Evolution and Human Behavior最新文献

{"title":"Paternal investment and economic inequality predict cross-cultural variation in male choice","authors":"Jun-Hong Kim","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106751","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106751","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Over the last decades, behavioral ecologists have found a few species with conspicuous female traits not expected under a Darwinian sexual selection regime. Cosmetics, which are predominantly used by human females, can be broadly understood as a cultural manipulation of conspicuous traits. Both can be explained using a small twist on classical Darwinian sexual selection. The key variable is the cost of reproduction. The sex that incurs higher reproductive costs will be choosier and more discriminating. Traditionally, female reproductive costs of egg production, gestation, and lactation have given weight to female choices. However, when males spend more or as much on reproductive costs as females, conspicuous female traits and male choices occur. Multivariate regression analysis was performed using the size of the cosmetics industry in each country (source: Euromonitor, <em>N</em> = 55) as the outcome variable as a proxy for male choice. Two male resource variables, paternal investment (female to male ratio of unpaid domestic, child care hours, source: OECD, <em>N</em> = 32) and economic inequality (income inequality, source: CIA, <em>N</em> = 55/ social mobility index, source: world economic forum, <em>N</em> = 49) stand out as predictors of cross-cultural variation in cosmetics use. Human mating research that examines mutual mate choice and its cultural manipulation could serve as a model for other animals with mutual ornamentation and mimicry.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106751"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144893828","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}

{"title":"Bismarckian welfare revisited: Fear of being violently dispossessed motivates support for redistribution","authors":"Daniel Sznycer ,&nbsp;Timothy C. Bates","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106754","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106754","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Resource transfers among individuals can be driven by selfish, altruistic, competitive, or prudential motives. Here, we focus on prudence, specifically the propitiation of aggressive individuals or coalitions to avoid injurious loss. Across the animal kingdom, choosing to cede a resource to a stronger or needier individual is often more advantageous than losing the resource while also being harmed in the process. If the modern human skull houses a Stone Age mind, this ancient motive—though perhaps irrelevant in modern societies with legal enforcement of property rights—might still be at work. In domestic politics, the game-theoretic logic of appeasement is encapsulated in the quip, “If there is to be revolution, we would rather make it than suffer it,” attributed to Otto von Bismarck, the father of the modern welfare state. Are people intuitive Bismarckians? Across three studies in the United Kingdom and the United States—two with nationally representative samples and one preregistered (total <em>N</em> = 1911)—we observed robust associations between fear of being violently dispossessed and support for progressive redistribution. These associations were substantial and persisted even after controlling for other motives previously linked to redistribution, including self-interest, compassion, malicious envy, coercive egalitarianism, and proportionality, as well as political orientation. By elucidating the psychological mechanisms underpinning resource transfers, these findings advance our understanding of why individuals support redistribution in complex societies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106754"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144922369","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}

{"title":"Updating evidence on facial metrics: A Bayesian perspective on sexual dimorphism in facial width-to-height ratio and bizygomatic width","authors":"Alex L. Jones ,&nbsp;Tobias L. Kordsmeyer ,&nbsp;Robin S.S. Kramer ,&nbsp;Julia Stern ,&nbsp;Lars Penke","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106781","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106781","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is an extensively studied morphological measure, which was presumably shaped by sexual selection and has been linked to a wide range of perceptual and physiological traits. Underpinning these associations is the premise that fWHR is larger in men, which empirically exhibits a mixed and equivocal pattern in the literature due to variation in measurement, large sample sizes revealing small but significant differences, and a lack of control of body size. In Study 1, in a sample of 1949 faces, we used a Bayesian hierarchical model that incorporates prior information to simultaneously estimate sexual dimorphism in fWHR, adjusted for body size, across five measurement types. While we found larger fWHR in women, comparing this effect to variability in fWHR due to image capture settings revealed no robust evidence of sex differences in fWHR. In Study 2, we investigated sex differences in facial width specifically (also adjusted for body size), again incorporating prior information, and confirmed men have greater face width than women. Advances in this area can be made by shifting focus away from arbitrary ratios like fWHR to direct measures like facial width – as well as carefully considering prior evidence of existing associations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106781"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145266023","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}

{"title":"Tradeoffs between self and mates reveal larger sex differences in trait preferences","authors":"Tania Reynolds ,&nbsp;Roy Baumeister ,&nbsp;Bill von Hippel","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106774","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106774","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>If people often mate assortatively by traits, individuals will be more likely to attract mates with desirable attributes if they also possess those same attributes. Thus, individuals should value and advertise attributes in themselves to appeal to potential mates' preferences (<em>intersexual motivations</em>) and to attract mates with attributes they desire (<em>assortative motivations</em>). Because these two motivations are often conflated, extant research might underestimate sex differences in trait preferences. Across three pre-registered online studies (<em>N</em>_<em>S1</em> = 196, <em>N</em>_<em>S2</em> = 179, <em>N</em>_<em>S3</em> = 831 MTurkers), we applied a novel technique— self-versus-mate tradeoffs—to disentangle these competing motivations for six traits: attractiveness, intelligence, ambition, wealth, humor, and kindness. When forced to trade off possessing a trait oneself against having mates with that trait, larger sex differences emerged. Men more strongly valued partner (versus own) attractiveness and own (versus partner) intelligence, wealth, and ambition. Women more strongly valued partner (versus own) humor. Tradeoffs did not reveal sex differences in kindness, perhaps because women more strongly valued their own and partner kindness. Tradeoff items enhanced prediction of participant sex, beyond isolated motivations, revealing incremental explanatory value. These results suggest <em>assortative motivations</em> might inflate the apparent similarity between the sexes in desires to be attractive, ambitious, wealthy, intelligent, and humorous.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106774"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145320011","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}

{"title":"Social structure, cultural selection and the limits of adaptive plasticity: a response to Baumard and André","authors":"Alexandra Alvergne","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106753","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106753","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106753"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144932973","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}

{"title":"Equivalence, causality, and cultural evolution","authors":"Pat Barclay,&nbsp;Oliver Twardus","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106755","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106755","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><span><span>Baumard and André's (2025)</span></span> ecological approach presents a compelling perspective on cultural evolution. Although it may appear as an alternative to Dual Inheritance Theory, we argue that these theories need not be in opposition to one another. If anything, the ecological approach may have greater causal validity – although future research is necessary to determine whether this is the case.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106755"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145018682","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}

{"title":"Evolution of psychopathy in the public goods game with institutional redistribution of resources","authors":"Dražen Domijan ,&nbsp;Janko Međedović","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106771","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106771","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Following the model of Testori et al. (2022), we examined the dynamics of the evolution of psychopathy in the public goods game that incorporates both punishing psychopaths (selfish/manipulative risk-taking agents) and rewarding cooperators (generous, risk-averse agents). We systematically varied the mortality of psychopathic phenotypes, and the community cost they inflict on society in an abundant or harsh environment in order to check how they affect population size and the proportion of psychopathic agents in the population. Our aim was to determine which combination of mechanisms for the redistribution of resources enables the model to converge to the solution where the percentage of psychopathic individuals in the population is very low, consistent with empirical estimates on human populations. Model simulations revealed several notable results. Firstly, a low frequency of psychopathy emerges: 1) if psychopathic phenotypes have a high mortality rate; and 2) if society not only punishes psychopaths but actively rewards generous individuals. Secondly, psychopathy showed higher fitness in scarce environments and small-sized populations; the latter result is incongruent with existing theories about the association between population size and the adaptive potential of psychopathy. Hence, the proposed model highlights, in addition to punishment of psychopaths, the societal reward for cooperative individuals as the crucial socioecological condition that maintains the frequency of psychopathic phenotypes at a low level.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106771"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145095854","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}

{"title":"Willingness to protect from violence, independent of strength, guides partner choice","authors":"Michael Barlev ,&nbsp;Sakura Arai ,&nbsp;John Tooby ,&nbsp;Leda Cosmides","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106745","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106745","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ancestrally, physical violence from conspecifics was a recurrent adaptive problem. Did selection favor preferences for partners who are both <em>strong</em> (highly able) and <em>willing</em> to protect us from violence? Strength and willingness are interrelated, so dissociating their effects is necessary. Here we assessed both inferences and preferences. In 7 experiments (<em>N</em> = 4,508 U.S. adults recruited via MTurk), we systematically varied the willingness of a date or friend to physically protect you from an attack, compared to scenarios where you do not have this information. We also varied that person's strength. Discovering that a person is willing to protect greatly increased their attractiveness as a romantic partner or friend, regardless of their strength. This held for both women and men raters, and when evaluating both opposite- and same-sex dates and friends. In fact, partners who were willing to protect were attractive even if they tried to do so but failed, and even if you were harmed because of their failure. Discovering that a partner is unwilling to protect decreased their attractiveness, and was a deal-breaker for women evaluating a male date. Unwillingness decreased attractiveness more when the rater was a woman, when the target was a man, and when the target was being evaluated as a date versus friend. Women placed some importance on a male date's strength, but this was mostly due to inferences about his willingness to protect them. Surprisingly, we found only weak evidence that differences in strength, independent of willingness, increased the attractiveness of a partner.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106745"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144917951","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}

{"title":"Women's intrasexual competitiveness, but not fertility, predicts greater competitive behavior toward attractive women across the menstrual cycle","authors":"Jaime L. Palmer-Hague,&nbsp;Jade S. Stobbart,&nbsp;Benjamin J. Zubaly","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106760","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106760","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Women compete for mates and social status, but little is known about the mechanisms that underlie these behaviors. Previous work suggests that mating competition should be most intense when women are fertile; thus, we hypothesized that women would exhibit more competitive behavior toward a high, rather than low, mating threat competitor during ovulation compared to other menstrual phases. Additionally, given that social support is crucial for women's access to resources and therefore offspring survival, we hypothesized that women would exhibit more competitive behavior toward a high, rather than low, social threat competitor following ovulation and possible conception. We tested 464 women recruited through social networking sites, psychology classes, and Prolific. Each rated their likelihood of exhibiting competitive behavior toward hypothetical mating and social competitors. Although women were more competitive toward the high, compared to low, mating and social threat competitors, there were no effects of cycle phase. Further, we found that intrasexual competitiveness, but not estimated hormones or other personality variables, predicted stronger competitive responses to the high mating threat competitor. We found no effects for social competitors. Together, these results suggest that in mating contexts, women's competition is dependent on individual tendency toward competition with other women, not fertility.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106760"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145048464","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}

{"title":"Understanding olfactory fertility cues in humans: chemical analysis of women's vulvar odour and perceptual detection of these cues by men","authors":"Madita Zetzsche ,&nbsp;Marlen Kücklich ,&nbsp;Brigitte M. Weiß ,&nbsp;Julia Stern ,&nbsp;Andrea C. Marcillo Lara ,&nbsp;Claudia Birkemeyer ,&nbsp;Lars Penke ,&nbsp;Anja Widdig","doi":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106742","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106742","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>By conveying cues of their current fertility, females can provide valuable reproductive information to conspecifics. Our closest relatives, non-human primates, employ diverse strategies, including olfactory cues from the anogenital region, to communicate information about female fertility. While their shared phylogeny with humans suggests that analogous olfactory cues may have been preserved in modern women, empirical evidence is lacking. In a comprehensive two-fold approach, we investigated fertility-related shifts in the chemical composition of women's vulvar volatiles as well as men's ability to perceive them. We collected vulvar odour from 28 naturally cycling women (students, academic staff members, and citizen of Göttingen) on up to ten days of their menstrual cycle, focusing on fertile days. For 146 vulvar samples (subsample of <em>n</em> = 16 women), we assessed whether their volatile profiles varied in relation to female fertility using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Simulating a first encounter, 139 men evaluated a total of 274 vulvar odour samples from 28 women, collected on different cycle days. We used hormonal analyses to confirm women's fertile days. We assessed variation in chemical composition and male odour ratings in relation to women's conception probability, temporal distance to ovulation, and ovarian hormone levels. We found no evidence for chemical changes allowing tracking of fertility across the cycle. However, in the immediate assessment (i.e., without tracking), no significant effects were found for any predictors except conception risk. Notably, the significance of the conception risk effect varied depending on the model specification. Further, men's attraction to vulvar odour was not significantly predicted by female fertility. Overall, our data suggests a relatively low retention of chemical fertility cues in vulvar odour of modern women.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55159,"journal":{"name":"Evolution and Human Behavior","volume":"46 6","pages":"Article 106742"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144809767","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}