We are happy to announce that the website for #HBES2025 is up and running and is now accepting abstracts! The 36th Annual Human Behavior & Evolution Society Conference will be held June 4th-7th 2025 at Stockton University’s Atlantic City campus and nearby Tropicana Resort. It will be hosted by Josh Duntley, Margaret Lewis, Liz Shobe, and […]
– by Amy Zhao and Brendan Zietsch Facial attractiveness studies have typically relied on asking people to rate facial photos of real-life participants or images of computer-generated faces. However, these ratings can be subjective and affected by rater biases. More recent studies (such as our own) have attempted to avoid subjective biases through the use […]
Dear HBES Community, 2025 is an election year for the Executive Council. We are therefore seeking suggestions for nominees for the following positions: President of HBES Communications Officer Member-at-Large (two positions available) Student Representative (must be current graduate student through spring 2027) Suggestions for Nominees are due by January 31, 2025. Click here to access the 2025 HBES […]
– by Oliver Sng & Krystina Boyd-Frenkel If you think about the last stranger you met, you will likely remember their race. But why do we care and think about others’ race? Laypersons sometimes suggest that humans have evolved to be racist. Evolutionary scholars know that the truth is far more complex. Instead, the somewhat […]
– by Robin Dunbar Friends are the single most important resource we have. There is now vast quantities of evidence to show that the single best predictor of our psychological health and wellbeing and our physical health and wellbeing is the number and quality of close friendships we have. The optimal number of friends (including […]
– by Marta Kowal We might not spend much time thinking about how much we pursue beauty, yet we undoubtedly spend a lot of time actually doing it. In one of our large-scale, cross-cultural quantitative studies, 99% of our sample (93,158 participants from 93 countries) reported spending more than 10 minutes a day enhancing their […]
The Department of Psychology at Oakland University invites applications for a tenure-track appointment with expertise in QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS at the Assistant Professor level beginning Fall, 2025. Area of specialization is open, but primary research interests should complement those of existing faculty in one or more of our graduate program areas: Community and Behavioral Health, Social/Personality, […]
– by Sarah Peacey ‘Witchcraft’ has a variety of associations, from pointed hats and broomsticks to the nature-focused, neopagan religion of Wicca. The oldest and most universal definition is the darkest: the idea that people – perhaps members of your community including relatives and neighbours – are secretly working harmful magic to hurt you. In […]
– by Carlos Hernández Blasi and David F. Bjorklund It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that a major theme in evolution is “save the children,” especially for a slow-developing species that invests much in few offspring, such as humans. However, although a child’s survival is in the best interest of both […]
– by Robin Dunbar Solving the problem of how to live in large, demographically stable groups is probably the single most important achievement of anthropoid primates, and especially so of humans. Group-living does not come for free. A variety of centrifugal forces constantly threaten to destabilise groups. One of these is the infamous public goods […]