Understanding cooperation through fitness interdependence

Some acts of human cooperation are not easily explained by traditional models of kinship or reciprocity. Fitness interdependence may provide a unifying conceptual framework, in which cooperation arises from the mutual dependence for survival or reproduction, as occurs among mates, risk-pooling partnerships and brothers-in-arms

Family Matters:Rethinking the Psychology of Human Social Motivation

What motives do people prioritize in their social lives? Historically, social psychologists, especially those adopting an evolutionary perspective, have devoted a great deal of research attention to sexual attraction and romantic-partner choice (mate seeking). Research on long-term familial bonds (mate retention and kin care) has been less thoroughly connected to relevant comparative and evolutionary work on other species, and in the case of kin care, these bonds have been less well researched. Examining varied sources of data from 27 societies around the world, we found that people generally view familial motives as primary in importance and mate-seeking motives as relatively low in importance. Compared with other groups, college students, single people, and men place relatively higher emphasis on mate seeking, but even those samples rated kin-care motives as more important. Furthermore, motives linked to long-term familial bonds are positively associated with psychological well-being, but mate-seeking motives are associated with anxiety and depression. We address theoretical and empirical reasons why there has been extensive research on mate seeking and why people prioritize goals related to long-term familial bonds over mating goals. Reallocating relatively greater research effort toward long-term familial relationships would likely yield many interesting new findings relevant to everyday people’s highest social priorities

The Role of Women’s and Men’s Body Shapes in Explicit and Implicit Fat Stigma

Beyond being painful, fat stigma might facilitate pernicious consequences; over and above one’s weight, fat stigma is associated with lesser wellbeing, poorer health, greater all-cause mortality, and weight gains that perpetuate the weight-stigma cycle. To combat fat stigma effectively requires an understanding of the perceptual calculus underlying it. Here, we seized upon new work asserting that importance of a previously overlooked variable in this calculus—fat deposition location (body shape)—and we examine basic but fundamental open questions about the role of body shape in fat stigma via two experiments (one pre-registered). We replicate and extend work investigating how body shape—over and above body size—drives stigma toward women, using a figure set created specifically to test predictions about the role of body shape as well as size. We asked: (1) Are findings of greater explicit stigma toward adult women with abdominal (gut) versus gluteofemoral fat depositions (hips, thighs, buttocks) replicated—and (2) does this same finding hold for implicit stigma?; (3) Are male targets similarly stigmatized as a function of shape? (4) Do individual difference factors known to predict anti-fat stigma, e.g., Protestant Work Ethic, play a role here? We examined these questions by presenting American participants with women and men targets varying in both body size and shape—assessing participants’ explicit stigma (via self-report) and implicit stigma (via the Attitude Misattribution Procedure; AMP). We replicated the pattern that explicit fat stigma toward women is shape-sensitive and extend that to implicit stigma—finding, for example, that, of two women with the same exact heights and higher weights, the woman with abdominal fat deposition is more stigmatized than the woman with gluteofemoral fat deposition. We found no consistent results regarding the role of body shape in driving fat stigma toward men. We also found that some individual difference factors predicting anti-fat stigma were also attuned to body shape as well as body size. The results underscore the importance of integrating body shape into future work on fat stigma (toward women)

How do you build the perfect friend? Evidence from two forced-choice decision-making experiments

Friendship is a unique and underexplored area of human sociality. Research suggests that humans have preferences for characteristics in their friends that maximize the benefits of these relationships. Yet, whereas more friends might increase friendship benefits, humans also have limited time, resources, and energy to invest in finding high-quality friends, making it likely that the nature of these preferences differs depending on the resources an individual has available to invest in this goal. Across two studies (total N = 693), we investigated how this trade-off may function by investigating the nature of friendship preferences. In Study 1, we utilized the budget paradigm method from behavioral economics to investigate the necessities and luxuries in friendship preferences. In Study 2, we replicated these preferences with a novel method and extended our investigation into understanding the hierarchical nature of these preferences. Taken together, our results provide a promising starting point for research investigating trade-offs between necessities and luxuries in friendship preferences

A Factor Analytic Examination of Women\u27s and Men\u27s Friendship Preferences

Friendships are valuable relationships that can bestow many benefits. How can humans ensure they receive the maximum benefits with minimal potential costs? One possible solution is to have preferences for traits, expectations, and rules in friendship. This could, for example, help people pursue beneficial friendships and jettison costly friendships. Previous research robustly documented that such preferences for traits, expectations, and rules exist, though they are often combined, and indicates that these preferences may be sex-specific. Across two studies (N = 853), our factor analyses documented that preferences for desired traits in friendship are organized into two broad categories with women rating intrinsic traits as more important in their friendship compared to men\u27s ratings. Similarly, factor analyses showed that preferences for rules in friendship are organized into four broad categories with women rating all rule categories as more important in their friendships compared to men\u27s ratings

Data_Sheet_1_A secret language of aggression: disgust expressions are treated as cues of impending social exclusion among women.docx

Attending to women's intrasexual competition generates a straightforward prediction: Insofar as women actors sometimes use distinct tactics of aggression (e. g., related to social exclusion), women targets might possess distinct interpretations of and reactions to those tactics. We test this using one such tactic common among women: disgust expressions directed at targets of desired social exclusion. Across four experiments with U.S. adults (N = 1,019), women (more than men) (1) interpret same-gender disgust (but not anger) facial expressions potentially directed toward them as cues of impending social exclusion, and (2) report being hurt in reaction to these expressions, whether imagined or recalled. Further, (3) women (but not men) who are more dispositionally concerned with social belonging (but not vulnerability to disease) report greater hurt. Women seem to possess distinct interpretations of and reactions to aggression tactics that they uniquely and recurrently face. Identifying these often lesser-studied challenges women face may reveal additional, overlooked features of women's strategic social cognition and behavior.</p

Why are song lyrics becoming simpler? a time series analysis of lyrical complexity in six decades of American popular music.

Song lyrics are rich in meaning. In recent years, the lyrical content of popular songs has been used as an index of culture's shifting norms, affect, and values. One particular, newly uncovered, trend is that lyrics of popular songs have become increasingly simple over time. Why might this be? Here, we test the idea that increasing lyrical simplicity is accompanied by a widening array of novel song choices. We do so by using six decades (1958-2016) of popular music in the United States (N = 14,661 songs), controlling for multiple well-studied ecological and cultural factors plausibly linked to shifts in lyrical simplicity (e.g., resource availability, pathogen prevalence, rising individualism). In years when more novel song choices were produced, the average lyrical simplicity of the songs entering U.S. billboard charts was greater. This cross-temporal relationship was robust when controlling for a range of cultural and ecological factors and employing multiverse analyses to control for potentially confounding influence of temporal autocorrelation. Finally, simpler songs entering the charts were more successful, reaching higher chart positions, especially in years when more novel songs were produced. The present results suggest that cultural transmission depends on the amount of novel choices in the information landscape

MoonSupplementalMaterial – Supplemental material for Religious People Are Trusted Because They Are Viewed as Slow Life-History Strategists

<p>Supplemental material, MoonSupplementalMaterial for Religious People Are Trusted Because They Are Viewed as Slow Life-History Strategists by Jordan W. Moon, Jaimie Arona Krems and Adam B. Cohen in Psychological Science</p

MoonOpenPracticesDisclosure – Supplemental material for Religious People Are Trusted Because They Are Viewed as Slow Life-History Strategists

<p>Supplemental material, MoonOpenPracticesDisclosure for Religious People Are Trusted Because They Are Viewed as Slow Life-History Strategists by Jordan W. Moon, Jaimie Arona Krems and Adam B. Cohen in Psychological Science</p