– by Eric Schniter, Michael Gurven, & Hillard Kaplan Humans depend on culturally transmitted knowledge and skills crucial for their survival. But how is essential culture transmitted? In economically modern human societies, most youngsters are formally educated alongside their similar-aged peers by unrelated teachers from an older generation. Adults in modern societies often develop into […]

– by Anne Pisor Is intergroup aggression part of human nature? Or is intergroup tolerance part of human nature? Yes and yes. While such simple headlines make great clickbait, they oversimplify – yet both have a grain of truth. Humans are both profoundly hostile and profoundly tolerant toward out-groups. We’re profoundly flexible. Flexible intergroup relations […]

– by Diego Guevara Beltrán, Jessica Ayers, Lee Cronk, & Athena Aktipis Thirty-four experts on cooperation walk into a bar and begin to discuss the ‘true’ meaning of the term ‘reciprocity.’ A biologist offers one definition. She says, “we observe reciprocity when the gift of some food, or another favor, increases the probability for the […]

– by Léo Fitouchi (Image credit Frans Huby, Creative Commons 3.0) Humans want wrongdoers to suffer. From the justice courts of modern societies to the biblical “eye for an eye,” people everywhere have rules for punishing transgressions including theft, murder, assault, or property damage. Why do human societies punish wrongdoers? You might think the answer […]

The Learning, Evolution and Games 2024 conference will take place in Brisbane in July 2024. The LEG conferences bring together researchers who are interested in the evolutionary foundations of economic and social behaviour, evolutionary game theory, and learning in games. Location: Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Time: 8-9 July 2024 Website: https://sites.google.com/view/leg2024/home Keynote speakers: Ingela Alter (Toulouse) Nichola […]

– by Victor Vikram Odouard Driving my Fiat 500 convertible through the Swiss countryside surrounding Geneva, a sign caught my eye. In large hand written letters, it read “CAiSSE” – “CHeCKOUT” in French. Behind the sign, a heap of pumpkins lay on a threadbare canvas blanket. But unlike most checkouts, no one was there. And […]

– by Yuta Kawamura & Misato Inaba In Japan, there exists a customary practice known as “oseibo”. This is a year-end gift given to a relative, colleague, boss, subordinate, or business partner with whom one shares a somewhat close relationship. In many cases, both parties exchange gifts of similar value that are not excessively costly. […]

– by James R. Roney In many nonhuman mammals, females emit clear cues of time periods when they are able to conceive: from large sexual swellings in some primates, to odors that reveal ovulatory timing. In humans, overt signaling of this kind appears absent, and scientists like Don Symons and Beverly Strassmann theorized that concealment […]

– by Carlton Patrick When Clarence Thomas was nominated to serve on the United States Supreme Court, it was Joe Biden, then a Senator from Delaware, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and oversaw the confirmation process. During the hearing, Biden questioned Thomas at length on his views on natural law, saying that while the […]

– by Peter DeScioli Why do humans make so many laws? In a new article, I argue that the human ability to make laws evolved by natural selection. I hope to entice you with a few snapshots. Laws may seem unlikely to come from evolution. There are so many laws, and they differ so much […]

– by Douglas Hurt Yarn As social group members, you and I might come into conflict over resources if the physical or social environment creates scarcity. If we chose to compete over our conflicting claims, we are disputing. We could fight over it, but the legal institutions of functional modern states discourage physical aggression and […]

HBES 2023 Palm Springs was a success! Catherine Salmon & Jessica Hehman hosted a fantastic conference that brought us together in-person for the first time since 2019 (Boston). In addition to 3.5 days of talks, there were five excellent plenaries and a keynote: Michelle Scalise Sugiyama started us out with an enlightening discussion of how […]

– by Andrew W. Delton. Photo credit by Arnulfo Cari Ista: author Adrian Jaeggi leads a member of the Tsimane community through a task measuring helping “It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms […]

–  by Tony Volk In 1993, Jay Belsky and his colleagues noticed that girls who lacked fathers and/or grew up in harsher environments seemed to also have early puberty. In one of the first evolutionary developmental hypotheses since Bowlby, they proposed that girls might be maturing faster in harsh environments as a way of reproducing […]

– by Daniel Kruger, Maryanne Fisher, & Catherine Salmon Research in evolutionary psychology attracts considerable attention, from both enthusiasts and critics. You might ask, why study what evolutionary minded researchers believe? Why would anyone be interested in knowing such details? There are several important reasons. For one, we repeatedly see articles in journals, as well […]

– by Wilson Merrell, PhD Candidate in Social Psychology at the University of Michigan Insensitivity to pain is a valuable asset when it comes to physical altercations. From ancestral conflict between warring coalitions to boxers in a 12-round fight, individuals who are relatively insensitive to pain are better able to persist, and more likely to […]

– Delaney Knorr Evolutionary theory has long supported the idea that, among humans, allomothers are critical players in improving offspring fitness. Allomothers are kin, or less commonly non-kin, who help out the mother-offspring dyad. Often allomothers help by providing food, child care, or various forms of social support that increase offspring fitness. But from an […]

The Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri invites applications for a postdoctoral researcher. Applicants may specialize in any field. We welcome scholars with a history of publishing in academic journals and strong quantitative/analytical skills. Ideal candidates will have additional skills in one or more of the following areas: comparative databases, machine learning, deep […]

– by Jessica Hlay & Carolyn Hodges-Simeon March of 2020 remains a memorable time in most people’s lives. Few will forget the breakout of COVID-19 and resulting pandemic: cities were shut down, people were quarantined, homes were locked, and fear of infection was at an all-time high. However, news programs started showing a different picture […]

– by Cari Pick For many people worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic created an evolutionarily novel set of pressures: extended social isolation as 57% of the world’s population was confined to full or partial lockdown measures. How would these pressures reshape our social lives? Did the social distancing affect our fundamental social motives: the suites of […]

– by Xijing Wang Although there is a common saying that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, good-looking people still attract the public’s attention easily and are more favored by people across different social domains. For instance, it is not surprising that in the dating market, physical attractiveness is advantageous for both men […]

HBES 2022 was a success! Many thanks to: Our hosting platform: ohyay The hosting committee: Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair (Chair), Norman Li, Jaroslava Varella Valentova The program committee: Bernhard Fink (Chair), Kelly Asao, Khandis Blake, Michelle Escasa-Dorne, Katrin Schaefer, Joseph Manson, Joshua Tybur The volunteers: Tara DeLecce, Tiffany Lussier, Saeed Rezvani-Nejad, Per Helge Haakstad Larsen, […]

by Neil Caton, Samuel Pearson, & Barnaby Dixon The presence of dedicated pre-registered replication submissions in peer-reviewed journals is important for maintaining and improving the self-correcting tendency of the scientific enterprise. Replications inform us when we have (un)knowingly been led astray, and given the alarmingly high rates of false positives found in psychology to date, […]

by Bastian Jaeger In his autobiography, Charles Darwin recounts the time he approached the captain of the HMS Beagle. Darwin was keen on joining the crew on an upcoming trip around the world as the expedition’s naturalist, but he needed the captain’s approval. Despite recommendations by friends, the captain was reluctant at first. He thought […]

by Jaimie Arona Krems and Keelah Williams If you’ve read about Gene and his best friend Phineas in John Knowles’ great American novel A Separate Peace, the women alums of Vassar’s class of ’33 in Mary McCarthy’s The Group—or work from Elena Ferrante, Sally Rooney, or pretty much any other author describing dyadic friendships in […]

#HBES2022 Still Virtually Everywhere conference is seeking volunteers from around the world to provide tech support, loading talks for speakers and moderating live Q&A after each talk. HBES is offering a year’s free membership to volunteers. Volunteers will receive training in using the platform. Anyone interested should send the host, Leif, a message ASAP to […]

The Human Behavior and Evolution Society Early Career Award and Lifetime Career Award recognizes individuals for their contributions to the field. We are soliciting nominations (self and other) for each award.   Nominations are due by May 1 2022.   See Awards for more details, eligibility information for each award, and links to submit nominations […]

By Martin Fieder   Evolutionary biology has always been interested in the question, which individual traits influence how many children we have, and how much each of these traits contributes to it. As nearly every trait has to some extent a genetical basis, together with the progeny also the genes that are associated with any […]

By Dimitris Xygalatas   What do peacocks and humans have in common? I suppose there may be other possible answers to this question, but one feature they do share is the use of extravagant, apparently senseless traits as a means of transmitting important information. When such transmission is beneficial to both senders and receivers, those […]

Dear HBES community, The HBES Council and HBES 2022 Host Committee have made the very difficult decision to move our 2022 conference to a fully online format. We have come to this decision based on the following: Feedback from our members in our recent survey showing a 50/50 split of responding members reporting they were […]

We hope you will join us for the Roundtable Seminar Series event Monday, December 6th 2021 at 12:00 – 1:15 pm EST where Drs. Abigail Page, Claudia Valeggia, Herman Pontzer & Theresa Gildner will engage in discussion, moderated by Dr. Michael Gurven on the topic, “Evolutionary Health in Indigenous Populations”. We’re looking forward to engaging […]

We hope you will join us for the Roundtable Seminar Series event Tuesday, October 19th 2021 at 10:00 – 11:15 am EST where Drs. David Buss, Janet Howard, and Todd Shackelford will engage in discussion, moderated by Dr. Elizabeth Pillsworth on the topic, “Sexual Jealousy and Intimate Partner Violence”. We’re looking forward to engaging with […]

Welcome to Detroit for HBES 2022! We are back!!! And we are thrilled to announce that we are planning for an in-person HBES 2022 conference in Detroit, Michigan! Aside from the invited and submitted program, there are numerous formal and informal opportunities for networking and learning about the latest developments within the human evolutionary sciences. […]

by Karolina Milkowska   In periods when the body’s immunity is lowered or the risk of infection rises, people should show increased prophylactic behavior. It is assumed that the feeling of disgust is a mechanism that should protect against contact with the source of infection. The increased susceptibility of the organism to infections can be […]

by Rebecka K. Hahnel-Peeters   There are many disciplines, subdisciplines, and paradigms through which to understand human behavior – two of which are evolutionary anthropology (EA) and evolutionary psychology (EP). At its core, the goal of EP is to understand the design features of the human mind shaped by natural selection to solve adaptive problems […]

by Jordann L. Brandner, Gary L. Brase, & Jadyn Pohlman   Picture this: you catch the eye of an attractive person across the room, and you go to speak with them. They smile, they laugh at your jokes, and they lean in to listen to your conversation. Would you be able to say if they […]

The Human Behavior and Evolution Society presents three annual awards to recognize outstanding scholarship and contributions to the field. We are pleased to congratulate the exceptional winners of the 2021 society awards.   Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution This award recognizes excellent young scientists who have made distinguished theoretical and/or empirical contributions to […]

by Ilona Nenko   From an early age, many of us learn that our grandmothers are invaluable in our lives. Their experiences, help, and knowledge can shape us into who we are today, and their influence stretches far beyond simple stereotypes. Grandmothers have long held a special place in almost every culture, and the human […]

by Richard Johnson, William Wilson, Sondra Bland & Miguel Lanaspa   How does sugar effect our behavior in modern environments? Here we present the hypothesis that fructose, which is present in added sugars such as table sugar (sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), may have a role in behavioral disorders associated with impulsivity and […]

by David W Lawson Feature image : A household interview, Mwanza, Tanzania; Credit: David W. Lawson   Over the last decade, my colleagues and I have grappled with the categorization of multiple forms of marriage as definitively costly to women by international development and global health organizations. Chief among these practices are polygynous marriage (sharing […]

  David Perrett is a professor at the University of St Andrews and the winner of the 2020 Lifetime Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution, which he will receive at the next HBES conference. Carlota Batres, an assistant professor at Franklin and Marshall College and one of Dave’s former PhD students, interviewed him for HBES. […]

We are thrilled to announce that the annual meeting of HBES is going virtual this summer! Between June 24th and July 2nd, we will bring you an action-packed program, featuring the following (confirmed) speakers:   Keynote Address Richard Wrangham (Harvard University)   Plenary Addresses Michael Bang Petersen (Aarhaus University) Magdalena Hurtado (Arizona State University) Michael […]

by Thomas Richardson   Men are taller, bigger, stronger and more warlike than women. Or to use the academic term; men are the formidable sex. This is true across the vast majority of human cultures and time periods. In the last 2 decades many studies have investigated how we got like this, and how it […]

by Paul Deutchman   Imagine that you are at an academic conference with a friend. As you walk into the convention hall one morning, you see a table covered in Danish pastries. You grab a couple pastries and put them on a plate. Before you can even take a bite, you remember that you left […]

HBES is thrilled to announce the next event in our new Roundtable Seminar Series. On March 4th 2021 at 12:30pm -1:45pm EST Drs. Joshua Tybur, Lisa DeBruine, Randy Thornhill, and Daniel Hruschka will engage in discussion, moderated by Dr. Deb Lieberman on the topic, “Pathogens and Social Behavior”. We’re looking forward to engaging with our […]

From the HBES Early Career Award Committee (Pascal Boyer, Owen Jones, and Deb Lieberman)   The competition for the 2020 HBES Early Career Award was especially fierce this year with several outstanding candidates. This year’s winner, to be celebrated at the 2021 HBES conference in Palm Springs, is Dr. Katherine McAuliffe, Assistant Professor in the […]