Andrew Edward White

The financial consequences of too many men: sex ratio effects on saving, borrowing, and spending.

The ratio of males to females in a population is an important factor in determining behavior in animals. We propose that sex ratio also has pervasive effects in humans, such as by influencing economic decisions. Using both historical data and experiments, we examined how sex ratio influences saving, borrowing, and spending in the United States. Findings show that male-biased sex ratios (an abundance of men) lead men to discount the future and desire immediate rewards. Male-biased sex ratios decreased mens desire to save for the future and increased their willingness to incur debt for immediate expenditures. Sex ratio appears to influence behavior by increasing the intensity of same-sex competition for mates. Accordingly, a scarcity of women led people to expect men to spend more money during courtship, such as by paying more for engagement rings. These findings demonstrate experimentally that sex ratio influences human decision making in ways consistent with evolutionary biological theory. Implications for sex ratio effects across cultures are discussed.

Boosting Beauty in an Economic Decline: Mating, Spending, and the Lipstick Effect

Although consumer spending typically declines in economic recessions, some observers have noted that recessions appear to increase womens spending on beauty products--the so-called lipstick effect. Using both historical spending data and rigorous experiments, the authors examine how and why economic recessions influence womens consumer behavior. Findings revealed that recessionary cues--whether naturally occurring or experimentally primed--decreased desire for most products (e.g., electronics, household items). However, these cues consistently increased womens desire for products that increase attractiveness to mates--the first experimental demonstration of the lipstick effect. Additional studies show that this effect is driven by womens desire to attract mates with resources and depends on the perceived mate attraction function served by these products. In addition to showing how and why economic recessions influence womens desire for beauty products, this research provides novel insights into womens mating psychology, consumer behavior, and the relationship between the two.

Individual differences in fundamental social motives.

Motivation has long been recognized as an important component of how people both differ from, and are similar to, each other. The current research applies the biologically grounded fundamental social motives framework, which assumes that human motivational systems are functionally shaped to manage the major costs and benefits of social life, to understand individual differences in social motives. Using the Fundamental Social Motives Inventory, we explore the relations among the different fundamental social motives of Self-Protection, Disease Avoidance, Affiliation, Status, Mate Seeking, Mate Retention, and Kin Care; the relationships of the fundamental social motives to other individual difference and personality measures including the Big Five personality traits; the extent to which fundamental social motives are linked to recent life experiences; and the extent to which life history variables (e.g., age, sex, childhood environment) predict individual differences in the fundamental social motives. Results suggest that the fundamental social motives are a powerful lens through which to examine individual differences: They are grounded in theory, have explanatory value beyond that of the Big Five personality traits, and vary meaningfully with a number of life history variables. A fundamental social motives approach provides a generative framework for considering the meaning and implications of individual differences in social motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Beauty at the Ballot Box Disease Threats Predict Preferences for Physically Attractive Leaders

Why does beauty win out at the ballot box? Some researchers have posited that it occurs because people ascribe generally positive characteristics to physically attractive candidates. We propose an alternative explanation—that leadership preferences are related to functional disease-avoidance mechanisms. Because physical attractiveness is a cue to health, people concerned with disease should especially prefer physically attractive leaders. Using real-world voting data and laboratory-based experiments, we found support for this relationship. In congressional districts with elevated disease threats, physically attractive candidates are more likely to be elected (Study 1). Experimentally activating disease concerns leads people to especially value physical attractiveness in leaders (Study 2) and prefer more physically attractive political candidates (Study 3). In a final study, we demonstrated that these findings are related to leadership preferences, specifically, rather than preferences for physically attractive group members more generally (Study 4). Together, these findings highlight the nuanced and functional nature of leadership preferences.

Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket Life-History Strategies, Bet Hedging, and Diversification

Diversification of resources is a strategy found everywhere from the level of microorganisms to that of giant Wall Street investment firms. We examine the functional nature of diversification using life-history theory—a framework for understanding how organisms navigate resource-allocation trade-offs. This framework suggests that diversification may be adaptive or maladaptive depending on one’s life-history strategy and that these differences should be observed under conditions of threat. In three studies, we found that cues of mortality threat interact with one index of life-history strategy, childhood socioeconomic status (SES), to affect diversification. Among those from low-SES backgrounds, mortality threat increased preferences for diversification. However, among those from high-SES backgrounds, mortality threat had the opposite effect, inclining people to put all their eggs in one basket. The same interaction pattern emerged with a potential biomarker of life-history strategy, oxidative stress. These findings highlight when, and for whom, different diversification strategies can be advantageous.

Matzah, Meat, Milk, and Mana: Psychological Influences on Religio-Cultural Food Practices

Religio-cultural groups endorse an astounding diversity of beliefs and rituals regarding food. The authors theorize that such practices in part originate and persist because they (a) mark in-group membership through the consumption of unique foods and the establishment of common food rituals, (b) signal status through fasting or ingesting certain foods or large quantities of food, and (c) help individuals avoid disease by promoting or prohibiting specific foods that were historically available. Moreover, the authors theorize that these sociofunctional motives are grounded in essentialist beliefs about the discreteness of biological kinds and/or beliefs about unseen spiritual essences, transmitted through food or food preparation. They consider how psychological explanations of religio-cultural food prescriptions and prohibitions may or may not map onto religious explanations. The authors also offer testable hypotheses about where and why certain food practices may originate and persist, and they hope that this analysis is the kind that provides insight into factors that may have shaped a wider range of religio-cultural beliefs and practices.

From the bedroom to the budget deficit: Mate competition changes men's attitudes toward economic redistribution

How do economic recessions influence attitudes toward redistribution of wealth? From a traditional economic self-interest perspective, attitudes toward redistribution should be affected by ones financial standing. A functional evolutionary approach suggests another possible form of self-interest: That during periods of economic threat, attitudes toward redistribution should be influenced by ones mate-value-especially for men. Using both lab-based experiments and real-world data on voting behavior, we consistently find that economic threats lead low mate-value men to become more prosocial and supportive of redistribution policies, but that the same threats lead high mate-value men to do the opposite. Economic threats do not affect womens attitudes toward redistribution in the same way, and, across studies, financial standing is only weakly associated with attitudes toward redistribution. These findings suggest that during tough economic times, mens attitudes toward redistribution are influenced by something that has seemingly little to do with economic self-interest-their mating psychology.

How many standards in a laptop? (And other empirical questions)

An empirical study which identifies 251 technical interoperability standards implemented in a modern laptop computer, and estimates that the total number of standards relevant to such a device is much higher. Of the identified standards, the authors find that 44% were developed by consortia, 36% by formal standards development organizations, and 20% by single companies. The intellectual property rights policies associated with 197 of the standards are assessed: 75% were developed under “RAND” terms, 22% under “royalty free” terms, and 3% utilize a patent pool. The authors make certain observations based on their findings, and identify promising areas for future research.

Economic subselves: Fundamental motives and deep rationality

It was not long ago that questions of social justice were at the forefront of theoretical and empirical inquiry in social psychology. The father of modern social psychology, Kurt Lewin, promoted the discipline as, among other things, a scientific means of fostering democratic, egalitarian norms and preventing tyranny and oppression from gaining the upper hand in society. Although he seldom (if ever) couched these goals in the explicit language of social justice, it is clear that his “applied” research programs on overcoming certain forms of prejudice, outgroup hostility, and self-hatred among Jews—to mention some of the most salient examples—reflected a commitment to social justice as well as a scathing critique of authoritarianism and the fascist ideology that had seized the hearts and minds of so many of his fellow citizens in 1930s Germany. Lewin self-consciously strove to integrate theoretical and applied goals, which he believed could be “accomplished in psychology, as it has been accomplished in physics, if the theorist does not look toward applied problems with highbrow aversion or with a fear of social problems” (Lewin, 1944/1951, p. 169). It is not surprising that one of Lewin’s doctoral students, Morton Deutsch, went on to become one of the field’s most illustrious contributors to the field of social justice research (see Deutsch, 1973, 1985, 1999). Another prominent social psychologist of the postwar era, Gordon Allport, observed that, “Practical and humanitarian motives have always played an important part in the development of social psychology” (1954/1962, p. 4). Specifically, he wrote that: Social psychology began to flourish soon after the First World War. This event,J.P. Forgas, K. Fiedler, C. Sedikides, Social Thinking and Interpersonal Behaviour: Classical Theories and Contemporary Approaches. Part 1. Evolutionary Influences on Social Cognition and Behavior. D.T. Kenrick, Y.J. Li, A. E. White, S.L.Neuberg, Economic Subselves: Fundamental Motives and Deep Rationality. A. Galperin, M.G. Haselton, Error Management and the Evolution of Cognitive Bias. W. von Hippel, R. Trivers, Self-deception to Deceive Others. G.R. Semin, G.V. Garrido, A Systemic Approach to Impression Formation: From Verbal to Multi-modal Processes. Part 2. Automatic Mechanisms Linking Social Cognition and Behavior. A. Dijksterhuis, Exploring the Relation between Motivation and Intuition. C.N. Macrae, L.K. Miles, S.B. Best, Moving through Time: Mental Time Travel and Social Behavior. P. Winkielman, L. Kavanagh, How Do Emotions Move Us? Embodied and Disembodied Influences of Emotions on Social Thinking and Interpersonal Behavior. M. Waenke, J. Samochowiecz, J. Landwehr, Facial Politics: Political Judgment Based on Looks. Part 3. Cognitive and Affective Mechanisms. E. Eich, T.C. Handy, E.A. Holmes, J. Lerner, H.K. McIsaac, Field and Observer Perspectives in Autobiographical Memory. K. Fiedler, The Formation of Attitudes and Judgments in a Virtual Class Environment. K.L. Johnson, C.M. Carpinella, Social Categorization at the Crossroads: Mechanisms by Which Intersecting Social Categories Bias Social Perception. J.P. Forgas, The Upside of Feeling Down: The Benefits of Negative Mood for Social Cognition and Social Behavior. C. Sedikides, J.J. Skowronski, Construct Accessibility and Interpretation of Self-Behaviors: Tracing and Reducing the Signatures of Self-Protection and Self-Enhancement. Part 4. Social and Cultural Factors in Social Thinking and Interpersonal Behavior. Y. Kashima, Culture as Interpersonal Process. J.T. Jost, A.C. Kay, System Justification as an Obstacle to the Attainment of Social Justice. J. Cooper, Thinking as a Social Group or Thinking as a Social Group Member: Different Implications for Attitude Change. B.F. Malle, S. Guglielmo, A.E. Monroe, Moral, Cognitive and Social: The Nature of Blame.

Beyond the negative: political attitudes and ideologies strategically manage opportunities, too.

Hibbing et al. use evolutionarily derived logic to suggest that political attitudes are related to responses to negative features of the environment. We suggest that the authors focus too narrowly on the negative and contend, instead, that a more comprehensive evolutionary approach focusing on peoples responses to threats and opportunities will better account for variation in political attitudes.