Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology最新文献

Purpose

Sexual behavior plays a prominent role in adult descriptions of psychopathy, and research shows associations between psychopathy in males and distinct aspects of sexuality, including impersonal, precocious, and coercive sexuality involving reproductively mature sexual partners. Evolutionary perspectives have suggested that consistent links with these sexual outcomes may reflect a male mating strategy that can result in reproductive success. But fewer studies have examined the various aspects of sexuality and psychopathic traits during adolescence, a time when reproductive strategies may become entrained.

Method

Using a mixed sample of 156 criminal justice-involved and at-risk community male adolescents (M_age = 17.4, SD = 1.2), we examined associations of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version with impersonal, precocious, coercive, and mature (i.e., sexual interest in reproductively mature females) sexuality.

Results

Psychopathic traits were associated with each aspect of sexuality, including impersonal, precocious, coercive sexuality as well as increased likelihood of showing a sexual interest in reproductively mature adult females.

Conclusion

The results suggest that psychopathy in adolescent males is associated with a unique pattern of sexuality like that seen in adult males and may suggest the beginnings of a young male mating strategy whose pattern of impersonal and coercive sexuality may continue into adulthood.

Objective

The innate drive for humans to belong is coupled with the strategies they use to gain and maintain resources (Sapolsky, Annual Review of Anthropology, 33(1), 393–418,2004), and individuals in higher levels of social status (such as dominant individuals) use different strategies to gain that status (Hawley, Developmental Review, 19(1), 97–132, 1999; Hawley, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 49(3), 279–309, 2003). Just as the environment is important for human development, it is also important to consider the genetic components that can impact thoughts and behaviors. Oxytocin has been connected to many affiliative behaviors which assist in gaining social status (Massey-Abernathy, Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 3(3), 212–220, 2017). OXTR rs53576 is a specific oxytocin polymorphic receptor site that when G homozygous, meaning possessing two G alleles (GG), individuals show more empathetic concern (Smith, Social Neuroscience, 9(1), 1–9, 2014), an increased ability to infer the emotional state of others (Domes, Biological Psychiatry, 61(6), 731–733, 2007), and increased emotional regulation (Massey-Abernathy, Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 3(3), 212–220, 2017).

Methods

In the current study, the relationships between self-report questionnaires on popularity types (sociometric/perceived), resource control strategies, empathy (cognitive and affective), and emotional intelligence was examined. Then a smaller sub-sample was used to look at their relationship to OXTR rs53576 using saliva sampling.

Results

This study’s results indicate in this sample, the use of coercive strategies alone created perceived popular individuals. Additionally, emotional intelligence and cognitive empathy were important for increased perceived popularity, and these characteristics were also seen in those who are OXTR rs53576G homozygous.

Conclusion

Examining these relationships may help researchers understand why “popular” individuals use certain tactics to create and maintain their high social status.

Objective

Intrauterine exposure to testosterone (T_intrauterine) can permanently organize the brain. A putative marker of this endocrine exposure is the 2D:4D finger-digit ratio. In contrast to early prenatal androgen, testosterone concentrations in adulthood (T_adult) are purported to have transient activational effects. Lesbian women typically show lower 2D:4D ratios (indicative of greater T_intrauterine) and higher T_adult levels compared to heterosexual women. However, few studies, with mixed results, have assessed differences in T_adult and T_intrauterine between heterosexual, femme, and butch lesbians (respectively, feminized and masculinized styles). This study aimed to compare the 2D:4D ratio and T_adult levels in saliva between masculine, feminine lesbian, and heterosexual women.

Results

T_adult levels were higher in masculine compared to feminine lesbians and heterosexual women. However, there were no differences between the groups regarding the 2D:4D ratio, nor did it show a correlation between T_adult levels and the 2D:4D ratio.

Conclusion

Our study suggests the existence of biological differences at the activational level between masculine and feminine lesbians. These results do not exclude the possibility of prenatal influence on female homosexuality. We recommend further studies to address this question while circumventing the limitations of the present study.

Purpose

During intersex interactions heterosexual men show a temporary cognitive impairment and an increase in risky behaviors. These effects have been interpreted as caused by the negative emotion and stress experienced by men attempting to produce a positive impression of themselves. Under this line of reasoning men’s cognitive performance during a heterosexual interaction is maladaptive and perhaps it could be improved when the audience or target of men’s public performance express positive, supportive feedback.

Methods

Fifty-eight heterosexual young males were asked to provide a self-presentation and to perform a difficult arithmetical task in front of two female confederates. One group of men interacted with a negative unsupportive audience while the other group interacted with a friendly and supportive audience. We tested men’s decision making in the Iowa Gambling Task after they engaged in this public performance task.

Results

We found that men self-presenting in front of a friendly female audience engaged in more risky decision making during the last two blocks of the Iowa Gambling Task. There were no differences in parameters of cardiovascular reactivity and no differences of perceived judge’s attractiveness between the two groups. Men exposed to the unfriendly female audience perceived the female judge as more interested in them.

Conclusion

When heterosexual men self-present and perform in front of a supportive and friendly female audience their risk-taking in the Iowa Gambling Task increases but the exact mechanism leading to this behavior requires further study.

Objectives

Specific combinations of personality- and sociality attributes may index distinct life-history strategies (LHSs). In later life, partnerships are key loci of psychosocial influences, and arguably of corresponding LH-related selective pressures. Yet, few studies have examined their role in older adults’ LHSs. In the current study, I began to fill these gaps by examining coupled dynamics in later-life extraversion and strong ties.

Methods

Data were from the Health and Retirement Study, nationally representative of older U.S. adults. For analysis, I used a recent fixed effects-cross lagged panel modeling method.

Results

Contrary to previous cross-sectional findings, results indicated that upturns in partnered men’s extraversion may lower their integration into strong-tie networks. Theory suggests such patterns could reflect extraverted men’s avoidance of constraint-imposing close relationships. Men’s social integration also negatively predicted their own extraversion—and enhanced that of their partner—supporting interactional modulation of personality states. Finally, women’s extraversion appeared to increase their partner’s stakeholder integration, arguably due to women’s network gatekeeping role.

Conclusions

Sociality and personality seem dynamically intertwined within older couples. Patterns suggest gendered adaptations in response to relational cues. I discuss implications for plasticity in later-life LHSs.

Purpose

Food acquisition is an adaptive problem resolved via both physiological and psychological processes. Hunger could serve as a coordinating mechanism for these processes. When hunger increases, it may be beneficial to shift cognitive resources away from other adaptive problems and towards functions that increase the chances of acquiring food, such as memory for food information. However, there is limited research exploring the impacts of hunger on food-related memory, and the results are mixed. We conducted two studies investigating whether increased hunger levels improve memory for food images and prices – but not non-food images and prices – in image recognition and price recall tasks, respectively.

Methods

Study 1 was an online, observational study (N = 91) using self-reported hunger as a continuous measure. Study 2 was an in-person, between-subjects interventional study (N = 102) where participants were randomly allocated to a hungry or sated condition. We predicted that higher levels of hunger would improve participants’ ability to discriminate between food images they have and have not seen before and correctly recall food prices.

Results

We found no evidence of a hunger-related memory enhancement for food stimuli in either study in image recognition or price recall tasks.

Conclusion

Our findings contrast with older research but support more recent work, suggesting that the effect of hunger on food memory may be sensitive to study design and not as broadly generalisable as first thought.

Purpose

A recent study has found that Polish territories with history of forced population displacement exhibit a faster life history compared to other Polish territories. Whether the spatial overlap between historical forced population displacement and faster life history represents a common pattern or merely an isolated phenomenon remains to be seen. Czechia provides an avenue to test this, since its borderlands (specifically the so-called Sudetenland) were mainly inhabited by a German-speaking population who were forcefully displaced post-WWII.

Methods

Differences in life history speed amongst Czech districts were estimated based on multiple life history indicators via a factor analysis.

Results

Faster life history for Sudetenland is confirmed, a pattern consistent across numerous life history indicators.

Conclusion

The spatial overlap between fast life history and population displacement (herein dubbed the r-displacement distribution) might be contingent on stable socioeconomic environment, potentially limiting its generality beyond socioeconomically developed societies. Further replications of r-displacement distribution might be needed to confirm its generality.

A key theoretical component of the behavioral immune system is its functional flexibility, where an individual’s reaction to pathogenic stimuli is designed to fluctuate based on individual costs and benefits. For example, those who perceive themselves to be more vulnerable to disease or are in poorer health should react more aversely to possible pathogenic agents because of the higher costs of infection. To test this hypothesis, we collected measures of current individual health (i.e., self-reported general health and self-perceived infectibility) and three domains of disgust in two studies: an in-person sample of United States university students and a global online sample of diverse ages. We also collected and assayed saliva samples for secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA), provided by the university students. Results showed that lower sIgA and higher perceived infectibility independently predicted higher pathogen disgust. Poor self-reported general health was associated with higher pathogen disgust in the university sample, but not in the online sample. Finally, pathogen disgust mediated the effect of perceived infectibility on behavioral avoidance motivation. Overall, our findings support the functional flexibility of the behavioral immune system, such that those who are more vulnerable to disease are more likely to respond aversely to situations with high pathogen load; however, future research should consider other contextual factors which affect the strength of this relationship between individuals and populations.