Benjamin Winegard

Who Is the Fairest One of All? How Evolution Guides Peer and Media Influences on Female Body Dissatisfaction

Much attention has focused on the influence of media images of thin women on body dissatisfaction among female viewers. Disagreement exists regarding the nature of media influences, with meta-analytic results suggesting only small effect sizes. Fewer researchers have focused on the role of peer influences and peer competition on female body dissatisfaction. Furthermore, the relation between body dissatisfaction and eating disorders may be more complex than is often implied in the media effects literature. Links between body dissatisfaction and eating disorders may be overstated, and some eating disorders, primarily anorexia nervosa, may not always be motivated primarily by body dissatisfaction. The current paper discusses these issues from an evolutionary perspective, examining how sociocultural forces influence the intensity of female competition and how such competition effects body dissatisfaction.

The Evolutionary Significance of Red Sox Nation: Sport Fandom as a Byproduct of Coalitional Psychology

Sport fandom has received considerable attention from social scientists, yet few have considered it from an evolutionary perspective. To redress this gap, we develop the hypothesis that team sports exhibit characteristics that activate mechanisms which evolved to facilitate the development of coalitions in the context of small-scale warfare. Based on this by-product hypothesis, we predicted a correlation between fandom and binding (i.e. group-relevant) concerns, especially loyalty. To test this prediction, we administered the Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SSI) and the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) to 495 undergraduates. The MFQ measures three binding concerns, including loyalty, and two individualizing ones, harm and fairness. As predicted, fandom correlated significantly with loyalty (r = .27) and, within men, the two other binding concerns, authority (r =.22) and purity (r = .24). By contrast, fandom did not significantly correlate with harm or fairness. In addition, we predicted and found that men reported significantly higher levels of fandom (Cohens d =.45) and loyalty (d = .27) than did women. In conclusion, this study presents data supporting the coalitional by-product hypothesis of fandom and should spur further research using fandom as a window into our evolved psychology.

Grief Functions as an Honest Indicator of Commitment

Grief is a puzzling phenomenon. It is often costly and prolonged, potentially increasing mortality rates, drug abuse, withdrawal from social life, and susceptibility to illness. These costs cannot be repaid by the deceased and therefore might appear wasted. In the following article, we propose a possible solution. Using the principles of social selection theory, we argue that an important selective pressure behind the human grief response was the social decisions of other humans. We combine this with insights from signaling theory, noting that grief shares many properties with other hard-to-fake social signals. We therefore contend that grief was shaped by selective forces to function as a hard-to-fake signal of (a) a person’s propensity to form strong, non-utilitarian bonds and (b) a person’s current level of commitment to a group or cause. This theory explains many of the costly symptoms of grief and provides a progressive framework for future research.

Reflections on the Evolution of Human Sex Differences: Social Selection and the Evolution of Competition Among Women

Darwin’s (1871) sexual selection, in particular male–male competition over mates and female choice of mating partners, has successfully guided research on sex differences across hundreds of species, including our own. One consequence of the success of sexual selection has been a relative indifference to other pressures that can result in the evolution of sex differences. In recent years, female–female competition over resources other than mates has captured the attention of evolutionary biologists. We illustrate how this form of competition, termed social selection, has operated to create sex differences in several nonhuman species and then apply it to female–female competition in humans. We propose that a combination arranged marriages, which will lessen direct competition for marriage partners, and polygyny created a unique social context within which female–female competition evolved, specifically competition among co-wives for access to resources controlled by their husband and competitive promotion of their children’s future reproductive prospects vis-a-vis the prospects of the children of co-wives. Competition among co-wives is more subtle—termed relational aggression—than that among men and involves the subtle manipulation of social relationships and psychological harassment of co-wives and their children. We review evidence related to the psychological and reproductive costs of conflicts with co-wives and argue that this competition contributed to girls’ and women’s advantages over boys and men for cognitive competencies, such as sensitivity to facial expressions, that support relational aggression.

Women's preference for masculine traits is disrupted by images of male-on-female aggression.

Women’s preferences for men’s masculinized faces and voices were assessed after women (n = 331) were primed with images of male-on-male aggression, male-on-female aggression, pathogens, and neutral scenes. Male-on-male aggression and pathogen primes were associated with increased preference for masculine traits, but the same effect emerged in the neutral condition. We show the increased preference for masculine traits was due to repeated exposure to these traits, not the priming images themselves. Images of male-on-female aggression were an exception; these elicited feelings of disgust and anger appeared to disrupt the preference for masculinized traits. The results suggest women process men’s facial and vocal traits as signals of aggressive potential and lose any preference for these traits with cues indicating men might direct this aggression toward them.

Misrepresentations of Evolutionary Psychology in Sex and Gender Textbooks

Evolutionary psychology has provoked controversy, especially when applied to human sex differences. We hypothesize that this is partly due to misunderstandings of evolutionary psychology that are perpetuated by undergraduate sex and gender textbooks. As an initial test of this hypothesis, we develop a catalog of eight types of errors and document their occurrence in 15 widely used sex and gender textbooks. Consistent with our hypothesis, of the 12 textbooks that discussed evolutionary psychology, all contained at least one error, and the median number of errors was five. The most common types of errors were “Straw Man,” “Biological Determinism,” and “Species Selection.” We conclude by suggesting improvements to undergraduate sex and gender textbooks.

Sex Differences in In-Group Cooperation Vary Dynamically with Competitive Conditions and Outcomes

Mens but not womens investment in a public goods game varied dynamically with the presence or absence of a perceived out-group. Three hundred fifty-four (167 male) young adults participated in multiple iterations of a public goods game under intergroup and individual competition conditions. Participants received feedback about whether their investments in the group were sufficient to earn a bonus to be shared among all in-group members. Results for the first trial confirm previous research in which mens but not womens investments were higher when there was a competing out-group. We extended these findings by showing that mens investment in the in-group varied dynamically by condition depending on the outcome of the previous trial: In the group condition, men, but not women, decreased spending following a win (i.e., earning an in-group bonus). In the individual condition, men, but not women, increased spending following a win. We hypothesize that these patterns reflect a male bias to calibrate their level of in-group investment such that they sacrifice only what is necessary for their group to successfully compete against a rival group.

If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It: Humans Flaunt Attractive Partners to Enhance Their Status and Desirability

Mating decisions are influenced by conspecifics’ mate choices in many species including humans. Recent research has shown that women are more attracted to men with attractive putative partners than those with less attractive partners. We integrate these findings with traditional accounts of social signaling and test five hypotheses derived from it. In our study, 64 men and 75 women were paired with attractive and unattractive opposite-sex putative partners and asked whether they would prefer to give surveys to peers or to older adults. Consistent with predictions, both men and women wanted to show off (flaunt) attractive partners by administering surveys to peers and both men and women wanted to hide (conceal) unattractive partners from peers by administering surveys to older adults. These decisions were mediated by how participants expected others to evaluate their status and desirability when they administered the surveys, consistent with partners serving a social signaling function in humans.

Book Review: Throwing Out the Mismatch Baby with the Paleo-Bathwater

In many respects, our lives today are vastly different than anything our ancestors experienced. Think antibiotics, laser surgery, social networking, GPS mapping, jet airplanes, baby monitors, drone strikes, supermarkets, and ultra-productive farms requiring almost no manual labor. The scientific knowledge and technological systems that brought such changes have also yielded increasingly detailed information about our evolutionary history: We know that our lives today are not merely much different from those of our great grandparents; they are extraordinarily, almost unimaginably, different from those of the hunter-gatherers living in the paleolithic. If one takes natural selection seriously, these facts suggest that our bodies and brains may be largely adapted to deal with historical challenges that differ substantially from contemporary ones. This mismatch perspective serves as an indispensable lever for scholars aiming to illuminate human nature and for practitioners and policy makers attempting to improve lives. In the new book, Paleofantasy, Marlene Zuk offers a sharp rebuke to mismatch proponents, especially those holding to singular views of human lifestyles in the paleolithic. Zuk is no anti-evolutionist: She is a distinguished evolutionary biologist who has made seminal contributions, especially in the field of sexual selection. The arguments in Paleofantasy deserve careful consideration, but they ultimately fail to support the books thesis, at least the strong version we will consider here, namely that a mismatch perspective is unproductive.

Too paranoid to see progress: Social psychology is probably liberal, but it doesn't believe in progress.

We agree with Duarte et al. that bias in social psychology is a serious problem that researchers should confront. However, we are skeptical that most social psychologists adhere to a liberal progress narrative. We suggest, instead, that most social psychologists are paranoid egalitarian meliorists (PEMs). We explain the term and suggest possible remedies to bias in social psychology.