Paul Robert Gladden

Moral intuitions and religiosity as spuriously correlated life history traits

Religions promote moral rules of behavior and religiosity is associated with some types of moral intuitions, but there is no ultimate-level explanation for this association. Religiosity has recently been used as an indicator of a multivariate measure of slow Life History (LH) strategy. In this study, we predicted that LH strategy relates to increased strength of moral intuitions as meas- ured by morally dumbfounding intuitions, reactions to violations of the ethics of autonomy, com- munity, and divinity, and disgust sensitivity. Results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed that a 3-factor solution was optimal: (1) Religiosity (2) Moral Intuitions, (3) LH strategy. Com- parisons of three path-analytic structural models indicated that only one model had an acceptable fit. In that model, slow LH strategy directly influenced religiosity and moral intuitions, which were, as a result, spuriously correlated. We discuss implications for LH theory and for the relation between religion and moral intuitions.

The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Psychology: Evolutionary theories of personality

Integration with evolutionary theory could enhance personality theory by generating original predictions about the mechanisms governing personality. Novel hypotheses about how personality works can be derived from theories about the ultimate function of personality traits. Personality psychology currently describes and explains how personality is structured and how the mechanisms that produce such differences in behavioural patterns work. Personality theorists observe how personality differences develop and explain the proximate (‘how it works’) causes of these individual differences, but generally do not address ultimate (‘why it works’) causes. Ultimate explanations address why human personalities are structured in the precise manner that they are, why specific environmental inputs affect individuals in the way that they do, why the specific epigenetic rules that dictate how an individual responds to different environmental input exist and why other rules do not, as well as why personality traits are responsive to the environment at all and what adaptive function personality characteristics may serve. By adopting a framework for answering these questions about evolved function, personality theory would become enriched with novel hypotheses. Evolutionary psychology views all psychological phenomena through the lens of the theory of evolution, in the hope that by asking why specific psychological mechanisms originally evolved, previously unidentified psychological mechanisms and new aspects of known psychological mechanisms will be illuminated. Evolution by natural and sexual selection is the only coherent framework that can explain why complex, adaptive psychological mechanisms exist andwhat adaptive problems they are designed to solve (Tooby and Cosmides, 1992). The standard social science model (SSSM) offers no explicit meta-theory to direct the investigation of personality. This leaves personality researchers to follow intuition or trial and error to direct their discovery of new psychological phenomena (Tooby and Cosmides 1992). This may impede significant progress in understanding the mechanisms underlying personality differences and the development of those characteristics. Although evolutionary psychologists agree that evolution is relevant to all psychological mechanisms, there has been very little research done on personality from an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary psychologists have generally been interested solely in what Tooby and Cosmides (1992) have termed the psychic unity of mankind. Therefore, they have been primarily concerned with human nature rather than individual differences. Consequently, much of evolutionary personality

The unholy trinity: The Dark Triad, coercion, and Brunswik-Symmetry

Psychopathy, Narcissism, and Machiavellianism (the Dark Triad) have each been hypothesized as predictors of socially deviant behavior including sexual coercion, but the three traits also covary significantly with one another. The purpose of this study was to examine several alternative Multisample Structural Equation Models (MSEMs) exploring the relations between the Dark Triad and Sexually Coercive Behavior, testing whether any or all of the three specific “Dark Personality” traits uniquely contributed to predicting sexually coercive behavior. Self-report questionnaires measuring Primary and Secondary Psychopathy, Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Sexually Coercive Behavior were administered to a sample of undergraduates. The relative fit of each of the MSEMs to the data was examined by means of hierarchically nested model comparisons. The most parsimonious yet explanatory model identified was one in which a single common factor composed of the three Dark Triad indicators explained the relationships among the Dark Triad traits and Sexually Coercive Behavior without any direct contributions from the specific Dark Triad indicators. Results indicate that the three Dark Triad traits, controlling for the common factor, do not differentially predict Sexually Coercive Behavior. These results are interpreted with respect to the principle of Brunswik-Symmetry.

Genetic variance and strategic pluralism

The target paper demonstrates the value of evolutionary genetics for personality research. Apart from a summing-up of concepts, the authors validate their theory with evidence from studies on both human- and animal personality. In this commentary, I want to show the need for inter-disciplinary research to answer questions on personality in psychology and biology.

The K-SF-42: A New Short Form of the Arizona Life History Battery

The purpose of the present article is to propose an alternative short form for the 199-item Arizona Life History Battery (ALHB), which we are calling the K-SF-42, as it contains 42 items as compared with the 20 items of the Mini-K, the short form that has been in greatest use for the past decade. These 42 items were selected from the ALHB, unlike those of the Mini-K, making direct comparisons of the relative psychometric performance of the two alternative short forms a valid and instructive exercise. A series of secondary data analyses were performed upon a recently completed five-nation cross-cultural survey, which was originally designed to assess the role of life history strategy in the etiology of interpersonal aggression. Only data from the ALHB that were collected in all five cross-cultural replications were used for the present analyses. The single immediate objective of this secondary data analysis was producing the K-SF-42 such that it would perform optimally across all five cultures sampled, and perhaps even generalize well to other modern industrial societies not currently sampled as a result of the geographic breadth of those included in the present study. A novel method, based on the use of the Cross-Sample Geometric Mean as a criterion for item selection, was used for generating such a cross-culturally valid short form.

Parasite stress, ethnocentrism, and life history strategy.

Fincher & Thornhill (F&T) present a compelling argument that parasite stress underlies certain cultural practices promoting assortative sociality. However, we suggest that the theoretical framework proposed is limited in several ways, and that life history theory provides a more explanatory and inclusive framework, making more specific predictions about the trade-offs faced by organisms in the allocation of bioenergetic and material resources.

Intimate Partner Violence, Interpersonal Aggression, and Life History Strategy

We integrate life history (LH) theory with “hot/cool” systems theory of self-regulation to predict sexually and socially coercive behaviors, including intimate partner violence (IPV) and interpersonal aggression (IPA). LH theory predicts that a variety of traits form LH strategies: adaptively coordinated behavioral clusters arrayed on a continuum from slow to fast. We test structural models examining 2 propositions: (a) “hot” cognitive processes, promoted by faster LH strategies, increase the likelihood of sexually/socially coercive behaviors that make up IPV and IPA; (b) “cool” cognitive processes, promoted by slower LH strategies, buffer against the likelihood of sexually/socially coercive behaviors that make up IPV and IPA. We present single and multisample structural equations models (SEMs and MSEMs) testing hypothesized causal relations among these theoretically specified predictors with IPV and IPA. Study 1 develops a Structural Equation Model for IPV; Study 2 extends the model to IPA using MSEM and provides 5 cross-cultural constructive replications of the findings. Integrating LH theory and hot/cool systems analysis of cognitive processes is a promising and productive heuristic for future research on IPV and IPA perpetration and victimization.

Sex, aggression, and life history strategy

We agree that sexual selection is a more comprehensive explanation for sex differences in direct aggression than social role theory, which is an unparsimonious and vestigial remnant of human exceptionalism. Nevertheless, Archer misses several opportunities to put the theoretical predictions made by himself and by others into direct competition in a way that would further the interests of strong inference.

The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Psychology: Biological Perspectives

The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Psychology - Libros de Medicina - Personalidad/Evaluacion y Tratamiento Psicologico - 106,87