What's the evolutionary advantage of women desperately needing social validation?

@matrix Its pretty much the only reason a woman would have to interact with a man in the first place. So pretty much the only reason the species exists :)

@freemo I don't mean just from men, that part makes sense. What I don't understand is that they desire validation from other women yet at the same time are competing with them for mates.

@matrix I was just being silly anyway, I didnt mean that, it just made me laugh.

But if we are being serious I find men need validation too just in very different ways.

@freemo Maybe studying a large sample of people would prove me wrong, but from my personal observations I think that men don't care that much about validation from men, but care quite a lot about validation from women while women care about validation from everyone.

@freemo @matrix "men don't care that much about validation from men"
Upvotes, likes, (e-)peen measuring contests makes me think otherwise.

@likho
But that's competition. When it comes to social media, it's women, especially teen girls who are most negatively affected by social media.
@freemo

@likho @freemo @matrix What makes you say that?

@likho @freemo This: https://archive.fo/gxdWu

Or this:

@matrix

If anything I'd say this data supports my assertion and debunks your own...

The key to seeing why is realizing that the survey on the left does **not** represent the prevalence of harassment of the two groups (which based on your conclusion I suspect you took it as). Notice the wording of the survey to see why

> Adults who say they have experienced each type of harassment...

The left hand chart therefore is not showing us how often each group actually gets harassed but rather how often each group **perceives** harassment against them. for example if men were harassed as equally as women but had a much stronger sense of wanting validation, then they would rank higher (as they do) on the left hand chart since they would be more sensitive to the dislike from others (typically how harassment manifests) and thus would indicate more often they have been harassed even if they get harassed no more often than women who might happen to have a higher threshold.

So in other words the left chart shows us that men feel as if a particular interaction is harassment more often than women. the chart on the right however shows the other part of what I said, that men have a much stronger desire to put on a show for others to make it seem like they are less effected.. the second part basically just asks "is it a big deal that you get harassed" and men are more likely to say no. This shows they have a much stronger desire to play it off as if they are uneffected.

Combine these two charts and it would paint a picture where one reasonable interpretation is as I said, men have as strong (or apparently stronger) desire to be validated, and as such are more sensitive to signals that suggested they are not validated (like harassment), and an even stronger desire to hide that desire for validation by playing it off as is they were unaffected by it.

I mean afterall, if you dont consider harassment a big deal, and if that were true, then those same men should see something as not being harassment when others see it as harassment... so its the disparity there that is so telling.

@likho