Autistic-like traits (ALTs) have been widely examined, including in romantic relationships, yet few studies have approached them from an evolutionary perspective. Mate retention tactics are associated with different types of life history strategies. Because we hypothesize that individuals with ALTs prefer a fast life history strategy, we also assume that they use specific types of mate retention tactics. This study investigated the associations between ALTs and mate retention tactics, considering reproductive strategies and attachment styles as mediators. Structural equation modeling on a sample of 796 individuals (52% female) showed that individuals with ALTs are less likely to engage in cost-inflicting tactics. No significant link between ALTs and benefit-provisioning mate retention tactics was found in this study. ALTs were more strongly linked to attachment styles—both fearful and avoidant—than to reproductive strategies. Contrary to expectations, ALTs did not negatively predict a slow reproductive strategy (parental effort) or positively predict a fast strategy (mating effort), though additional regression analyses suggested a potential link with mating effort. Participants’ sex did not moderate these relationships, while age was associated with decreased attachment anxiety, mating effort, and mate retention behaviors, alongside increased parental effort. A key limitation is the weak predictive power of ALTs for reproductive strategies, highlighting the need for alternative measurement approaches in future research.
There is a significant gap in research concerning the relationship between social anxiety and the expression of pride. This study examines the mediating role of fear of positive evaluation in the relationship between social anxiety and both the tendency to express pride and the momentary experience of authentic and hubristic pride. A sample of 703 first-year undergraduate students from Croatia completed a survey assessing social anxiety, fear of positive evaluation, experience of authentic and hubristic pride and expression of pride. Fear of positive evaluation mediated the link between social anxiety and the tendency to express pride. Additionally, it also mediated the relationship between social anxiety and both authentic and hubristic pride. The results are consistent with evolutionary theories that explain the importance of social hierarchy in shaping the emotional experiences of socially anxious individuals. Findings highlight the significant role of fear of positive evaluation in determining how socially anxious individuals experience and express pride, emphasizing the need for further research on its effects in domains of social status and psychological well-being.
Among the various physical traits that serve as secondary sexual characteristics, breasts and buttocks are visually conspicuous cues used in male mate evaluation because they signal youth, fertility, developmental stability, and nutritional status. Although these features have been extensively studied, less is known about the extent to which men differ in the relative importance they place on each trait. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) identified distinct subgroups of Norwegian men ( N = 395) based on how much importance they placed on breasts and buttocks in their evaluations of romantic partners. A four-class solution emerged, comprising Highly Body-Oriented (53%), Moderately Body-Oriented (20%), Buttocks-Oriented (18%), and Body-Unoriented (9%) subgroups. Predictors such as egalitarianism, materialism, and preferences for sexiness were, as expected, significantly associated with class membership, providing support for the validity of the typology. Notably, a consistent buttocks-oriented class emerged across all LPA solutions, whereas no distinct breasts-oriented group was found, as ratings of breasts persistently co-occurred with high ratings of buttocks, suggesting that breasts do not function as a primary preference in isolation. These findings reveal that buttocks may occupy a more central and stable role than breasts in male mate preferences, offering novel insights into the structure of physical attraction and heterogeneity in the male mating mind.
Epidemics rank among humanity's deadliest disasters, profoundly affecting societies across health, psychological, social, and economic domains. Past outbreaks have left a unique cultural legacy in the form of epidemic folk stories that explain disease etiology and provide behavioral guidelines during crises. This aligns with theories suggesting that storytelling may serve as an adaptive mechanism facilitating transmission of survival-relevant information. We explored this premise among Indigenous people in West Papua, Indonesia. We interviewed 100 Asmat men, asking them to recall folk stories about past infectious diseases and report their attitudes toward coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We found that individuals more familiar with epidemic folk stories were more likely to express fear of COVID-19 and adopt social distancing behaviors during the pandemic. Content analysis revealed that these oral narratives emphasized themes such as dietary and good health practices (42%) and hygiene (23%), whereas direct recommendations for social isolation constituted only 12% of identified themes. This pattern suggests that folk stories may not primarily function as precise behavioral instruction manuals, but rather as mechanisms that sensitize individuals to potential disease-related threats. Consistent with this interpretation, exploratory mediation analyses were compatible with the Behavioral Immune System framework, suggesting that folk story knowledge may be associated with heightened sensitivity to pathogen-related cues, stronger emotional responses, and greater behavioral avoidance in threatening contexts. However, the cross-sectional and exploratory nature of our study precludes strong causal or temporal inferences. Longitudinal or experimental research is needed to test these hypotheses and provide stronger evidence for causal interpretation.
Narcissism is viewed as both a heritable trait and an activated state, but little research has explored how narcissism manifests in populations from an evolutionary perspective. Relying on two nationally representative US samples, we explore how narcissism may be mobilized or manifest in populations that undergo major environmental changes such as migration. More specifically, we treat immigrant generational status as a naturally occurring experiment and explore the differing levels of narcissism of new migrants, first, second and successive generations. We find new immigrants and first-generation Americans have the highest levels of narcissism, but those rates steadily decrease with later generations. Overall, narcissism appears to either be activated in populations under conditions of need, scarcity, stress, and survival, or be a key motivator for people who choose to migrate. Critically important, and from a generational perspective, narcissism declines to the new population level as migrants settle into their new environments.
Psychosocial acceleration theory (PAT) posits that harsh and unpredictable ecologies during childhood can cue humans into developing earlier and more frequent reproduction. This study tested whether variables measuring harsh and unpredictable circumstances in 4,135 Brazilian municipalities and in 2,763 US counties would predict reproductive behavior 10 to 14 years later. Data was extracted from the Brazilian Census and American Community Survey samples. A secondary analysis explored whether the percentage of visible minorities (Black and Indigenous population) would also be a predictor or mediator of the same outcomes. Partial least squares structural equation modeling and multivariate linear regression were used in the analysis of Brazil and US data, respectively. Municipalities with higher rates of lack of resources, with young mothers both married or separated, and with large families with many residents per room were predictive of higher rates of teenage and young adult mothers and of young children in Brazil. Harshness predicted the percentage of young children in US counties, but the direction of this association was mixed. Some findings were contrary to PAT predictions. Divorce rates were negative predictors of reproduction in both countries. Education and employment indicators were not significant predictors of reproduction in Brazil. Higher rates of perceived minorities were not a relevant predictor in Brazil, and they were a negative predictor of the percentage of children in the United States. Findings suggest that harsh ecologies and the proportion of children in the population impact patterns of reproduction a decade later.
Psychosocial acceleration theory (PAT) posits that experiencing harsh and unpredictable environments during childhood cues the development of earlier and more frequent reproductive events. However, this developmental association has not been tested in large human populations. Visible minorities and Indigenous people are also subjected to harsher and more unpredictable circumstances than the general population. These circumstances might not be detected in common measures used in PAT literature. In four studies, we tested whether an exploratory analytical approach using measures of harshness and unpredictability from census data of a high-income country (Canada) would be relevant predictors of measures of reproduction 15 years later, whether the proportion of Indigenous people and of visible minorities are relevant predictors, and tested methodological and statistical assumptions and limitations of this approach. Following PAT assumptions, we hypothesize that higher rates of harshness and unpredictability will be associated with higher rates of reproduction. Results were mixed in offering support or working against PAT claims. A higher percentage of children in low-income households was predictive of a higher percentage of single-parent households in Canadian census divisions. However, measures indicative of lower access to resources and unpredictable parental availability were negatively predictive of reproduction outcomes. A higher percentage of Indigenous people was also predictive of a larger family size of single parents. Findings can help inform public policies around early pregnancy and family planning.
Human developmental goals are both flexible and highly individualized, yet long-term cooperation requires behavioral predictability. This raises the question of whether goals that prioritize personal autonomy and independence (“ego-goals”) might hinder or even contribute to cooperative behavior. Building on the assumption that predictability of action, rather than social content of goals, is a key prerequisite for successful cooperation, this study examined whether ego-goals predict cooperative behavior in novel social environments. In a two-wave longitudinal design ( N t 1 = 155, N t 2 = 48), participants transitioning from school to university reported their developmental goals and self-perceived behavioral reliability as well as their cooperative activities. Cooperation was measured via self-report and external assessments by close others at both time points. Regression analyses revealed that ego-goals at t 1 significantly predicted cooperative activity at t 2 , even when controlling for prior cooperation. Including behavioral reliability as a mediator reduced but did not annihilate this effect, supporting the hypothesis that goal-driven predictability facilitates cooperation regardless of goal content. These findings challenge the assumption that only prosocial goals foster cooperation, suggesting that the signaling function of consistent behavior, even when rooted in non-cooperative goals, can promote cooperation in new social settings. From an evolutionary perspective, these findings align with theoretical accounts highlighting behavioral consistency's role as a basis for social bonding and cooperation. Stable goals, regardless of their social direction, may serve as reliable predictors of future behavior, reducing uncertainty and facilitating partner selection, thereby supporting the evolutionarily adaptive function of cooperation, even amid variation in goal content.
Evolutionary theorizing predicts that parenthood is associated with higher hedonic wellbeing (experiencing more positive and fewer negative emotions), higher eudaimonic wellbeing (experiencing greater meaning in life), and greater life satisfaction. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed a dataset comprising 5,556 participants drawn from 10 different nations. We found a small positive effect of parenthood on eudaimonic wellbeing, which was more pronounced for women. Conversely, we found virtually no differences between parents and nonparents across all measured dimensions of hedonic wellbeing and life satisfaction. Furthermore, for most dimensions, we did not detect significant interactions between parenthood status and sex, age, or relationship status. Additionally, participants with children reported lower relationship satisfaction than those without children; however, the observed difference was small. Our results contrast with evolutionary predictions, as well as empirical findings showing that parents perceive their children as sources of positive emotions and life purpose, creating a paradox for which we offer a possible resolution.
We tested the adaptive hypothesis of psychopathy in human and computer Prisoner Dilemma (PD) matches. From a cohort of 448 male undergraduates who completed the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP), 31 high psychopathic (PP) and 29 low PP students, sampled from upper and lower quartiles of the cohort, played a 40-round PD match in which real money was at stake. The human matches were of three kinds: Low PP versus Low PP, Low PP versus High PP, and High PP versus High PP. In computer simulations, the empirical defection probabilities from High and Low PP human players were entered in a three-player round-robin match with tit-for-tat (TFT) or a less cooperative variant. The strategies proliferated or dwindled in subsequent generations in proportion to their winnings and the matches continued until two players became extinct. In the human matches, High PP players had higher earnings in matches with Low PP and lower earnings in matches with other High PP players. In the computer matches, TFT drove both Low PP and High PP to extinction. However, High PP drove both Low PP and a less cooperative variant of TFT to extinction. Our experiments showed that PP traits may proliferate in two ways. People with low psychopathy engage in selfish behaviors also and people with high psychopathy are capable of cooperation and deter defection by means of harsh punishment. The broader significance of the in silico experiment is that randomness in social encounters may allow behavioral expressions of psychopathy to thrive over an altruistic and reciprocal strategy such as TFT.
The mnemonic effects of animacy and threat were explored with photographic stimuli. After studying labeled photographs of animate and inanimate items that were either threatening or nonthreatening, participants recalled significantly more animate items than inanimate items and more threatening items than nonthreatening items. However, a recognition test of the photographs showed higher accuracy for inanimate photographs. Eyetracking technology was utilized in the second experiment to determine if participants' eye movements are affected by the animacy or threat status of stimuli and whether the pattern of eye movements were similar to the pattern of memory results. The free recall patterns followed the typical effects of animacy and threat, but a reverse animacy effect was again found in photograph recognition. Further, eyetracking measures revealed patterns similar to those of the free recall data, with more fixations and more time spent viewing animate items and threatening items. The data present a dichotomy between memory for the specific details of the studied stimuli (i.e., the details of the studied photographs) and memory for the more general semantic information of the studied stimuli (i.e., the ability to recall more animate items than inanimate items). The results of the eyetracking show that animate items and threatening items are more likely to capture visual attention of participants when compared to inanimate items and nonthreatening items, which could be at least partly responsible for the increased memory for these item types in recall memory, but not necessarily recognition memory.
The Behavioral Immune System (BIS) drives disgust-based avoidance, but its response to immunological changes during pregnancy is understudied. The Compensatory Prophylaxis Hypothesis (CPH) predicts heightened disease-avoidant social behavior in early pregnancy due to immunosuppression. We examined whether first-trimester women show reduced willingness to engage with outgroup members or individuals displaying infection signs compared to later pregnancy stages and postpartum. We also assessed moderation by perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD) and perceived COVID-19 threat. Data were collected in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic via online surveys in two studies. In the cross-sectional Study 1 ( N = 425, age 18–46, M = 29.64, SD = 5.37), pregnant participants at different stages of pregnancy assessed their willingness to engage in social contact with individuals displaying or not displaying infection cues shown in photographs, and then completed measures of PVD and Perceived Threat of COVID-19. The longitudinal Study 2 ( N = 112, age 22–41, M = 30.14, SD = 4.05) employed the same procedure, administered four times—during the first, second, and third trimesters, and postpartum. Findings did not support CPH. Social avoidance was unrelated to the pregnancy stage but significantly associated with PVD and COVID-19 threat. Results underscore the situational and individual flexibility of BIS responses.
We explore the self-reported propensity for virtue signaling of environmentalism and community-minded messages. Evolutionary psychologists have not paid much attention to virtue signaling, although it has implications for social relationships, in-group/out-group dynamics, status, mate choice, and kinship. We tested three hypotheses regarding sex differences in samples (N = 20,423) obtained in 2020 from Canada, Japan, and the USA. First, across all samples, we hypothesized that both sexes use environmentalism and community-mindedness to engage in virtue signaling, which was supported. Second, we hypothesized that conspicuous ethical consumption, as a form of virtue signaling, is performed more by women than by men, which was not supported. Contrary to our prediction, men reported higher engagement in conspicuous ethical consumption, suggesting that status motives may have a strong role in their virtue signaling behaviors. Third, we hypothesized that known sex differences in the Big Five personality traits are linked to virtue signaling. That is, typically, women are reported to score higher than men in neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, while men score higher on openness than women. Our findings partially support this pattern. Last, we report on intercultural differences. We close with a discussion of the usefulness of studying virtue signaling from an evolutionary perspective.
Across four experiments, participants were asked to process unrelated common nouns after listening to pleasantness processing instructions, survival processing instructions, or story processing instructions. In Experiment 1, participants were provided with a list of words and were asked to list various ways that the words were pleasant or unpleasant, list ways that the words could help them survive in an ancestral grasslands scenario, or use the words in the list to create a short story. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to perform similar tasks, but rather than being provided with a word list at the start of the experiment, words were presented one at a time at a fixed rate. In Experiment 3, participants were asked to rate words as they were presented one at a time regarding their perceived pleasantness, their relevance to an ancestral survival scenario, or the ease with which they could be included in a short story. In Experiment 4, a combined survival-story condition was included along with survival, story, and pleasantness processing instructions to determine whether combining story and survival processing produces an additive effect on recall performance. Across all four experiments, after a brief delay, the story processing condition produced either enhanced or comparable incidental recall performance to the survival processing scenario, and both of those conditions produced enhanced recall performance relative to the pleasantness processing scenario. These results suggest that processing information in the context of a story, like survival processing, may represent one of the best deep processing tasks identified to date.
Ornamentation is a widespread feature of human material culture, yet its preference varies across societies. We tested the hypothesis that variation in ornamentation preference correlates with socioecological factors, comparing 215 parent-child dyads from three societies differing in WEIRD characteristics: Scotland, Pakistan, and Papua New Guinea. We found that less WEIRD societies exhibit stronger preferences for ornamentation, consistent with adaptive socioecological influences on aesthetic valuation. Moreover, a decline in ornamentation preference with age was observed only in the Western sample, suggesting cultural suppression of ornamentation across development. These findings support the view that children's aesthetic preferences may more closely reflect evolved, foundational biases toward ornamentation, which are subsequently modulated by cultural context. Investigating such developmental trajectories is crucial to understanding the biological basis and evolutionary origins of human aesthetic preferences.
An increasing number of people are single, meaning that they do not have an intimate partner. Existing research has focused on identifying the difficulties that people face in attracting mates. In the present paper, we propose that another factor contributing to singlehood is experiencing difficulties in maintaining intimate relationships. By analyzing data collected from 1099 Greek-speaking participants, we found that individuals who experienced greater difficulties maintaining intimate relationships were more likely to be either between-relationships single or voluntarily single rather than in an intimate relationship. For women specifically, higher scores in this dimension were also associated with a greater probability of being in an intimate relationship than being involuntarily single. Additionally, we found that the association between difficulties in maintaining an intimate relationship and relationship status was linear for men—the relationship between the two variables can be pictured as straight line—but curvilinear—the relationship can be pictured as an inverted U-shaped curve—for women.
Researchers have suggested that men with more masculine facial characteristics have stronger immune systems but are perceived to be less likely to invest resources in partners and offspring. How women resolve this putative trade-off between the costs and benefits of choosing a masculine mate have previously been reported to be associated with women's openness to uncommitted relationships (i.e., their sociosexuality) and self-perceived mate value. However, not all studies have reported these links and the methods used to assess masculinity preferences in studies reporting these patterns of results (forced-choice tests using stimuli in which masculinity was experimentally manipulated) have recently been criticized for having low ecological validity. Consequently, we tested whether sociosexuality or self-perceived mate value predicted women's masculinity preferences when masculinity preferences were assessed using ratings of individual natural (i.e., unmanipulated) male faces. Our analyses show no evidence that individual differences in women's sociosexuality or self-perceived mate value significantly predicted masculinity preferences. Thus, our results do not support the proposal that sociosexuality and/or self-perceived mate value are important sources of individual differences in women's preferences for male facial masculinity.
Frequently, people find themselves in a situation where an intimate relationship they wish to keep ends, creating emotional pain that requires coping strategies. The aim of the present study is to investigate the various strategies people employ for this purpose. Using a mixed-methods approach, we identified 84 distinct acts, which we classified into 16 strategies and subsequently classified into five main strategies for coping with the end of a desirable intimate relationship. The most likely to be used main strategy was “Transfer focus to different things,” including strategies such as “Focus on myself” and “Keep myself busy.” Other commonly chosen main strategies were “Seek support,” involving reliance on friends, family, and professionals, and “Social withdrawal,” characterized by isolation behaviors. Additionally, several participants indicated readiness to adopt the “Disassociation and positive reframing” main strategy, involving attempts to positively reframe the end of the relationship and disassociate from the former partner. The least frequently adopted main strategy was “Sex and substances,” involving substance use (such as alcohol) and casual sex encounters to cope with the end of a relationship. Furthermore, significant main effects of sex and age were observed for several of the identified strategies.
Developmental environments shape attachment styles and life history (LH) patterns, both of which predict romantic relationship outcomes. However, the ways in which attachment styles interact with LH dimensions—specifically, mating effort and parenting effort—and how these relationships predict romantic relationship outcomes remain unclear. The current study investigated how these factors predict relationship satisfaction and conflict in a sample of Polish adults ( N = 332, M age = 39 years, SD = 9.10). We hypothesized that mating and parenting efforts would mediate the relationship between developmental environments and relationship outcomes independently from attachment style. Results supported this hypothesis for mating effort but not for parenting effort. Additionally, the current study found little support for a connection between mating/parenting effort and attachment styles and indicated that LH can be influenced by a broader range of early developmental experiences than attachment. The results imply that although both mating effort/parenting effort and attachment styles are affected by early environments and can predict the same relationship outcomes, the developmental processes through which they operate may differ. The implications of the obtained results are discussed.
Research suggests that physical attractiveness may be associated with more permissive moral norms, which can in turn lead to the adoption of a more liberal sexual strategy. However, different predictions arise from evolutionary Life History Theory and Moral Foundations Theory. We hypothesized that self-reported physical attractiveness and moral intuitions (innate morality) mediate the relationship between somatic-parental effort (SPE) and sociosexual desire - an indicator of mating orientation. The study involved 326 women aged 19-33 years. A sequential mediation analysis was conducted. As hypothesized, higher levels of SPE were associated with higher self-reported physical attractiveness. It was also shown that self-perceived physical attractiveness was a positive indicator of innate morality and that among all moral intuitions only Authority was a negative predictor of a preference for short-term relationships. Furthermore, in the studied women SPE was a direct positive predictor only of the intuition of Sanctity/Purity. However, the relationship between physical attractiveness in women following the slow reproductive strategy and sociosexual desire was characteristic of reproductive effort rather than somatic-parental effort. However, it was found that certain relationships between variables were in particular characteristic of women with a rural background. For this reason, the obtained results in the hypothesis context are significantly limited to this specific subpopulation of women.
