All posts; Tags Include "Evolutionary Psychology"
- July 9, 2012
- 06:11 PM
- 411 views
Social Banking
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
“Bankers have a limited amount of money, and must choose who to invest it in. Each choice is a gamble: taken together, they must ultimately yield a net profit, or the banker will go out of business. This set of … Continue reading →... Read more »
DeScioli, P., & Kurzban, R. (2012) A Solution to the Mysteries of Morality. Psychological Bulletin. DOI: 10.1037/a0029065
- July 8, 2012
- 01:28 PM
- 642 views
Why Did We Invent Karma?
by Eric Horowitz in peer-reviewed by my neurons
The fact that the concept Americans refer to as “karma” exists across so many different cultures is both nonsensical and reasonable at the same time. On one hand, there is no evidence that karma actually exists. On the other hand, the belief that “what goes around comes around” is clearly one that leads to more [...]... Read more »
Converse, B.A., Risen, J.L. . (2012) Investing in Karma : When Wanting Promotes Helping. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797612437248
- July 5, 2012
- 07:30 AM
- 542 views
Ethnocentrism in finite inviscid populations
by Artem Kaznatcheev in Evolutionary Games Group
In preparation for EGT Reading Group 31 and as a follow up to my previous post on inviscid ethnocentrism, I decided to look at Martin Nowak’s first paper on tag-based models (Traulsen & Nowak, 2007). For Arne Traulsen, this was the 3rd paper on ethnocentrism. Traulsen’s first publication (Traulsen & Shuster, 2003) provided a simplified [...]... Read more »
Traulsen A, & Nowak MA. (2007) Chromodynamics of cooperation in finite populations. PLoS One, 2(3). PMID: 17342204
- July 4, 2012
- 10:07 AM
- 503 views
How does availability of men in the environment affect women's career focus?
by Alex Fradera in BPS Occupational Digest
A recent article argues the ratio of men to women in an environment may influence women's pursuit of lucrative careers. Authored by Kristina Durante and colleagues, it begins by describing a correlational finding: women in US states with proportionately fewer men tend to have fewer babies and have them later, tending instead to be in higher-earning jobs. The rest of the article describes a series of experiments with female university students conducted to explore this.The first experiment asked ........ Read more »
Durante, Kristina M., Griskevicius, Vladas, Simpson, Jeffry A., Cantú, Stephanie M., & Tybur, Joshua M. (2012) Sex ratio and women's career choice: Does a scarcity of men lead women to choose briefcase over baby?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(1), 121-134. DOI: 10.1037/a0027949
- June 27, 2012
- 02:02 AM
- 468 views
Predictably Lacking
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
Due to a particularly engaging high school teacher, my undergraduate minor was in economics. Upon taking a number of classes in economics at the college level, I realized that most of the assumptions made by economists about how people should … Continue reading →... Read more »
DeScioli P, & Kurzban R. (2009) Mysteries of morality. Cognition, 112(2), 281-99. PMID: 19505683
- June 26, 2012
- 05:00 AM
- 815 views
Bifurcation of cooperation and inviscid ethnocentrism
by Artem Kaznatcheev in Evolutionary Games Group
I was fooling around with my ethnocentrism code and testing various game parametrizations and treatments of viscosity. I was too lazy to generate my standard average plots and so I followed a technique I have seen in biology: plotting all the runs as separate lines on one plot. The result is to the right of [...]... Read more »
Kaznatcheev, A., & Shultz, T.R. (2011) Ethnocentrism Maintains Cooperation, but Keeping One's Children Close Fuels It. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 3174-3179. info:/
- June 25, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 557 views
“Wide-faced men are going to lie and cheat”
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
We’ve read about aggressive men with thick necks and wide faces. We often suspect them of being violent thugs. Some, more charitably, might opine they are simply more confident and assertive. Or maybe weight-lifters. New research says they are also likely liars and cheaters. Seriously? We all have biases and use stereotypes to make snap judgments [...]
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Stirrat, M., & Perrett, DI. (2012) Face structure predicts cooperation: Men with wider faces are more generous to their in-group when out-group competition is salient. Psychological Science. . DOI: 10.1177/0956797611435133
- June 18, 2012
- 10:00 PM
- 792 views
Can we expand our moral circle towards an empathic civilization?
by Artem Kaznatcheev in Evolutionary Games Group
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (or RSA for short) hosts numerous speakers on ideas and actions for a 21st century enlihtenment. They upload many of these talks on their YouTube channel to which I am recent subscriber. I particularly enjoy their series of RSA Animate segments where an artist [...]... Read more »
Hammond, R, & Axelrod, R. (2006) The Evolution of Ethnocentrism. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(6), 926-936. info:/10.1177/0022002706293470
- June 14, 2012
- 12:21 PM
- 697 views
Assumed Guilty Until Proven Innocent
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
Motley Crue is a band that’s famous for a lot of reasons, their music least of all. Given their reputation, it was a little strange to see them doing what celebrities do best: selling out by endorsing Kia. At least … Continue reading →... Read more »
Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D., & Cushman, F. (2012) Benefiting From Misfortune: When Harmless Actions Are Judged to Be Morally Blameworthy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(1), 52-62. DOI: 10.1177/0146167211430232
- June 13, 2012
- 09:15 PM
- 760 views
Evolution of ethnocentrism in the Hammond and Axelrod model
by Artem Kaznatcheev in Evolutionary Games Group
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to favor one’s own group at the expense of others; a bias towards those similar to us. Many social scientists believe that ethnocentrism derives from cultural learning and depends on considerable social and cognitive abilities (Hewstone, Rubin, & Willis, 2002). However, the only fundamental requirement for implementing ethnocentrism is categorical perception. [...]... Read more »
Hammond, R., & Axelrod, R. (2006) The Evolution of Ethnocentrism. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(6), 926-936. DOI: 10.1177/0022002706293470
- June 12, 2012
- 12:37 PM
- 638 views
Intentional Or Not, Incest Is Still Gross (And Wrong)
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
For a moment, let’s try to imagine a world that isn’t our own. In this world, the intentions behind an act are completely disregarded when it comes to judging that act morally; the only thing that matters is the outcome. … Continue reading →... Read more »
Young, L., & Saxe, R. (2011) When ignorance is no excuse: Different roles for intent across moral domains. Cognition, 120(2), 202-214. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.04.005
- June 10, 2012
- 02:14 PM
- 648 views
How Early Do Tribal Attitudes Develop?
by Eric Horowitz in peer-reviewed by my neurons
The long term fate of the human race will ultimately depend on our ability to overcome our tribal roots. It won’t be easy. Until very recently, maintaining an “us” vs. “them” view was necessary for survival. Those who were too trusting of other groups or who failed to protect their own kind often found themselves [...]... Read more »
Mahajan N, & Wynn K. (2012) Origins of "Us" versus "Them": Prelinguistic infants prefer similar others. Cognition. PMID: 22668879
- June 9, 2012
- 12:23 PM
- 417 views
Does Infidelity Pay Off (For Sparrows)?
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
For some species, mating can be a touch more complicated than others. In species where males provide little more than their gametes, the goal of mating for females is simple: get the best gametes available. While the specifics as to … Continue reading →... Read more »
Sardell, R., Arcese, P., Keller, L., & Reid, J. (2012) Are There Indirect Fitness Benefits of Female Extra-Pair Reproduction? Lifetime Reproductive Success of Within-Pair and Extra-Pair Offspring. The American Naturalist, 179(6), 779-793. DOI: 10.1086/665665
- June 6, 2012
- 11:38 AM
- 1,030 views
Decisions, Decisions
by Miss Behavior in The Scorpion and the Frog
It doesn't take much to notice how different animalscan be... But look closer and you'll see how similarthey are too. Figure from O'Connell and Hofmann2011 Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology paper.Animals live in social environments that repeatedly present both challenges (like an aggressive neighbor) and opportunities (like a flirtatious neighbor). Although animals can usually respond to such challenges and opportunities in a number of different ways, t........ Read more »
O'Connell, L., & Hofmann, H. (2012) Evolution of a Vertebrate Social Decision-Making Network. Science, 336(6085), 1154-1157. DOI: 10.1126/science.1218889
O'Connell, L., & Hofmann, H. (2011) The Vertebrate mesolimbic reward system and social behavior network: A comparative synthesis. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 519(18), 3599-3639. DOI: 10.1002/cne.22735
O’Connell, L., & Hofmann, H. (2011) Genes, hormones, and circuits: An integrative approach to study the evolution of social behavior. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 32(3), 320-335. DOI: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2010.12.004
- June 5, 2012
- 01:58 AM
- 505 views
How does your body affect your feelings of efficacy and esteem?
by Farid Pazhoohi in Epistemophil
Waist-to-chest (WCR) and waist-to-shoulder (WSR) ratios are good predictors of male physical attractiveness and women have been shown to prefer higher waist-to-hip ratios (WHR) in men. This study addresses relationships between men’s body shapes and their feelings about appearance, weight and how others perceive them. The experimental results reported here demonstrate relationships between Iranian men’s shoulder-to-hip ratio (SHR) and WHR on self-reported body esteem and self-efficacy. Incre........ Read more »
Pazhoohi, F., Hosseinchari, M., and Doyle J. F. (2012) Iranian men’s waist-to-hip ratios, shoulder-to-hip ratios, body esteem and self-efficacy. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 10(2), 61-67. info:/10.1556/JEP.10.2012.2.2
- June 4, 2012
- 12:10 AM
- 712 views
I’m (Not) Sexy And I (Don’t) Know It
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
Imagine, for a moment, that someone you know tells you that they hate tomatoes, and how people who like tomatoes are seriously intellectually misguided. Later, you find that same person enjoying a BLT, going on about how much they really … Continue reading →... Read more »
Burson KA, Larrick RP, & Klayman J. (2006) Skilled or unskilled, but still unaware of it: how perceptions of difficulty drive miscalibration in relative comparisons. Journal of personality and social psychology, 90(1), 60-77. PMID: 16448310
Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999) Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121-1134. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.77.6.1121
- June 2, 2012
- 01:23 AM
- 524 views
Is that a male or a female?
by Farid Pazhoohi in Epistemophil
How accurate is our perception of body forms? How do we identify the gender of a body? Do we have any cue?
In our recent paper, we showed that men and women accurately identify the genders on the basis of the waist to hip ratio. It is shown that as the waist to hip ratio increased, the frequency of “male” identifications increased and as this ratio decreased, the frequency of “female” identifications increased.
For more discussion, check the paper out.
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Pazhoohi, ........ Read more »
Pazhoohi, F., . (2012) Identifying feminine and masculine ranges for Waist-to-Hip ratio. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 6(2), 227-232. info:/
- May 28, 2012
- 07:19 PM
- 761 views
Group Selectionists Make Basic Errors (Again)
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
In my last post, I wrote about a basic error most people seem to make when thinking about evolutionary psychology: they confuse the ultimate adaptive function of a psychological module with the proximate functioning of said module. Put briefly, the … Continue reading →... Read more »
Gintis, H., Bowles, S., Boyd, R., & Fehr, E. (2003) Explaining altruistic behavior in humans. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24(3), 153-172. DOI: 10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00157-5
- May 20, 2012
- 01:05 PM
- 596 views
The Difference Between Adaptive And Adapted
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
This is going to be something of a back to basics post, but a necessary one. Necessary, that is, if the comments I’ve been seeing lately are indicative of the thought processes of the population at large. It would seem … Continue reading →... Read more »
Conley, T. (2011) Perceived proposer personality characteristics and gender differences in acceptance of casual sex offers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 309-329. DOI: 10.1037/a0022152
- May 13, 2012
- 02:39 PM
- 499 views
Making Your Business My Business
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
“The government has no right to do what it’s doing, unless it’s doing what I want it to do” - Pretty much everyone everywhere. As most people know by now, North Carolina recently voted on and approved an amendment to the … Continue reading →... Read more »
Weeden, J., Cohen, A., & Kenrick, D. (2008) Religious attendance as reproductive support. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29(5), 327-334. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.03.004
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