Coalitional Value Theory: an Evolutionary Approach to Understanding Culture

In the following article, we forward the coalitional value theory (CVT) and apply it to several puzzles about human behavior. The CVT contends that humans evolved unique mental mechanisms for assessing each other’s marginal value to a coalition (i.e., each other’s coalitional value). They defer to those with higher coalitional value, and they assert themselves over those with lower. We discuss how this mechanism likely evolved. We note that it helps explains how human groups can expand into large, complicated, and specialized coalitions (chiefdoms and even nation states). And we combine this with strong evidence that suggests that status striving is a fundamental human motive to explain partially (1) anti-gay bias, (2) cultural signaling, (3) cultural conceptions of god, and (4) ideological conflict.