Pub Date : 2025-07-04DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106719
Claudio Tennie
Baumard and André advocate for unifying human evolutionary approaches by drawing inspiration from ecology. In this way they aim to integrate Human Behavioral Ecology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Cultural Evolution Research. While I share their call for integrative models, their framing risks underplaying the necessary role of cultural transmission in human cultural ecology. I offer two readings of their view and argue that one of them is implausible.
{"title":"Ecological frameworks should not deny the importance of transmission: comment on Baumard and André “the ecological approach to culture”","authors":"Claudio Tennie","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106719","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106719","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Baumard and André advocate for unifying human evolutionary approaches by drawing inspiration from ecology. In this way they aim to integrate Human Behavioral Ecology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Cultural Evolution Research. While I share their call for integrative models, their framing risks underplaying the necessary role of cultural transmission in human cultural ecology. I offer two readings of their view and argue that one of them is implausible.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106719"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144556823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106717
Kaleda K. Denton , Elisa Heinrich-Mora , Noah Egan , Marcus W. Feldman
In “The Ecological Approach to Culture”, Baumard and André (2025) argue that culture is not fundamentally different from ecology, and that “adaptationist thinking and inclusive fitness theory [are] just as central to understanding cultural phenomena as [they are] to explaining any animal behavior—and, more broadly, any biological process” (p. 15). These statements are empirically and theoretically incorrect. Here, we outline why culture is different from ecology, why adaptationist thinking is misguided, and why inclusive fitness theory is of very limited applicability.
{"title":"Culture is not ecology","authors":"Kaleda K. Denton , Elisa Heinrich-Mora , Noah Egan , Marcus W. Feldman","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106717","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106717","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In “The Ecological Approach to Culture”, <span><span>Baumard and André (2025)</span></span> argue that culture is not fundamentally different from ecology, and that “adaptationist thinking and inclusive fitness theory [are] just as central to understanding cultural phenomena as [they are] to explaining any animal behavior—and, more broadly, any biological process” (p. 15). These statements are empirically and theoretically incorrect. Here, we outline why culture is different from ecology, why adaptationist thinking is misguided, and why inclusive fitness theory is of very limited applicability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106717"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144534420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106723
Michael E.W. Varnum
{"title":"On the importance of conceptual clarity and constraints in an ecological approach to culture","authors":"Michael E.W. Varnum","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106723","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106723","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106723"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144550034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106722
H. Clark Barrett
{"title":"What do we want from culture?","authors":"H. Clark Barrett","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106722","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106722","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106722"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144534419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106720
Peter J. Richerson
{"title":"Commentary on Baumard and André's the ecological approach to culture","authors":"Peter J. Richerson","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106720","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106720","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106720"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144550035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-20DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106709
Jonathan Egeland
The ecological approach to culture extends the inclusive fitness tradition by proposing that cultural phenomena are best understood as extended phenotypes of producers aiming to maximize the replication of their genes. An important implication of this view is that cultural evolution can be modeled using traditional concepts from ecology, without positing a separate system of inheritance. This article presents a challenge to the ecological approach. If we take the gene's-eye view of evolution seriously, then we also have reason to believe that cultural phenomena may evolve by their own system of inheritance, since both positions are motivated by their ability to answer the beneficiary question from evolutionary biology.
{"title":"Cultural evolution and the beneficiary question","authors":"Jonathan Egeland","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106709","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106709","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The ecological approach to culture extends the inclusive fitness tradition by proposing that cultural phenomena are best understood as extended phenotypes of producers aiming to maximize the replication of their genes. An important implication of this view is that cultural evolution can be modeled using traditional concepts from ecology, without positing a separate system of inheritance. This article presents a challenge to the ecological approach. If we take the gene's-eye view of evolution seriously, then we also have reason to believe that cultural phenomena may evolve by their own system of inheritance, since both positions are motivated by their ability to answer the beneficiary question from evolutionary biology.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 4","pages":"Article 106709"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144321128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-19DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106713
Eva Ranehill , Niklas Zethraeus , Coren L. Apicella , Liselott Blomberg , Bo von Schoultz , Angelica Lindén Hirschberg , Magnus Johannesson , Anna Dreber
Several studies have reported that heterosexual women's preferences for male faces vary with hormonal fluctuations over the menstrual cycle and that women tend to prefer more masculine faces during ovulation or when not using hormonal contraceptives. While this has been tested using observational data, we provide the first double-blind randomized controlled study testing if oral contraceptives reduce preferences for facial masculinity and symmetry. Three hundred and forty women were randomized to either oral contraceptives or placebo and their facial preferences were measured at baseline and after 3 months. All analyses follow a pre-registered pre-analysis plan. No statistically significant effect of oral contraceptives on preferences for facial masculinity or facial symmetry was found. In pre-registered exploratory analyses, we further find no statistically significant associations between menstrual cycle phase or hormone levels and facial preferences. These results provide evidence against a causal effect of oral contraceptives on women's preferences for masculine and symmetric faces, although our results should be interpreted cautiously as we only find strong evidence against effect sizes larger than about 0.4 Cohen's d units.
{"title":"Oral contraceptives and women's preferences for facial masculinity and symmetry: Evidence from a double-blind randomized controlled trial","authors":"Eva Ranehill , Niklas Zethraeus , Coren L. Apicella , Liselott Blomberg , Bo von Schoultz , Angelica Lindén Hirschberg , Magnus Johannesson , Anna Dreber","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106713","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106713","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Several studies have reported that heterosexual women's preferences for male faces vary with hormonal fluctuations over the menstrual cycle and that women tend to prefer more masculine faces during ovulation or when not using hormonal contraceptives. While this has been tested using observational data, we provide the first double-blind randomized controlled study testing if oral contraceptives reduce preferences for facial masculinity and symmetry. Three hundred and forty women were randomized to either oral contraceptives or placebo and their facial preferences were measured at baseline and after 3 months. All analyses follow a pre-registered pre-analysis plan. No statistically significant effect of oral contraceptives on preferences for facial masculinity or facial symmetry was found. In pre-registered exploratory analyses, we further find no statistically significant associations between menstrual cycle phase or hormone levels and facial preferences. These results provide evidence against a causal effect of oral contraceptives on women's preferences for masculine and symmetric faces, although our results should be interpreted cautiously as we only find strong evidence against effect sizes larger than about 0.4 Cohen's d units.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106713"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144314561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-18DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106711
Cristina M. Gomes , Megan R. Mulhinch , Michael E. McCullough
Why do people spend so much time gossiping? Here, we tested two distinct hypotheses about how people might use reputational information to achieve social goals. Indirect Reciprocitytheory entails the hypothesis that people share information about themselves and others accurately in order to reward cooperators and punish defectors. In contrast, Reputation-Based Partner Choice theory proposes that people share, withhold, and distort information about themselves and others in order to secure high-quality cooperation partners. We found that subjects were more likely to share information about others' (and their own) previous generosity if they themselves had been generous rather than greedy. Previously generous people were most likely to gossip—and previously greedy people were least likely —under conditions in which sharing and withholding gossip, respectively, were in their material interest. Likewise, previously generous people were most likely to share honest gossip—and previously greedy people were most likely to share dishonest gossip—when it was in their material interest. Finally, previously generous people were less likely than previously greedy people to share dishonest gossip that yielded a competitive advantage. Although these results fit more comfortably with Reputation-based Partner Choice theory than with Indirect Reciprocity theory as commonly understood, nearly 30 % of subjects shared information even when it did not pay to do so. This finding suggests that people's decisions about sharing reputational information are not driven exclusively by short-term material considerations, although we did not explore the self-interested desire to avoid the social cost of being caught lying.
{"title":"People decide whether to share social information–and whether to share it accurately–on the basis of self-interest","authors":"Cristina M. Gomes , Megan R. Mulhinch , Michael E. McCullough","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106711","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106711","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Why do people spend so much time gossiping? Here, we tested two distinct hypotheses about how people might use reputational information to achieve social goals. <em>Indirect Reciprocity</em> <em>theory</em> entails the hypothesis that people share information about themselves and others accurately in order to reward cooperators and punish defectors. In contrast, <em>Reputation-Based Partner Choice</em> theory proposes that people share, withhold, and distort information about themselves and others in order to secure high-quality cooperation partners. We found that subjects were more likely to share information about others' (and their own) previous generosity if they themselves had been generous rather than greedy. Previously generous people were most likely to gossip—and previously greedy people were least likely —under conditions in which sharing and withholding gossip, respectively, were in their material interest. Likewise, previously generous people were most likely to share honest gossip—and previously greedy people were most likely to share dishonest gossip—when it was in their material interest. Finally, previously generous people were less likely than previously greedy people to share dishonest gossip that yielded a competitive advantage. Although these results fit more comfortably with Reputation-based Partner Choice theory than with Indirect Reciprocity theory as commonly understood, nearly 30 % of subjects shared information even when it did not pay to do so. This finding suggests that people's decisions about sharing reputational information are not driven exclusively by short-term material considerations, although we did not explore the self-interested desire to avoid the social cost of being caught lying.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106711"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144314566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-16DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106715
Elsa Ermer , Gary Charness , John Tooby , Leda Cosmides
The logic of animal conflict predicts that organisms should assess cues of formidability to mitigate the costs of escalated contests. Accordingly, individual fighting ability has been shown to regulate the outcome of contests: All else equal, more formidable individuals claim a larger share of disputed resources, and less formidable individuals defer to their claims. The human ability to cooperate in groups complicates these interactions because a coalition of individuals can take resources from an individual that none of them could dominate when acting alone. We propose that the prevalence of male coalitional aggression in humans selected for psychological mechanisms that track how much coalitional support is immediately available to men when they are contesting a resource and use this information to regulate decisions about how to divide it. Specifically, men with coalitional allies present should be motivated to press their self-interest more than men who are acting alone—even if the solitary man has allies elsewhere. Experiments using economic games in a university lab setting were employed to test this coalitional support hypothesis. Across six experiments employing three different economic games (total n = 496), coalitional support consistently regulated men's—but not women's—choices. These results suggest that coalitional support is an important factor regulating resource division in men. The fact that women pressed their self-interest, but did so whether allies were present versus absent, suggests that women's coalitional psychology was designed by different selection pressures than men's.
{"title":"Coalitional support regulates resource divisions in men","authors":"Elsa Ermer , Gary Charness , John Tooby , Leda Cosmides","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106715","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106715","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The logic of animal conflict predicts that organisms should assess cues of formidability to mitigate the costs of escalated contests. Accordingly, individual fighting ability has been shown to regulate the outcome of contests: All else equal, more formidable individuals claim a larger share of disputed resources, and less formidable individuals defer to their claims. The human ability to cooperate in groups complicates these interactions because a coalition of individuals can take resources from an individual that none of them could dominate when acting alone. We propose that the prevalence of male coalitional aggression in humans selected for psychological mechanisms that track how much coalitional support is immediately available to men when they are contesting a resource and use this information to regulate decisions about how to divide it. Specifically, men with coalitional allies present should be motivated to press their self-interest more than men who are acting alone—even if the solitary man has allies elsewhere. Experiments using economic games in a university lab setting were employed to test this coalitional support hypothesis. Across six experiments employing three different economic games (total <em>n</em> = 496), coalitional support consistently regulated men's—but not women's—choices. These results suggest that coalitional support is an important factor regulating resource division in men. The fact that women pressed their self-interest, but did so whether allies were present versus absent, suggests that women's coalitional psychology was designed by different selection pressures than men's.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106715"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144298817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-16DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106714
Zachary H. Garfield
{"title":"Legacy and constraint in the evolution of human culture","authors":"Zachary H. Garfield","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106714","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106714","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106714"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144298818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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