{"title":"Historical Population Displacement is Associated with Faster Life History in Czechia","authors":"Slobodan Koljević","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00249-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00249-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Purpose</h3><p>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 <i>Sudetenland</i>) were mainly inhabited by a German-speaking population who were forcefully displaced post-WWII.</p><h3>Methods</h3><p>Differences in life history speed amongst Czech districts were estimated based on multiple life history indicators via a factor analysis.</p><h3>Results</h3><p>Faster life history for Sudetenland is confirmed, a pattern consistent across numerous life history indicators.</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>The spatial overlap between fast life history and population displacement (herein dubbed the <i>r-</i>displacement distribution) might be contingent on stable socioeconomic environment, potentially limiting its generality beyond socioeconomically developed societies. Further replications of <i>r-</i>displacement distribution might be needed to confirm its generality.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 3-4","pages":"324 - 334"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142452915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Female Competition Stress Test: Effects on Disordered Eating Beyond Adolescence","authors":"Catherine Salmon, Jessica Hehman","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00246-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00246-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A common belief is that social pressure for thinness is directly responsible for both a desire for a thin physique in women as well as its pathological expression in eating disorders. Our understanding of such behavior may be illuminated by an evolutionary perspective that sees it as not just the product of social pressure, but as an exaggerated expression of behavior that may have once been adaptive. The reproductive suppression hypothesis suggests that natural selection shaped a mechanism for adjusting female reproduction to socioecological conditions by altering the amount of body fat. In modern Western culture, social and ecological cues, which would have signaled the need for temporary postponement of reproduction in ancestral environments, may now be experienced to an unprecedented intensity and duration. The Female-Female Competition Stress Test (FCST) is a measure of stress from adolescent female-female competition over status and over male attention. Based on the adaptive reproductive suppression model, this stress is likely to be associated with anorexic type behavior. This study replicates earlier work on this in a post-adolescent sample as well as extending the model to examine the relationship between female competition stress and disordered eating in an older adult (pre and post-menopausal) population. Results indicated that female competition stress scores predicted greater disordered attitudes toward eating as well as disordered eating behavior. While these effects decreased with age, they did not disappear and, in fact, female competition stress scores were elevated in postmenopausal women.</p>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 3-4","pages":"265 - 283"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142180269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Benjamin G. Serpell, Blair T. Crewther, Phillip J. Fourie, Christian J. Cook
{"title":"Fluctuations in Cortisol and Testosterone Map to Fluctuations in Opinion Strength in Healthy Men","authors":"Benjamin G. Serpell, Blair T. Crewther, Phillip J. Fourie, Christian J. Cook","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00245-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00245-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Opinions are often linked to emotions and stress. It is well established that testosterone and cortisol are useful biomarkers of stress and can predict human emotion and behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to explore whether changes in testosterone and cortisol concentration map to shifts in opinions.</p><p>We present three studies with healthy men, where we (1) monitored diurnal changes in testosterone and cortisol alongside political opinion change using a descriptive longitudinal design, (2) assessed testosterone, cortisol and political opinion change in an experimental trial using a physical exercise intervention designed to decrease cortisol concentration and/or increase testosterone concentration, and (3) monitored testosterone and cortisol change with political opinion in a trial with psychosocial intervention designed to increase cortisol concentration/decrease testosterone concentration.</p><p>Testosterone concentration and opinion changes were observed across the day (<i>p</i> < 0.05). Furthermore, opinions changed similarly to exercise-induced increases in testosterone (8.6–11.5%), but inversely to exercise-induced reductions in cortisol (<i>p</i> < 0.05). Opinion changes also occurred in similar fashion to testosterone changes following psychosocial intervention (-5.6% to -10.0%), and inversely to cortisol changes (<i>p</i> < 0.05). Finally, opinion change and testosterone change correlated at the within person level (<i>r</i> = 0.17 to 0.33; <i>p</i> < 0.05).</p><p>We showed natural fluctuations in testosterone and cortisol covaried in parallel with shifts in opinion. Further, given the emergence of relationships for opinion change with hormone change, we contend that physiological stress response (i.e., testosterone and cortisol change) may predict, or even cause, opinion change.</p>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 3-4","pages":"247 - 264"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40750-024-00245-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141777119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jessica K. Hlay, Graham Albert, Carlota Batres, George Richardson, Caitlyn Placek, Nicholas Landry, Steven Arnocky, Aaron D. Blackwell, Carolyn R. Hodges-Simeon
{"title":"Greater Self-reported Health is Associated with Lower Disgust: Evidence for Individual Calibration of the Behavioral Immune System","authors":"Jessica K. Hlay, Graham Albert, Carlota Batres, George Richardson, Caitlyn Placek, Nicholas Landry, Steven Arnocky, Aaron D. Blackwell, Carolyn R. Hodges-Simeon","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00243-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00243-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>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.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 2","pages":"211 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141576656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction: Why isn’t There More Incel Violence?","authors":"William Costello, David M. Buss","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00244-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00244-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 2","pages":"245 - 245"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142410055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evolutionary Adaptation Perspectives on Childcare with References to Life History Plasticity in the Modern World: Brazil, Russia, and the USA","authors":"Olga Semenova, Aurelio José Figueredo, Rosana Suemi Tokumaru, Renata Pereira Defelipe, Tania Kiehl Lucci, Catherine Salmon, Emily Vogel, Rachel Zambrano, Marina Bytovskaya","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00241-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00241-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Introduction</h3><p>The cooperative breeding framework suggests that help from extended family members with childrearing is important adaptation for our species survival, and it is universal. However, the degree of alloparental help may vary between societies, families, and over time. We hypothesized that maternal and paternal effort, as well as alloparental care, would depend both upon resource availability (SES) and different mating opportunities for males and females in three countries: Brazil, Russia, and the USA.</p><h3>Methods</h3><p>We analyzed the intergenerational interactions between family members during childcare via Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in R-software. Online samples were collected from Brazil (N = 538), Russia (N = 502), and the USA (N = 308).</p><h3>Results and Discussion</h3><p>The results of our study are consistent with previous research on life history (LHT) plasticity, which has shown a negative correlation between the perceived childhood SES and perceived parental effort. However, our models indicated a possible cultural difference in the estimates of poverty paths: in Brazilian and American samples, SES had a greater impact on paternal care than on maternal, while in Russia, poverty had a greater effect on mothers’ effort. This reversed effect size on maternal versus paternal effort in Russia may suggest that Russian mothers experience a trade-off between working outside the home and direct childcare, while Russian fathers may adopt a “faster” LHT strategy as they are the limited sex in the mating pool.</p><p>Our findings also demonstrate that the parental effort of both parents was positively associated, indicating their mutualistic relationship. We also found that according to the recollections of respondents’ maternal grandparents usually compensate the lack of paternal effort, but their help, as well as the help of paternal grandparents, was indifferent to the poverty cues.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 2","pages":"148 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141529928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ellen Zakreski, Robert-Paul Juster, Anja C. Feneberg, Cory Cooperman, Jens C. Pruessner
{"title":"Inducing Death Thoughts Reduces the Cortisol Response to Psychosocial Stress Similar to the Effects of Early-life Adversity: A Life-history Perspective","authors":"Ellen Zakreski, Robert-Paul Juster, Anja C. Feneberg, Cory Cooperman, Jens C. Pruessner","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00242-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00242-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Purpose</h3><p>Early-life adversity (ELA) affects health by altering the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. Most studies show that ELA blunts HPA responsivity while others show the opposite. To explain this inconsistency, researchers investigate factors that alter associations between ELA and HPA responsivity. One factor could be conditions that participants encounter before exposure to stressors. Life-history theory suggests ELA alters HPA function by signalling high mortality. Similarly, death thoughts signal acute mortality. Research suggests that thinking about death induces behaviors typical of ELA subjects. We therefore tested whether death thoughts before acute stress mimics the effects of ELA on HPA responsivity.</p><h3>Methods</h3><p>One hundred twenty eight healthy young men were classified as high or low ELA based on retrospective self-report, and then primed with death thoughts (experimental group) or completed neutral questionnaires (control group). They then underwent a psychosocial stress task. Salivary cortisol was sampled repeatedly to assess HPA responsivity to stress.</p><h3>Results</h3><p>In the control group, higher ELA correlated with lower cortisol responsivity. In the experimental group, subjects with high ELA did not show altered cortisol responsivity, but low ELA participants displayed significantly blunted responsivity in response to death thoughts. Thus, low ELA participants primed with death thoughts resembled high ELA participants not exposed to death thoughts.</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>Our findings suggest that subtle death cues present in the testing environment may confound associations between ELA and HPA function and should be controlled for in future studies. We discuss how life-history theory could explain how both long-term (ELA) and acute (mortality salience) experiences alter HPA function.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 2","pages":"182 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141529927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Scientific Revolution of Evolutionary Psychology: Current Status and Future Directions. A Commentary on Zagaria (2024)","authors":"William Costello, Andrew G. Thomas","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00240-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00240-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Objectives: A bibliometric analysis by Zagaria (2024) claimed that research in Evolutionary Psychology (EP) lags behind research grounded in the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) in prevalence and growth rate, questioning EP’s status as a scientific revolution. This commentary aims to re-evaluate Zagaria’s findings and conclusions. We raise two major concerns about his analysis. First, Zagaria’s EP syntax excluded key EP terms like fitness, psychological adaptation, and parental investment, while the SSSM syntax included homonyms (e.g., culture) not always relevant to SSSM (e.g., tissue culture in medicine). Second, the analysis included non-scientific journals from fields like gender studies, skewing results since EP is not intended to influence non-scientific fields like dance therapy or tourism studies. Focusing on high-impact psychology journals would better reflect EP’s influence. Methods: We revised the SSSM syntax to “cultural” and updated the EP syntax by adding “inclusive fitness,” “parental investment,” and “psychological adaptation.” Our analysis also used year-by-year data and 5- and 10-year rolling averages to assess trends more accurately. Results: Our analysis found that growth in EP and SSSM research is comparable over time, and the ratio of SSSM to EP papers was overstated by at least 23%. Conclusion: We highlight metrics that should be weighted more heavily than publication quantity, such as effect magnitude, universality, and replicability. By these metrics, EP is arguably outperforming the SSSM and embodies elements of the Kuhnian scientific revolution discussed by Zagaria (2024). This commentary offers a more optimistic vision for EP’s current status and future direction.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 2","pages":"232 - 244"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141195605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neural Diversity and Decisions","authors":"Garrett Thoelen, Paul J. Zak","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00237-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00237-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Purpose</h3><p>Differences in choices provide a window into the variety of human preferences and behaviors. Most non-trivial decisions recruit multiple regions of the brain with activity that shows substantial variation across individuals and also depends on personality traits and attitudes.</p><h3>Methods</h3><p>The present study measured nine physiologic factors and collected 15 types of psychological data while participants made decisions in standard tasks measuring risk aversion, patience, altruism, cooperation, generosity, trust, and trustworthiness. Robust predictors were defined as those that were statistically significant in both forward and backward stepwise regressions using all the collected independent variables.</p><h3>Results</h3><p>The analysis showed that multiple measures of physiologic stress decrease cooperative behaviors while testosterone consistently increased antisocial behaviors. In addition, cognitive abilities robustly increased patience but decreased cooperation, while those more satisfied with their lives were more trustworthy. Participants scoring high on the personality trait of imagination were shown to be less altruistic and generous, while neuroticism increased prosociality.</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>This study identified key drivers of behaviors that should be measured in decision-making experiments in order to capture the multiple factors that affect choices. We conclude with suggestions on how to establish causal relationships between the identified factors and decisions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 2","pages":"109 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40750-024-00237-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140942079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Drives Mating Effort: Fear of Singlehood, Relationship Status, and Self-Esteem","authors":"Menelaos Apostolou, Burcu Tekeş, Antonios Kagialis","doi":"10.1007/s40750-024-00239-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40750-024-00239-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Purpose</h3><p>Attracting and maintaining a romantic partner requires considerable effort. In the current study, we aimed to test the hypothesis that fear of singlehood is a primary factor driving individuals to allocate scarce resources in the mating domain.</p><h3>Methods</h3><p>We conducted a close-ended survey with a sample of 990 Greek and Turkish-speaking participants.</p><h3>Results</h3><p>We found that that a stronger fear of singlehood was associated with higher mating effort. Moreover, voluntarily single participants experienced lower fear of singlehood compared to other categories of singles and individuals in intimate relationships. Additionally, higher self-esteem was associated with lower fear of singlehood. We also identified a significant indirect effect of relationship status and self-esteem on mating effort through fear of singlehood. Specifically, involuntarily single individuals tended to exert more mating effort due to heightened fear of singlehood compared to those in other relationship status categories. Furthermore, higher self-esteem was associated with reduced mating effort, as it was associated with lower fear of singlehood. These findings held true across both the Greek and Turkish samples.</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>Relationship status and self-esteem play a role in mating effort through fear of singlehood.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7178,"journal":{"name":"Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology","volume":"10 2","pages":"130 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40750-024-00239-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140668555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}