I was in high school

562
00:34:41 --> 00:34:43
whatever the standard model was
I was ignoring it and was

563
00:34:43 --> 00:34:46
completely clueless, but in any
case, the standard model

564
00:34:46 --> 00:34:49
appeared to be that the
male person asked the

565
00:34:49 --> 00:34:51
female person out.
 

566
00:34:51 --> 00:34:56
Sometime that sort of
disappeared, near as I can tell

567
00:34:56 --> 00:35:00
and nobody asked anybody out
and people just sort of-- it

568
00:35:00 --> 00:35:03
was kind of like a
chemical thing.

569
00:35:03 --> 00:35:08
Numbers of women and men were
in the same place and by some

570
00:35:08 --> 00:35:11
mysterious technique
they bonded.

571
00:35:11 --> 00:35:15
 
 

572
00:35:15 --> 00:35:17
Let's see.
 

573
00:35:17 --> 00:35:19
Since all the data here
are survey data, let's

574
00:35:19 --> 00:35:20
get some survey data.
 

575
00:35:20 --> 00:35:23
 
 

576
00:35:23 --> 00:35:28
Is it typical for males
to ask out females?

577
00:35:28 --> 00:35:32
How many think that
that's typical?

578
00:35:32 --> 00:35:36
How may think it's typical for
females to ask out males?

579
00:35:36 --> 00:35:38
Oh, isn't that interesting?
 

580
00:35:38 --> 00:35:41
See that's interesting because
that's not the answer that I

581
00:35:41 --> 00:35:43
would have gotten from-- I
haven't asked that question

582
00:35:43 --> 00:35:45
reliably every year, but it's
not the answer I would have

583
00:35:45 --> 00:35:47
gotten ten years ago.
 

584
00:35:47 --> 00:35:54
Ten years ago the local custom
had changed so that everybody

585
00:35:54 --> 00:35:57
was asking everybody or nobody
was asking nobody, but there

586
00:35:57 --> 00:36:02
wasn't this sort of notion that
males specifically were taking

587
00:36:02 --> 00:36:05
the lead and asking females.
 

588
00:36:05 --> 00:36:11
And so in a sense, it sounds
like it's reverted to the

589
00:36:11 --> 00:36:15
pattern that existed when--
well, I won't say how many

590
00:36:15 --> 00:36:17
years ago, but it was
a few years ago.

591
00:36:17 --> 00:36:22
Anyway, so I got to check
whether or not the romance

592
00:36:22 --> 00:36:26
novels still look like this.
 

593
00:36:26 --> 00:36:28
So I went to Borders and went
down to the romance aisle and I

594
00:36:28 --> 00:36:31
discovered this cool new thing.
 

595
00:36:31 --> 00:36:38
The cool new thing, at least
it's new to me, is that the

596
00:36:38 --> 00:36:42
romance literature, these sort
of series books have become

597
00:36:42 --> 00:36:45
explicitly stratified.
 

598
00:36:45 --> 00:36:50
That there are now multiple
series of these things.

599
00:36:50 --> 00:36:51
They're color coded.
 

600
00:36:51 --> 00:36:56
It looks like homeland
security, it's great because it

601
00:36:56 --> 00:37:00
runs from I think sort of a
blue/green line, which has a

602
00:37:00 --> 00:37:07
title something like family
values and then it runs over to

603
00:37:07 --> 00:37:12
this red line here-- I can't
remember what the

604
00:37:12 --> 00:37:13
title of this is.
 

605
00:37:13 --> 00:37:15
This is all under the sort of
general heading of Harlequin

606
00:37:15 --> 00:37:18
romance or one of those big
romance publishers, but it's

607
00:37:18 --> 00:37:22
got some word like torrid in
it or something like that.

608
00:37:22 --> 00:37:25
 
 

609
00:37:25 --> 00:37:29
But interestingly, the only
difference in covers that I

610
00:37:29 --> 00:37:37
could detect on a brief survey
is in the family values thing

611
00:37:37 --> 00:37:41
both parties are still more or
less upright, but he's

612
00:37:41 --> 00:37:43
sort of leaning in.
 

613
00:37:43 --> 00:37:48
By the time you get to the
torrid one she's, boom.

614
00:37:48 --> 00:37:49
Anyway, the principle
is the same.

615
00:37:49 --> 00:37:56
It is not the case that-- there
just are no books out there,

616
00:37:56 --> 00:37:58
there's probably one
out there somewhere.

617
00:37:58 --> 00:38:01
 
 

618
00:38:01 --> 00:38:05
The central tendency of the
distribution does not have a

619
00:38:05 --> 00:38:10
lot of female pirates
overwhelming mild-

620
00:38:10 --> 00:38:13
mannered accountants or
something like that.

621
00:38:13 --> 00:38:15
It's just not there.
 

622
00:38:15 --> 00:38:18
 
 

623
00:38:18 --> 00:38:22
I'm only using this as an
example of a narrative that I

624
00:38:22 --> 00:38:24
think is very widely out there.
 

625
00:38:24 --> 00:38:26
You can pick it up in
movies, you can pick

626
00:38:26 --> 00:38:29
it up on TV and so on.
 

627
00:38:29 --> 00:38:34
Importantly, it is not a
narrative with anything like

628
00:38:34 --> 00:38:36
rape written at the top of it.
 

629
00:38:36 --> 00:38:41
It's a narrative with romance
or seduction or something

630
00:38:41 --> 00:38:42
written at the top of it.
 

631
00:38:42 --> 00:38:46
And the promise in the vast
bulk of cases that the ending

632
00:38:46 --> 00:38:49
is going to come out positive.
 

633
00:38:49 --> 00:38:51
I'd love to know what they just
found on the web over there.

634
00:38:51 --> 00:38:54
AUDIENCE: We're looking
up gay romance novels.

635
00:38:54 --> 00:38:58
PROFESSOR: You're looking
up gay romance novels, OK.

636
00:38:58 --> 00:39:00
Thank you for being diligent
in your research there.

637
00:39:00 --> 00:39:05
 
 

638
00:39:05 --> 00:39:09
Well, you can tell me
who's-- anyway, nevermind.

639
00:39:09 --> 00:39:10
AUDIENCE: There's no picture.
 

640
00:39:10 --> 00:39:11
PROFESSOR: They don't
have pictures.

641
00:39:11 --> 00:39:16
 
 

642
00:39:16 --> 00:39:18
Meantime there's several people
trying to figure out on their

643
00:39:18 --> 00:39:21
cellphones what's there.
 

644
00:39:21 --> 00:39:27
Anyway, so the script out
there, the sort of script that

645
00:39:27 --> 00:39:37
people are operating from is a
script where-- well, it's, urk.

646
00:39:37 --> 00:39:40
That sort of script.
 

647
00:39:40 --> 00:39:46
Again, importantly not with the
idea that it's not going to be

648
00:39:46 --> 00:39:50
consenual or whatever, but the
notion here is that it's going

649
00:39:50 --> 00:39:56
to be in effect, the male who's
doing the asking and the female

650
00:39:56 --> 00:40:02
who is giving or not giving
consent in some fashion.

651
00:40:02 --> 00:40:08
This is presumably tied into
evolutionary psych roots that

652
00:40:08 --> 00:40:10
we've talked about already.
 

653
00:40:10 --> 00:40:13
I think I mentioned earlier
that there's evidence that

654
00:40:13 --> 00:40:17
males experience the falling
in love part of falling

655
00:40:17 --> 00:40:21
in love more rapidly in a
relationship than females.

656
00:40:21 --> 00:40:25
They certainly want more sexual
partners and sex more often

657
00:40:25 --> 00:40:27
by all sorts of measures.
 

658
00:40:27 --> 00:40:32
These sort of pressures are
likely to produce a situation

659
00:40:32 --> 00:40:38
in which it is the guy who's
asking and the woman who is

660
00:40:38 --> 00:40:40
either giving or not
giving consent.

661
00:40:40 --> 00:40:50
Now if it is the case that the
male is falling in love more

662
00:40:50 --> 00:40:54
rapidly or falling in lust more
rapidly-- it kind of doesn't

663
00:40:54 --> 00:41:01
matter-- it follows that the
first answer's going to be no.

664
00:41:01 --> 00:41:04
 
 

665
00:41:04 --> 00:41:06
Typically, there are
going to be some no's.

666
00:41:06 --> 00:41:09
If this is this script that
the conversation is going

667
00:41:09 --> 00:41:11
to involve a bunch of no's.
 

668
00:41:11 --> 00:41:14
Now we should switch gears
a little and do a little

669
00:41:14 --> 00:41:21
reviewing of learning
theory sorts of things.

670
00:41:21 --> 00:41:23
I think it says something
on the handout like the

671
00:41:23 --> 00:41:24
power of conditioning.
 

672
00:41:24 --> 00:41:29
But let's think a little
bit about learning theory.

673
00:41:29 --> 00:41:31
Well, let's think about
law of effect kind of

674
00:41:31 --> 00:41:33
stuff for starters.
 

675
00:41:33 --> 00:41:36
 
 

676
00:41:36 --> 00:41:39
The drive to reproduce
is a strong one.

677
00:41:39 --> 00:41:42
There are strong
positive reinforcers

678
00:41:42 --> 00:41:45
associated with sex.
 

679
00:41:45 --> 00:41:48
Nobody spends a lot of time-- I
mean, look, if you think about

680
00:41:48 --> 00:41:51
the amount of-- I don't
need to explain that.

681
00:41:51 --> 00:41:52
You knew that already.
 

682
00:41:52 --> 00:41:58
 
 

683
00:41:58 --> 00:42:04
What Thorndike's law of effect
tells you is that any of

684
00:42:04 --> 00:42:09
these sort of yes activities
here, at any level in the

685
00:42:09 --> 00:42:11
relationship are going to
be positively reinforcing.

686
00:42:11 --> 00:42:15
Are going to tend to reinforce
whatever happened beforehand.

687
00:42:15 --> 00:42:18
And so one of the things that
people are doing and one of the

688
00:42:18 --> 00:42:20
things that they don't
appreciate that they're doing

689
00:42:20 --> 00:42:22
even if they're signing fifteen
page consent forms, which

690
00:42:22 --> 00:42:26
they're not-- is that people
are shaping each other.

691
00:42:26 --> 00:42:30
The activities that couples
are engaging in with each

692
00:42:30 --> 00:42:35
other are-- it's your
own private Skinner box.

693
00:42:35 --> 00:42:40
And you're busy shaping that
pigeon who is the other

694
00:42:40 --> 00:42:42
half of this relationship.
 

695
00:42:42 --> 00:42:46
The great difference of course
is you're both the experimenter

696
00:42:46 --> 00:42:50
and the experimental
animal in your study here.

697
00:42:50 --> 00:42:54
But let's just think from
the male's point of view.

698
00:42:54 --> 00:42:59
So the male is hearing
a lot of no's.

699
00:42:59 --> 00:43:05
If the relationship is
eventually going to progress to

700
00:43:05 --> 00:43:10
let's have fifteen children
then eventually there will be

701
00:43:10 --> 00:43:13
some variety of yes in here.
 

702
00:43:13 --> 00:43:17
That sounds like, what kind of
schedule of reinforcement?

703
00:43:17 --> 00:43:18
AUDIENCE: [UNINTELLIGIBLE]
 

704
00:43:18 --> 00:43:19
PROFESSOR: Broomph.
 

705
00:43:19 --> 00:43:23
 
 

706
00:43:23 --> 00:43:26
No, somebody needs to raise
their hand and nobody's

707
00:43:26 --> 00:43:27
going to raise their hand.
 

708
00:43:27 --> 00:43:31
They've all gotten shy.
 

709
00:43:31 --> 00:43:33
You scratch your head you're
going to end up getting

710
00:43:33 --> 00:43:35
called on there.
 

711
00:43:35 --> 00:43:42
So the answer is this is a
partial reinforcement schedule

712
00:43:42 --> 00:43:45
or more like a variable
ratio schedule.

713
00:43:45 --> 00:43:47
It's not a variable interval
schedule unless you have a

714
00:43:47 --> 00:43:48
very weird relationship.
 

715
00:43:48 --> 00:43:48
No.
 

716
00:43:48 --> 00:43:49
No.
 

717
00:43:49 --> 00:43:49
No.
 

718
00:43:49 --> 00:43:50
Monday, yes.
 

719
00:43:50 --> 00:43:51
No.
 

720
00:43:51 --> 00:43:51
No.
 

721
00:43:51 --> 00:43:51
No.
 

722
00:43:51 --> 00:43:52
Monday, yes.
 

723
00:43:52 --> 00:43:55
 
 

724
00:43:55 --> 00:43:56
That's a weird relationship.
 

725
00:43:56 --> 00:43:57
But more likely it's no.
 

726
00:43:57 --> 00:43:57
No.
 

727
00:43:57 --> 00:43:58
No.
 

728
00:43:58 --> 00:43:58
Yes.
 

729
00:43:58 --> 00:43:59
Maybe.
 

730
00:43:59 --> 00:43:59
No.
 

731
00:43:59 --> 00:43:59
Yes.
 

732
00:43:59 --> 00:44:00
Yes.
 

733
00:44:00 --> 00:44:00
No.
 

734
00:44:00 --> 00:44:00
No.
 

735
00:44:00 --> 00:44:01
No.
 

736
00:44:01 --> 00:44:01
No.
 

737
00:44:01 --> 00:44:01
No.
 

738
00:44:01 --> 00:44:07
Anyway, what do we know about
those sorts of schedules?

739
00:44:07 --> 00:44:09
What do they produce in
the way of behavior?

740
00:44:09 --> 00:44:11
 
 

741
00:44:11 --> 00:44:15
High rates-- if this all sounds
completely new to you guys

742
00:44:15 --> 00:44:17
you've got work to do between
now and next Thursday,

743
00:44:17 --> 00:44:19
let me tell you.
 

744
00:44:19 --> 00:44:24
But these sort of schedules of
reinforcement if it's in a rat

745
00:44:24 --> 00:44:28
trying to get fed produced very
high rates of bar pressing.

746
00:44:28 --> 00:44:32
If it's in a guy, it presumably
produces very high rates

747
00:44:32 --> 00:44:33
of bar pressing, too.
 

748
00:44:33 --> 00:44:36
So he's going to emit a
lot of behavior there.

749
00:44:36 --> 00:44:40
And it's also very
hard to extinguish.

750
00:44:40 --> 00:44:47
So if you decide at some point
to say, no forever it may be a

751
00:44:47 --> 00:44:52
long time before the
guy gets the hint.

752
00:44:52 --> 00:44:54
At least the pigeon
aspect of the guy.

753
00:44:54 --> 00:44:58
 
 

754
00:44:58 --> 00:45:02
One other thing tying into
this-- we ought to say one more

755
00:45:02 --> 00:45:06
thing based on the sort of
romance novel example, which is

756
00:45:06 --> 00:45:11
that the dialog doesn't tend
to be great in those things.

757
00:45:11 --> 00:45:14
Guys doing manly things,
pounding on their chests

758
00:45:14 --> 00:45:18
and females swooning or
something like that.

759
00:45:18 --> 00:45:20
But there's just not a
lot of conversation.

760
00:45:20 --> 00:45:26
So in the absence you're this
giant committee-- another theme

761
00:45:26 --> 00:45:30
from the whole course-- your
brain, your mind is

762
00:45:30 --> 00:45:36
this committee of
semi-independent operators.

763
00:45:36 --> 00:45:40
Well, there's one operator
there that's doing the verbal

764
00:45:40 --> 00:45:46
consent thing and thinking deep
thoughts, but it's in a script

765
00:45:46 --> 00:45:51
that does not have much in the
way of good dialog in it.

766
00:45:51 --> 00:45:54
That leaves this other
chunk of your brain.

767
00:45:54 --> 00:45:58
The chunk that has an awful lot
in common with rats pressing

768
00:45:58 --> 00:46:00
bars for food in Skinner boxes.
 

769
00:46:00 --> 00:46:04
A lot of realm to
govern behavior.

770
00:46:04 --> 00:46:07
If you're not going to govern
behavior with what you might

771
00:46:07 --> 00:46:10
want to call higher cognitive
powers, well, these nice

772
00:46:10 --> 00:46:12
associative learning mechanisms
will do a perfectly

773
00:46:12 --> 00:46:13
fine job for you.
 

774
00:46:13 --> 00:46:15
Hmm, got reinforced.
 

775
00:46:15 --> 00:46:18
Let's do that again or
something of that sort.

776
00:46:18 --> 00:46:23
So you end up with a situation
where you've got multiple

777
00:46:23 --> 00:46:27
forces acting on you.
 

778
00:46:27 --> 00:46:33
And you've systematically
disabled some of the more

779
00:46:33 --> 00:46:37
intellectual parts of you.
 

780
00:46:37 --> 00:46:39
It reminds me, how many
people have been to

781
00:46:39 --> 00:46:40
the Science Museum?
 

782
00:46:40 --> 00:46:42
Another place you should go
sometimes if you haven't been.

783
00:46:42 --> 00:46:43
I think you get in free, right?
 

784
00:46:43 --> 00:46:44
Do you get in free?
 

785
00:46:44 --> 00:46:45
AUDIENCE: Yep.
 

786
00:46:45 --> 00:46:45
PROFESSOR: Yep.
 

787
00:46:45 --> 00:46:48
Get in free, go to
the science museum.

788
00:46:48 --> 00:46:50
What you'll discover if you go
to the-- I don't think, I don't

789
00:46:50 --> 00:46:53
know if you'll still discover
it-- remember my spiral?

790
00:46:53 --> 00:46:59
Somebody from 900 went and was
a volunteer at the Science

791
00:46:59 --> 00:47:03
Museum and said, oh you got to
build this cool-- they still

792
00:47:03 --> 00:47:05
have a great motion after
effect spiral, which I believe

793
00:47:05 --> 00:47:10
is patterned on having seen
it in this class years ago.

794
00:47:10 --> 00:47:14
And then when they would
do the little show they

795
00:47:14 --> 00:47:18
were using my lines.
 

796
00:47:18 --> 00:47:20
I didn't even get residuals.
 

797
00:47:20 --> 00:47:22
 
 

798
00:47:22 --> 00:47:26
But one of the demos they have
there in the math section is

799
00:47:26 --> 00:47:30
this wonderful thing with an
endless collection of pins

800
00:47:30 --> 00:47:32
arranged into sort of
triangular way-- one,

801
00:47:32 --> 00:47:34
two, three-- is that
Pascal's triangle?

802
00:47:34 --> 00:47:35
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
 

803
00:47:35 --> 00:47:36
PROFESSOR: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 

804
00:47:36 --> 00:47:38
Anyway, it's a version of that.
 

805
00:47:38 --> 00:47:42
Anyway, the cool version of the
demo is that you drop a ball at

806
00:47:42 --> 00:47:46
the top and it bounces from pin
to pin and in effect at each

807
00:47:46 --> 00:47:49
pin it's got a fifty-fifty
crack of going one

808
00:47:49 --> 00:47:50
way or the other.
 

809
00:47:50 --> 00:47:56
And if you have enough layers
of pins what you end up with is

810
00:47:56 --> 00:48:00
essentially-- well, is exactly
in the limit, a nice

811
00:48:00 --> 00:48:01
normal distribution.
 

812
00:48:01 --> 00:48:08
 
 

813
00:48:08 --> 00:48:12
From a ball that just
completely neutral, dropped at

814
00:48:12 --> 00:48:18
the top, most of the time it's
going to end up here, some time

815
00:48:18 --> 00:48:23
it's going to end up at one
extreme or the other.

816
00:48:23 --> 00:48:28
I suspect that this is not
a bad model for a wide

817
00:48:28 --> 00:48:30
range of behaviors.
 

818
00:48:30 --> 00:48:34
I'll argue in closing that it's
a good model-- that it's at

819
00:48:34 --> 00:48:38
least, a model worth thinking
about for something like

820
00:48:38 --> 00:48:40
coercive sexual behavior.
 

821
00:48:40 --> 00:48:43
That we know or at least we
think we know that the

822
00:48:43 --> 00:48:46
population of guys engaging
in that behavior are not

823
00:48:46 --> 00:48:48
sitting out here in some
separate distribution.

824
00:48:48 --> 00:48:53
They seem to be the
distribution of regular guys

825
00:48:53 --> 00:48:56
that just ended up in an odd
part of the distribution.

826
00:48:56 --> 00:49:04
And it may well be that this
collection-- if you want you

827
00:49:04 --> 00:49:09
can think of it in
terms of shaping.

828
00:49:09 --> 00:49:14
That the collection of positive
reinforcers that they got just

829
00:49:14 --> 00:49:19
balanced randomly off into this
direction and produced what

830
00:49:19 --> 00:49:23
boils down to a very
maladaptive behavior where the

831
00:49:23 --> 00:49:26
same guy starting from the same
point might well have ended up

832
00:49:26 --> 00:49:29
in-- would most guys starting
up from the same point would've

833
00:49:29 --> 00:49:34
ended up in the same, in this
vast bulk of the normal end of

834
00:49:34 --> 00:49:37
the distribution or the middle
of the distribution.

835
00:49:37 --> 00:49:40
That you don't need to posit
that there's anything

836
00:49:40 --> 00:49:44
specifically wrong and that you
might have a very difficult

837
00:49:44 --> 00:49:47
time, the perhaps disturbing
piece of this if you were

838
00:49:47 --> 00:49:50
trying to set public policy is
that you might have a very

839
00:49:50 --> 00:49:55
difficult time trying to say,
gee, what can we do that would

840
00:49:55 --> 00:49:58
prevent this tale
from happening?

841
00:49:58 --> 00:50:02
Because it might really be
the result of a succession

842
00:50:02 --> 00:50:05
of random events.
 

843
00:50:05 --> 00:50:08
One thing that you might guess
is that the degree to which you

844
00:50:08 --> 00:50:15
let cognition back into the
game and let it run less on the

845
00:50:15 --> 00:50:19
rat pushing the bar kind of
thought, the less chance that

846
00:50:19 --> 00:50:23
you have of ending up in some
maladaptive corner of this

847
00:50:23 --> 00:50:26
particular distribution, but
that's not desperately clear.

848
00:50:26 --> 00:50:27
Can I prove this?
 

849
00:50:27 --> 00:50:29
No.
 

850
00:50:29 --> 00:50:33
And so does that mean that the
right answer on the final will

851
00:50:33 --> 00:50:37
be where does coercive
sex come from?

852
00:50:37 --> 00:50:41
Apparently it comes from
bouncing down the pin.

853
00:50:41 --> 00:50:43
No.
 

854
00:50:43 --> 00:50:47
This is clearly marked as
Wolf's theory and not only

855
00:50:47 --> 00:50:50
that it's Wolf theory
since this morning.

856
00:50:50 --> 00:50:53
I may decide by this evening
that it was really dumb and

857
00:50:53 --> 00:50:56
feel deeply humiliated that I
ever got up and said it in

858
00:50:56 --> 00:51:02
public, but at the
moment I don't.

859
00:51:02 --> 00:51:08
But what I do feel is that what
I want to do-- well, I want

860
00:51:08 --> 00:51:09
to do a couple of things.
 

861
00:51:09 --> 00:51:14
Thing one is to say, thank
you for listening all term.

862
00:51:14 --> 00:51:17
It's kind of a privilege to
be able to yack for a whole

863
00:51:17 --> 00:51:19
term and have people listen.
 

864
00:51:19 --> 00:51:20
It doesn't happen at home much.
 

865
00:51:20 --> 00:51:22
 
 

866
00:51:22 --> 00:51:30
The second, there are
two different forms

867
00:51:30 --> 00:51:32
floating around.
 

868
00:51:32 --> 00:51:34
Well actually they're not--