Fundamental social motives measured across forty-two cultures in two waves

How does psychology vary across human societies? The fundamental social motives framework adopts an evolutionary approach to capture the broad range of human social goals within a taxonomy of ancestrally recurring threats and opportunities. These motives-self-protection, disease avoidance, affiliation, status, mate acquisition, mate retention, and kin care-are high in fitness relevance and everyday salience, yet understudied cross-culturally. Here, we gathered data on these motives in 42 countries (N = 15,915) in two cross-sectional waves, including 19 countries (N = 10,907) for which data were gathered in both waves. Wave 1 was collected from mid-2016 through late 2019 (32 countries, N = 8,998; 3,302 male, 5,585 female; Mage = 24.43, SD = 7.91). Wave 2 was collected from April through November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic (29 countries, N = 6,917; 2,249 male, 4,218 female; Mage = 28.59, SD = 11.31). These data can be used to assess differences and similarities in people's fundamental social motives both across and within cultures, at different time points, and in relation to other commonly studied cultural indicators and outcomes

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

Fundamental social motives measured across forty-two cultures in two waves

How does psychology vary across human societies? The fundamental social motives framework adopts an evolutionary approach to capture the broad range of human social goals within a taxonomy of ancestrally recurring threats and opportunities. These motives—self-protection, disease avoidance, affiliation, status, mate acquisition, mate retention, and kin care—are high in fitness relevance and everyday salience, yet understudied cross-culturally. Here, we gathered data on these motives in 42 countries (N = 15,915) in two cross-sectional waves, including 19 countries (N = 10,907) for which datawere gathered in both waves. Wave 1 was collected from mid-2016 through late 2019 (32 countries, N = 8,998; 3,302 male, 5,585 female; Mage = 24.43, SD = 7.91). Wave 2 was collected from April through November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic (29 countries, N = 6,917; 2,249 male, 4,218 female; Mage = 28.59, SD = 11.31). These data can be used to assess differences and similarities in people’s fundamental social motives both across and within cultures, at different time points, and in relation to other commonly studied cultural indicators and outcomes

Responses to political partisans are shaped by a COVID-sensitive disease avoidance psychology: A longitudinal investigation of functional flexibility

How do natural changes in disease avoidance motivation shape thoughts about and behaviors toward ingroup and outgroup members? During the COVID-19 pandemic, political party affiliation has been a strong predictor in the United States of COVID-related opinions, attitudes, and behaviors. Using a six-wave longitudinal panel survey of representative Americans (on Prolific, N = 1,124, from Apr 2020 to Feb 2021), we explored how naturally-occurring changes across time in both risk of COVID-19 infection and people’s disease avoidance motivation shaped thoughts about and behaviors toward Republicans and Democrats (e.g., perceived infection threat, feelings of disgust, desires to avoid). We found a significant effect of dispositional level of motivation, over and above powerful effects of in-party favoritism/out-party derogation: participants with a dispositionally stronger motivation to avoid disease showed greater infection management responses especially toward Republicans; this held even for Republican participants. More important, we also found a significant interactive effect of within-person variability and ecological infection risk: participants who sensitively upregulated their motivation during the rapid spread of COVID-19 perceived greater infection threat by Republicans and felt less disgust toward and desire to avoid Democrats. This finding, too, held for Republican participants. These results provide evidence of functionally flexible within-person psychological disease avoidance—a theoretically important process long presumed and now demonstrated—and suggest another mechanism contributing to U.S. political polarization

Family Still Matters: Human Social Motivation during a Global Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caused drastic social changes for many, including separation from friends and coworkers, enforced close contact with family, reductions in mobility, and a number of other health-related precautions. Here we assess the extent to which people’s evolutionarily-relevant basic motivations and goals—their fundamental social motives—might have been affected. To address this question, we gathered data on these motives in 42 countries (N=15,915) in two waves, including 19 countries (N=10,907) for which data were gathered both before and during the pandemic (Pre-pandemic wave: 32 countries, N=8998; 3302 male, 5585 female; Mage=24.43, SD=7.91; Mid-pandemic wave: 29 countries, N=6917; 2249 male, 4218 female; Mage=28.59, SD=11.31). Samples include data collected online (e.g., Prolific, MTurk), at universities, and via community sampling. We found that Disease Avoidance motivation was substantially higher during the pandemic, and that there were small yet significant differences across waves in most of the other fundamental social motives. Most sensibly, concern with caring for one’s children was higher during the pandemic, and concerns with Mate Seeking and Status were lower. Earlier findings showing the prioritization of family motives over mating motives (and even over Disease Avoidance motives) were replicated during the pandemic. Finally, well-being remained positively associated with family motives and negatively associated with mating motives during the pandemic, as it had in the pre-pandemic samples. Our results provide further evidence for the robust primacy of family-related motivations even during this unique disruption of social life

The Adherence Gap: A Longitudinal Examination of Men\u27s and Women\u27s Antiretroviral Therapy Adherence in British Columbia, 2000-2014

Objective: The aim of this study was to observe the effect of sex on attaining optimaladherence to combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) longitudinally while controllingfor known adherence confounders – IDU and ethnicity.Design: Using the population-based HAART Observational Medical Evaluation andResearch cohort, data were collected from HIV-positive adults, aged at least 19 years,receiving cART in British Columbia, Canada, with data collected between 2000 and2014. cART adherence was assessed using pharmacy refill data. The proportion ofparticipants reaching optimal (95%) adherence by sex was compared per 6-monthperiod from initiation of therapy onward. Generalized linear mixed models with logisticregression examined the effect of sex on cART adherence.Results: Among 4534 individuals followed for a median of 65.9 months (interquartilerange: 37.0–103.2), 904 (19.9%) were women, 589 (13.0%) were Indigenous, and1603 (35.4%) had a history of IDU. A significantly lower proportion of women relativeto men were optimally adherent overall (57.0 vs. 77.1%; P<0.001) and in covariateanalyses. In adjusted analyses, female sex remained independently associated withsuboptimal adherence overall (adjusted odds ratio: 0.55; 95% confidence interval:0.48–0.63).Conclusion: Women living with HIV had significantly lower cART adherence ratesthen men across a 14-year period overall, and by subgroup. Targeted research isrequired to identify barriers to adherence among women living with HIV to tailorwomen-centered HIV care and treatment support services

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, 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. College students, single people, and males place relatively higher emphasis on mate-seeking, but even those samples rated kin care motives as more important. Further, 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

Family still matters: Human social motivation across 42 countries during a global pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caused drastic social changes for many people, including separation from friends and coworkers, enforced close contact with family, and reductions in mobility. Here we assess the extent to which people's evolutionarily-relevant basic motivations and goals—fundamental social motives such as Affiliation and Kin Care—might have been affected. To address this question, we gathered data on fundamental social motives in 42 countries (N = 15,915) across two waves, including 19 countries (N = 10,907) for which data were gathered both before and during the pandemic (pre-pandemic wave: 32 countries, N = 8998; 3302 male, 5585 female; Mage = 24.43, SD = 7.91; mid-pandemic wave: 29 countries, N = 6917; 2249 male, 4218 female; Mage = 28.59, SD = 11.31). Samples include data collected online (e.g., Prolific, MTurk), at universities, and via community sampling. We found that Disease Avoidance motivation was substantially higher during the pandemic, and that most of the other fundamental social motives showed small, yet significant, differences across waves. Most sensibly, concern with caring for one's children was higher during the pandemic, and concerns with Mate Seeking and Status were lower. Earlier findings showing the prioritization of family motives over mating motives (and even over Disease Avoidance motives) were replicated during the pandemic. Finally, well-being remained positively associated with family-related motives and negatively associated with mating motives during the pandemic, as in the pre-pandemic samples. Our results provide further evidence for the robust primacy of family-related motivations even during this unique disruption of social life