Pub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-08DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106727
Yuta Kawamura , Pat Barclay
Organisms benefit from choosing partners who are willing and able to provide them with benefits (e.g., choose based on warmth, competence, wealth). But which should they prefer in a partner – willingness or abilities? We tested the hypothesis that people will focus on whichever trait is more variable in others: the more variance there is in a trait, the greater the difference there is between the “best” and “worst”, so the more that trait will impact the chooser (all else equal). In two studies, participants saw a range of partners for a hypothetical money distribution task who either varied more in the amount of money they had to distribute (Unequal Wealth condition) or in the percent of their money they gave away (Unequal Generosity condition). Participants had a default preference to know about others' generosity rather than their wealth; this preference was strengthened when others varied more in generosity and weakened when others varied more in wealth. Thus, our study shows that people are sensitive to the amount of population variance on a trait, and flexibly adjust their partner preferences to focus on traits which vary more among others.
{"title":"Wealth or generosity? People choose partners based on whichever is more variable","authors":"Yuta Kawamura , Pat Barclay","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106727","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106727","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Organisms benefit from choosing partners who are willing and able to provide them with benefits (e.g., choose based on warmth, competence, wealth). But which should they prefer in a partner – willingness or abilities? We tested the hypothesis that people will focus on whichever trait is more variable in others: the more variance there is in a trait, the greater the difference there is between the “best” and “worst”, so the more that trait will impact the chooser (all else equal). In two studies, participants saw a range of partners for a hypothetical money distribution task who either varied more in the amount of money they had to distribute (Unequal Wealth condition) or in the percent of their money they gave away (Unequal Generosity condition). Participants had a default preference to know about others' generosity rather than their wealth; this preference was strengthened when others varied more in generosity and weakened when others varied more in wealth. Thus, our study shows that people are sensitive to the amount of population variance on a trait, and flexibly adjust their partner preferences to focus on traits which vary more among others.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106727"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144572308","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 : 2025-09-01Epub 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":"2025-09-01","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 : 2025-09-01Epub 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":"2025-09-01","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 : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-19DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106741
Leda Cosmides
{"title":"Through the lens of adaptationism: Commentary on Baumard & André","authors":"Leda Cosmides","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106741","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106741","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106741"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144663096","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 : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-25DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106726
Joseph Billingsley, Danielle Goldwert, Debra Lieberman
Social emotions such an anger and gratitude evolved to help people navigate the adaptive problems posed by social interactions. Building on the logic of the recalibrational theory of anger, we argue that a systematically inverted relationship exists between the triggering conditions, inputs, outputs, and consequences of anger and gratitude, and we introduce the novel hypothesis that this inverted relationship between anger and gratitude extends to the individual difference characteristics that modulate the proneness of individuals to endorse and express each emotion. Where Sell, Tooby, and Cosmides (2009) found evidence that physical strength in men and attractiveness in women—two ancestrally valid dimensions of social leverage—predict greater proneness to anger, we suggest that these same dimensions of social leverage negatively predict proneness to gratitude. We report three studies (N's of 417, 309, and 728 adults, respectively, all recruited from MTurk) that collectively address three goals related to the above reasoning: 1) to replicate the findings of Sell et al. (2009) concerning strength and attractiveness as sex-differentiated predictors of proneness to anger; 2) to develop and validate a novel measure of interpersonal gratitude, based on Sell et al.'s (2009) measures of anger; and 3) to test the hypothesis that physical strength in men and attractiveness in women correlate negatively with proneness to gratitude. Results provide new support for Sell et al.'s finding that strength in men, and attractiveness in women, predict proneness to anger, but contrary to Sell et al. (2009) indicate that physical strength also predicts proneness to anger in women. Regarding gratitude, we find that physical strength in men and attractiveness in women correlate as expected with some but not all dimensions of proneness to gratitude.
{"title":"Interpersonal leverage: Individual differences in the endorsement of anger and gratitude","authors":"Joseph Billingsley, Danielle Goldwert, Debra Lieberman","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106726","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106726","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social emotions such an anger and gratitude evolved to help people navigate the adaptive problems posed by social interactions. Building on the logic of the recalibrational theory of anger, we argue that a systematically <em>inverted</em> relationship exists between the triggering conditions, inputs, outputs, and consequences of anger and gratitude, and we introduce the novel hypothesis that this inverted relationship between anger and gratitude extends to the <em>individual difference characteristics</em> that modulate the proneness of individuals to endorse and express each emotion. Where Sell, Tooby, and Cosmides (2009) found evidence that physical strength in men and attractiveness in women—two ancestrally valid dimensions of social leverage—predict greater proneness to anger, we suggest that these same dimensions of social leverage <em>negatively</em> predict proneness to gratitude. We report three studies (<em>N</em>'s of 417, 309, and 728 adults, respectively, all recruited from MTurk) that collectively address three goals related to the above reasoning: 1) to replicate the findings of Sell et al. (2009) concerning strength and attractiveness as sex-differentiated predictors of proneness to anger; 2) to develop and validate a novel measure of interpersonal gratitude, based on Sell et al.'s (2009) measures of anger; and 3) to test the hypothesis that physical strength in men and attractiveness in women correlate negatively with proneness to gratitude. Results provide new support for Sell et al.'s finding that strength in men, and attractiveness in women, predict proneness to anger, but contrary to Sell et al. (2009) indicate that physical strength also predicts proneness to anger in women. Regarding gratitude, we find that physical strength in men and attractiveness in women correlate as expected with some but not all dimensions of proneness to gratitude.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106726"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144703001","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 : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-05DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106716
Florian van Leeuwen , Bastian Jaeger , John Axelsson , D. Vaughn Becker , Lina S. Hansson , Julie Lasselin , Mats Lekander , Matti Vuorre , Joshua M. Tybur
Motivations to avoid infectious disease seem to influence prejudice toward some groups, including groups not explicitly associated with infectious disease. The standard explanation for this phenomenon is based on signal detection theory and proposes that some prejudices partially arise from pathogen detection mechanisms that are biased toward making false alarms (false positives) in order to minimize misses (false negatives). Therefore, pathogen detection mechanisms arguably categorize a broad array of atypical features as indicative of infection, which gives rise to negative affect toward people with atypical features. We tested a key hypothesis derived from this explanation: specific appearance-based prejudices are associated with tendencies to make false alarms when estimating the presence of infectious disease. While this hypothesis is implicit in much work on the behavioral immune system and prejudice, direct tests of it are lacking and existing relevant work contains important limitations. To test the hypothesis, we conducted a cross-sectional study using a large U.S. sample (N = 1450). Using signal detection theory methods, we assessed tendencies to make false alarms when identifying infection threats. We further assessed prejudice toward multiple relevant social groups/categories. Results showed weak evidence for the key hypothesis: for only one of four tested target groups were tendencies to make false alarms in sickness detection significantly associated with prejudice. However, this relation was not significant when controlling for a potential confound. These results cast doubt on the notion that individual differences in appearance-based prejudices arise from individual differences in tendencies to make false alarms in assessing pathogen threats.
{"title":"The smoke-detector principle of pathogen avoidance: A test of how the behavioral immune system gives rise to prejudice","authors":"Florian van Leeuwen , Bastian Jaeger , John Axelsson , D. Vaughn Becker , Lina S. Hansson , Julie Lasselin , Mats Lekander , Matti Vuorre , Joshua M. Tybur","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106716","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106716","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Motivations to avoid infectious disease seem to influence prejudice toward some groups, including groups not explicitly associated with infectious disease. The standard explanation for this phenomenon is based on signal detection theory and proposes that some prejudices partially arise from pathogen detection mechanisms that are biased toward making false alarms (false positives) in order to minimize misses (false negatives). Therefore, pathogen detection mechanisms arguably categorize a broad array of atypical features as indicative of infection, which gives rise to negative affect toward people with atypical features. We tested a key hypothesis derived from this explanation: specific appearance-based prejudices are associated with tendencies to make false alarms when estimating the presence of infectious disease. While this hypothesis is implicit in much work on the behavioral immune system and prejudice, direct tests of it are lacking and existing relevant work contains important limitations. To test the hypothesis, we conducted a cross-sectional study using a large U.S. sample (<em>N</em> = 1450). Using signal detection theory methods, we assessed tendencies to make false alarms when identifying infection threats. We further assessed prejudice toward multiple relevant social groups/categories. Results showed weak evidence for the key hypothesis: for only one of four tested target groups were tendencies to make false alarms in sickness detection significantly associated with prejudice. However, this relation was not significant when controlling for a potential confound. These results cast doubt on the notion that individual differences in appearance-based prejudices arise from individual differences in tendencies to make false alarms in assessing pathogen threats.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106716"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144563279","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 : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-09DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106721
Michael Tomasello
{"title":"Specifically human culture: response to Baumard & André","authors":"Michael Tomasello","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106721","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106721","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106721"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144580096","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 : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-14DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106737
Daniel Nettle
{"title":"Creatures of habit(us): A commentary on Baumard and André's ‘The ecological approach to culture’","authors":"Daniel Nettle","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106737","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106737","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106737"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144614644","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 : 2025-09-01Epub 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":"2025-09-01","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 : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-06-03DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106710
Hongyu Sun , Lei Fan , Joshua M. Tybur
Theory within the behavioral immune system literature suggests that pathogen-avoidance adaptations should lead to increased contact avoidance under conditions of increased disease salience. The current study examined this hypothesis by assessing whether comfort with microbe-sharing interpersonal contact varied across the COVID-19 pandemic, when disease threats varied in salience. A longitudinal survey was conducted in the Netherlands in four periods, including May 2020 (N = 1003), February 2021 (N = 719), October 2021(N = 554), and June 2022 (N = 530). Results revealed that people reported greater explicit concerns about disease in earlier periods of the pandemic, when COVID-19 was more prevalent in internet searches and caused more deaths. However, comfort with microbe-sharing interpersonal contact was no lower early in the pandemic than later in the pandemic. Across the pandemic, people were more comfortable with microbe-sharing interpersonal contact with higher-valued targets. These findings cast doubt on the possibility that behavioral immune system mechanisms are sensitive to abstract, non-sensory indicators of pathogen threat, such as those characterizing a novel respiratory virus pandemic.
{"title":"Comfort with microbe-sharing contact across the COVID-19 pandemic: testing behavioral immune system predictions","authors":"Hongyu Sun , Lei Fan , Joshua M. Tybur","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106710","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106710","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Theory within the behavioral immune system literature suggests that pathogen-avoidance adaptations should lead to increased contact avoidance under conditions of increased disease salience. The current study examined this hypothesis by assessing whether comfort with microbe-sharing interpersonal contact varied across the COVID-19 pandemic, when disease threats varied in salience. A longitudinal survey was conducted in the Netherlands in four periods, including May 2020 (<em>N</em> = 1003), February 2021 (<em>N</em> = 719), October 2021(<em>N</em> = 554), and June 2022 (<em>N</em> = 530). Results revealed that people reported greater explicit concerns about disease in earlier periods of the pandemic, when COVID-19 was more prevalent in internet searches and caused more deaths. However, comfort with microbe-sharing interpersonal contact was no lower early in the pandemic than later in the pandemic. Across the pandemic, people were more comfortable with microbe-sharing interpersonal contact with higher-valued targets. These findings cast doubt on the possibility that behavioral immune system mechanisms are sensitive to abstract, non-sensory indicators of pathogen threat, such as those characterizing a novel respiratory virus pandemic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 5","pages":"Article 106710"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144203480","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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