The Political Divide Over Same-Sex Marriage: Mating Strategies in Conflict?

Attitudes and Laws About Abortion Are Linked to Extrinsic Mortality Risk: A Life-History Perspective on Variability in Reproductive Rights

Abortion policy is conventionally viewed as a political matter with religious overtones. This article offers a different view. From the perspective of evolutionary biology, abortion at a young age can represent prioritization of long-term development over immediate reproduction, a pattern established in other animal species as resulting from stable ecologies with low mortality risk. We examine whether laws and moral beliefs about abortions are linked to local mortality rates. Data from 50 U.S. states, 202 world societies, 2,596 adult individuals in 363 U.S. counties, and 147,260 respondents across the globe suggest that lower levels of mortality risk are associated with more permissive laws and attitudes toward abortion. Those associations were observed when we controlled for religiosity, political ideology, wealth, education, and industrialization. Integrating evolutionary and cultural perspectives offers an explanation as to why moral beliefs and legal norms about reproduction may be sensitive to levels of ecological adversity.

Considering the role of self-interest in moral disciplining

Why do people moralize harmless behaviors? Although people rely on cooperative principles in making their moral judgments, I argue that self-interest likely plays a role even in these judgments. I suggest potential lines of research that might examine the role of self-interest in puritanical morality.

Ideological Mate-guarding: Sexual Jealousy and Mating Strategy Predict Support for Female Honor

Feminine honor dictates that women should cultivate a reputation for sexual purity via behaviors such as dressing modestly and maintaining virginity before marriage. The dominant explanation for people's support for feminine honor is that female infidelity threatens male partners' honor. Beyond this, the literature affords little understanding of the evolutionary and psychological origins of feminine honor. We propose that feminine honor functions as an ideological form of mate guarding that is shaped by sexual jealousy and mating strategy. Two correlational studies (N  =  892) revealed support for predictions derived from this ideological mate-guarding account. In Study 1, dispositional jealousy and mating strategy (more monogamous orientation) predicted male participants' support for a mate's (especially a long-term mate's) feminine honor. Moving beyond mate preferences, in Study 2 male and female participants' dispositional jealousy and mating strategy predicted support for feminine honor of women in general. Results applied beyond masculine honor norms, religiosity, political conservativism, and age. These findings enhance the understanding of the origins and maintenance of feminine honor and related norms and ideologies that enable control over women's socio-sexual behavior.

An Experiment Using a Sexual Strategies Explanation to Alleviate Internalized Homophobia Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in China

Some men who have sex with men (MSM) having more casual sex and sexual partners is interpreted to be a sign of mental disorder and used to justify negative attitudes toward them by some. MSM may internalize this attitude causing internalized homophobia (IH). According to the sexual strategies theory, MSM having more casual sex is the result of differences between men's and women's sexual strategies and is unrelated to sexual orientation. We investigated whether this explanation would reduce IH and improve mental health in MSM. We recruited 255 Chinese MSM online using Wenjuanxing, Douban, Weibo, Tieba, and Blued and divided them using simple randomization into an experimental group (n = 77; sexual strategies explanation provided), an active control group (n = 99; minority stress explanation provided), and a control group (n = 79; no intervention) with pretest (N = 255); a 1 week post-test (n = 195); and a 1 month follow-up test (n = 170) of outcome measures. IH, mental distress (MD), sort-term mating orientation, and risky sexual behaviors were measured online. The data were analyzed by SPSS 28. IH was associated with MD while being married was associated with IH and sexual contact with women with both more IH and MD as were not being masculine and self-identifying as straight. The sexual strategies explanation reduced IH related to pathologizing sexual behaviors and high-risk sexual behaviors while the minority stress explanation reduced MD. Providing a sexual strategies explanation may be used to de-stigmatize casual sex among MSM.

An experimental study using a sexual strategies explanation to reduce homophobia toward gay men among lay people and healthcare professionals in China

Introduction

Homophobic discrimination and stigmatization, especially from healthcare professionals, are important stressors for gay men. Homophobia may be partly rooted in seeing some gay men having casual sex and many sexual partners as a signal of mental problems. Sexual Strategies Theory (SST) suggests that such sexual behavior is a result of different sexual strategies men and women tend to adopt and is unrelated to sexual orientation per se. This study aimed to investigate (1) the effectiveness of providing an SST explanation for gay men's sexual behavior in reducing homophobia among both lay persons and healthcare professionals; (2) differences in homophobia between healthcare professionals and lay people and also between medical and non-medical professionals.

Methods

The main analyses included 492 heterosexual participants recruited online via Chinese social media and sample services in 2021. Of these, 227 were healthcare professionals (128 medical, 99 non-medical) and 265 were lay people. The participants were randomly assigned into an experimental group given the SST explanation (n = 126), an active control group given a Minority Stress (MS) explanation (n = 184), and a control group (n = 182). After the manipulation, homophobia, knowledge about homosexuality, professional homophobic attitude, gay affirmative practice, and contact with gay men were assessed.

Results

The results of factor analysis suggested dividing homophobia into Oppressing Homophobia (Oppressing HP) describing believing that gay men should have fewer rights and Pathologizing Homophobia (Pathologizing HP) describing believing that the sexual behavior of gay men is a signal of mental problem. Importantly, the SST explanation reduced Pathologizing HP while the MS explanation reduced Oppressing HP. Healthcare professionals reported more Oppressing HP than lay people, and medical professionals conducted less gay affirmative practice than non-medical professionals.

Conclusion

An SST explanation can potentially reduce some aspects of homophobia among both healthcare professionals and lay people. Also, worryingly, Chinese healthcare professionals, especially medical professionals, reported more homophobia than lay individuals.

Specificity Versus Generality: A Meta-Analytic Review Of The Association Between Trait Disgust Sensitivity And Moral Judgment

Disgust seems to play an important role in moral judgment. However, it is unclear whether the role of disgust in moral judgment is limited to certain kinds of moral domains (versus many) and/or certain types of disgust (versus many). To clarify these questions, we conducted a multilevel meta-analysis ( k = 512; N = 72,443) on relations between trait disgust sensitivity and moral judgment (disgust-immorality association). Main analyses revealed a significant overall mean disgust-immorality association ( r = .23). Additionally, moderator analyses revealed significant specificity in disgust type and moral domain (grounded in Moral Foundations Theory): effects were stronger for (a) sexual disgust compared to pathogen disgust, (b) sanctity moral judgments compared to other domains of moral judgments, and (c) sexual-sanctity associations compared to other disgust type-moral domain pairings.

Fertility Status Does Not Facilitate Women's Judgment of Male Sexual Orientation

Previous research has demonstrated that women can correctly distinguish between gay and heterosexual men's faces significantly better than chance. This ability appears to be heightened during the most fertile portion of their ovulatory cycle. Here, we sought to replicate and extend these findings in a large sample of undergraduate women (N = 1960). Although women correctly identified men's sexual orientation significantly better than chance (62% average accuracy), a subsample of naturally cycling women (n = 426) did not judge men's sexual orientation from faces more accurately when in the fertile phase of their ovulatory cycle. These results further replicate the visibility of male sexual orientation, but do not show that this ability has strong links to estimated fertility.

Widespread Promiscuity and Cheap Weddings: Can "Low-Value" Sexual Relationships Make Certain Individuals More Sexually Conservative?

Attitudes toward sexual relationships can have evolutionary underpinnings because these attitudes often serve, or at least reflect, the attitude holder's mating self-interest. Sexually restricted individuals, for example, hold conservative attitudes toward same-sex and opposite-sex sexual relationships because conservative attitudes benefit their mating strategies (e.g., monogamy). Certain mating market cues, however, can shift attitudes. In two experiments recruiting Americans and Australians (total N = 1298), we took a data-driven approach to test whether experimental manipulations of (1) promiscuity among either homosexuals (gays and lesbians) or heterosexuals and (2) the financial amount that either homosexuals (gays and lesbians) or heterosexuals invest in weddings would shift attitudes toward same-sex marriage, dating, and romantic spending. In Experiment 1, we did not replicate previous findings that homosexual promiscuity affects attitudes to same-sex marriage, nor did we find any effects of priming heterosexual promiscuity. However, priming participants with the notion that either homosexuals or heterosexuals were highly promiscuous increased support for traditional relationship norms among sexually restricted Australian (but not American) men. This effect was smaller when we controlled for participant sexual orientation, because primes of high homosexual or heterosexual promiscuity increased support for these traditional norms in exclusively heterosexual Australians, but decreased support in non-heterosexual Australians. Experiment 2 found that American and Australian men's opposition to same-sex marriage increased when they were led to believe that either homosexual or heterosexual weddings were cheap, even when controlling for participant sexual orientation. Overall, results provide some support for the argument that mating market cues affect attitudes toward sexual relationships.

Disgust sensitivity relates to attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women across 31 nations

Previous work has reported a relation between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice toward various social groups, including gay men and lesbian women. It is currently unknown whether this association is present across cultures, or specific to North America. Analyses of survey data from adult heterosexuals ( N = 11,200) from 31 countries showed a small relation between pathogen disgust sensitivity (an individual-difference measure of pathogen-avoidance motivations) and measures of antigay attitudes. Analyses also showed that pathogen disgust sensitivity relates not only to antipathy toward gay men and lesbians, but also to negativity toward other groups, in particular those associated with violations of traditional sexual norms (e.g., prostitutes). These results suggest that the association between pathogen-avoidance motivations and antigay attitudes is relatively stable across cultures and is a manifestation of a more general relation between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice towards groups associated with sexual norm violations.

Sex, Drugs, and Genes: Illuminating the Moral Condemnation of Recreational Drugs

Over the past decade, evolutionary psychologists have proposed that many moral stances function to promote self-interests. At the same time, behavioral geneticists have demonstrated that many moral stances have genetic bases. We integrated these perspectives by examining how moral condemnation of recreational drug use relates to sexual strategy (i.e., being more vs. less open to sex outside of a committed relationship) in a sample of Finnish twins and siblings (N = 8,118). Twin modeling suggested that genetic factors accounted for 53%, 46%, and 41% of the variance in drug condemnation, sociosexuality, and sexual-disgust sensitivity, respectively. Further, approximately 75% of the phenotypic covariance between drug condemnation and sexual strategy was accounted for by genes, and there was substantial overlap in the genetic effects underlying both drug condemnation and sexual strategy (r_g = .41). Results are consistent with the proposal that some moral sentiments are calibrated to promote strategic sexual interests, which arise partially via genetic factors.

The Effects of the Mating Market, Sex, Age, and Income on Sociopolitical Orientation : Insights from Evolutionary Theory and Sexual Economics Theory

Sociopolitical attitudes are often the root cause of conflicts between individuals, groups, and even nations, but little is known about the origin of individual differences in sociopolitical orientation. We test a combination of economic and evolutionary ideas about the degree to which the mating market, sex, age, and income affect sociopolitical orientation. We collected data online through Amazon's Mechanical Turk from 1108 US participants who were between 18 and 60, fluent in English, and single. While ostensibly testing a new online dating website, participants created an online dating profile and described people they would like to date. We manipulated the participants' popularity in the mating market and the size of the market (i.e., the number of ideal partners in the market) and then measured participants' sociopolitical attitudes. The sociopolitical attitudes were reduced to five dimensions via Principal Components Analysis (Sociosexuality, Benevolent Sexism, Wealth Redistribution, Nonconforming Behaviors, and Traditional Family Values). Both manipulations affected attitudes toward wealth redistribution but were largely not significant predictors of the other dimensions. Men reported more unrestricted sociosexual attitudes, and more support for benevolent sexism and traditional family values, than women did, and women supported wealth redistribution more than men did. There was no sex difference in accepting nonconforming behaviors. Younger people and people with lower incomes were more liberal than older people and people with higher incomes, respectively, regardless of sex. Overall, effects were largely not interactive, suggesting that individual differences in sociopolitical orientation may reflect strategic self-interest and be more straightforward than previously predicted.

The pandemic exposes human nature: 10 evolutionary insights

Humans and viruses have been coevolving for millennia. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19) has been particularly successful in evading our evolved defenses. The outcome has been tragic-across the globe, millions have been sickened and hundreds of thousands have died. Moreover, the quarantine has radically changed the structure of our lives, with devastating social and economic consequences that are likely to unfold for years. An evolutionary perspective can help us understand the progression and consequences of the pandemic. Here, a diverse group of scientists, with expertise from evolutionary medicine to cultural evolution, provide insights about the pandemic and its aftermath. At the most granular level, we consider how viruses might affect social behavior, and how quarantine, ironically, could make us susceptible to other maladies, due to a lack of microbial exposure. At the psychological level, we describe the ways in which the pandemic can affect mating behavior, cooperation (or the lack thereof), and gender norms, and how we can use disgust to better activate native "behavioral immunity" to combat disease spread. At the cultural level, we describe shifting cultural norms and how we might harness them to better combat disease and the negative social consequences of the pandemic. These insights can be used to craft solutions to problems produced by the pandemic and to lay the groundwork for a scientific agenda to capture and understand what has become, in effect, a worldwide social experiment.

When Might Heterosexual Men Be Passive or Compassionate Toward Gay Victims of Hate Crime? Integrating the Bystander and Social Loafing Explanations

Compassionate feelings for people who are victimized because of their perceived sexual deviance (e.g., gay men) may be incompatible with support for heterosexual norms among heterosexual men. But, indifference (or passivity) toward such victims could raise concern over heterosexual men's gay-tolerance attitude. Two classic social psychological theories offer competing explanations on when heterosexual men might be passive or compassionate toward gay victims of hate crime. The bystander model proposes passivity toward victims in an emergency situation if other bystanders are similarly passive, but compassionate reactions if bystanders are responsive to the victims. Conversely, the social loafing model proposes compassionate reactions toward victims when bystanders are passive, but passivity when other bystanders are already responsive toward the victims' predicament. We tested and found supportive evidence for both models across two experiments (N_total = 501) in which passivity and compassionate reactions to gay victims of a purported hate crime were recorded after heterosexual men's concern for social evaluation was either accentuated or relaxed. We found that the bystander explanation was visible only when the potential for social evaluation was strong, while the social loafing account occurred only when the potential for social evaluation was relaxed. Hence, we unite both models by showing that the bystander explanation prevails in situations where cues to social evaluation are strong, whereas the social loafing effect operates when concern over social judgement is somewhat muted.

Politics and Parental Care: Experimental and Mediational Tests of the Causal Link Between Parenting Motivation and Social Conservatism

People vary greatly in their desire for, willingness to care for, and emotions toward children. This variation in “parenting motivation” predicts a range of cognition and behavior. Strategic perspectives on political attitudes suggest that parenting motivation should be associated with more socially conservative attitudes, since these attitudes prioritize self-protection norms. Across three studies, we found that parenthood mediated age-related increases in social conservatism. Study 1 found that an experimental child interaction prime increased social conservatism in parents but not in nonparents. Study 2 (preregistered, n = 803) found a main effect of the prime, while Study 3 (preregistered, n = 763) found no experimental effect. Study 3 also found that the relationship between parenting motivation and social conservatism was mediated by both sexual attitudes and perceived threats. These findings attest to the important relationship between parenthood and social conservatism but also suggest that “parenting” primes have either inconsistent or trivial implications within online samples.

Speculations on the Evolutionary Origins of System Justification

For centuries, philosophers and social theorists have wondered why people submit voluntarily to tyrannical leaders and oppressive regimes. In this article, we speculate on the evolutionary origins of system justification, that is, the ways in which people are motivated (often nonconsciously) to defend and justify existing social, economic, and political systems. After briefly recounting the logic of system justification theory and some of the most pertinent empirical evidence, we consider parallels between the social behaviors of humans and other animals concerning the acceptance versus rejection of hierarchy and dominance. Next, we summarize research in human neuroscience suggesting that specific brain regions, such as the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex, may be linked to individual differences in ideological preferences concerning (in)equality and social stability as well as the successful navigation of complex, hierarchical social systems. Finally, we consider some of the implications of a system justification perspective for the study of evolutionary psychology, political behavior, and social change.

Is Support of Censoring Controversial Media Content for the Good of Others? Sexual Strategies and Support of Censoring Pro-Alcohol Advertising

At least in the United States, there are widespread concerns with advertising that encourages alcohol consumption, and previous research explains those concerns as aiming to protect others from the harm of excessive alcohol use.1 Drawing on sexual strategies theory, we hypothesized that support of censoring pro-alcohol advertising is ultimately self-benefiting regardless of its altruistic effect at a proximate level. Excessive drinking positively correlates with having casual sex, and casual sex threatens monogamy, one of the major means with which people adopting a long-term sexual strategy increase their inclusive fitness. Then, one way for long-term strategists to protect monogamy, and thus their reproductive interest is to support censoring pro-alcohol advertising, thereby preventing others from becoming excessive drinkers (and consequently having casual sex) under media influence. Supporting this hypothesis, three studies consistently showed that restricted sociosexuality positively correlated with support of censoring pro-alcohol advertising before and after various value-, ideological-, and moral-foundation variables were controlled for. Also as predicted, Study 3 revealed a significant indirect effect of sociosexuality on censorship support through perceived media influence on others but not through perceived media influence on self. These findings further supported a self-interest analysis of issue opinions, extended third-person-effect research on support of censoring pro-alcohol advertising, and suggested a novel approach to analyzing media censorship support.

The effect of the promiscuity stereotype on opposition to gay rights

Opposition to gay rights is prevalent in countries around the world. Recent correlational research suggests that opposition to gay rights may be driven by an interaction between one’s own short-term mating orientation (i.e. willingness to engage in casual sex) and representations of gay people as sexually promiscuous. Here, we experimentally manipulated representations of gay men by randomly assigning participants to read one of two versions of a fictitious newspaper article, one of which contained faux scientific evidence confirming the stereotype that gay men are promiscuous, and the other containing faux scientific evidence refuting the stereotype. We found that the manipulation interacted with short-term mating orientation (STMO) to predict opposition to gay rights, such that low-STMO individuals (i.e. more averse to casual sex) exhibited more support for gay rights when assigned to read the stereotype-refuting article compared to the stereotype-confirming article, whereas high-STMO individuals (i.e. less averse to casual sex) were not significantly influenced by the manipulation. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of antigay attitudes, as well as for recent societal changes in acceptance of homosexuality.