By Nicole Barbaro   Every year is filled with many wonderful books, often more than we can manage to read. But each year there are stand-out books that focus on key topics of interest to those fascinated with the application of evolutionary theory to understanding human – and animal – behavior. In 2020, HBES re-vamped […]

There are a few updates I’d like to share with the HBES membership. We are awaiting publication of the final issue of 2020, the Special Issue on Life History Theory, edited by Willem Frankenhuis and Daniel Nettle. This was a tremendous effort and I’d like to thank both Willem and Dan, the contributors, and all […]

By Nicole Barbaro   HBES hosted the second event in the new Roundtable Seminar Series on November 17 with over 215 members in live attendance. The new event series, organized by HBES volunteers Kristopher Smith, Courtney Crosby, and Paul Deutchman, featured a panel of researchers who specialize in different areas of life history theory to […]

By Nicole Barbaro   HBES hosted the inaugural Roundtable Seminar Series event on October 29 with over 130 members in live attendance. The new event series, organized by HBES volunteers Kristopher Smith, Courtney Crosby, and Paul Deutchman, featured a panel of researchers who specialize in cross-cultural research to discuss the importance of going beyond WEIRD […]

By HBES Executive Council Members, Chris von Rueden & Coren Apicella   Evolution and Human Behavior (EHB) just released its September issue, which is devoted to highlighting ongoing research in the evolutionary social sciences that expands beyond WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) populations. This special issue, titled “Beyond WEIRD, a decade later: Population […]

by Mohammad Atari   A decade ago, Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine, and Ara Norenzayan published a landmark paper in Behavioral and Brain Sciences titled, “The weirdest people in the world?”. The cardinal argument of Henrich and colleagues was that there is an over-reliance on Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) samples in psychological research. The term […]

As the hosts, we would like to invite everyone to the 32nd annual HBES conference in sunny southern California. The conference will be held at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel in downtown Palm Springs. Convenient to the Palm Springs international airport or a three hour drive from Los Angeles. The city itself boasts a great selection […]

Dear HBES Members, It has been a busy summer at Evolution and Human Behavior and I am pleased to provide you with several updates.   EHB Special Issues Currently at EHB, we are working on the publication of two special issues. The first special issue, organized by Joe Henrich, Coren Apicella, and Ara Norenzayan, examines […]

by Juliana French & Andrea Meltzer   140 million. That’s how many women world-wide are estimated to use hormonal contraceptives such as The Pill. The main function of hormonal contraceptives (and a leading reason for why so many women use them) is to decrease the likelihood of conception. But through administering synthetic hormones to achieve […]

The HBES Executive Council is now soliciting funding applications from HBES members for an October 1, 2020 deadline.   Two grants are available for this round of funding: 1. General Funding Grant, which is intended to subsidize costs associated with hosting events such as conferences and pre-conference meetings, workshops, and other activities or educational opportunities […]

by Jaimie Arona Krems & Daniel Conroy-Beam with thanks to Laureon A. Merrie   Lenù & Lila, Gene & Phineas, Thelma & Louise, Cap & Bucky. Best friends are fixtures in our lives. Best friends might not benefit our fitness as obviously and directly as mates do, but having good friends is thought to be […]

by Brendan Zietsch   Life history theory has been promoted as a unifying framework for understanding trait covariation in the social sciences. Underlying this approach is the assumption that patterns of trait covariation across species, and the Darwinian principles thought to underlie those patterns, can be extrapolated to trait covariation across individuals within human populations. […]

by Oliver Sng, Keelah Williams, & Steven Neuberg   The study of sex and age stereotypes—the general beliefs we hold about others based on their sex and age—has had a long history. In a recent paper, we present a new perspective to thinking about this topic. Specifically, we propose that social perceivers are actually “lay […]

Syndicated columnist, author, and longtime HBES member Amy Alkon here. Around March 26, I saw tweets from grad students that American Airlines and AirBnb were refusing refunds for flights and lodging for June HBES, cancelled due to coronavirus. Other airlines may also be refusing to refund. Delta, thankfully, is refunding money. A number of us tried […]

The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing situation that is causing much uncertainty for universities and scientific societies. The HBES Executive Council is continuously monitoring the situation and will communicate with the membership as new updates become available. Below, we have important information regarding upcoming HBES activities. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation during this difficult […]

Children’s Understanding of Dominance and Prestige in China and the UK By: Anni Kajanus*, Narges Afshordi*, & Felix Warneken *joint first authors   Children recognize social rank differences between individuals from early on, for instance associating bigger physical size with dominance. However, dominance—gaining high rank through force or threat of force—is only one mechanism of […]

Dear HBES Members: Thank you to everyone who filled out the post-conference survey for HBES 2019 in Boston.  The results – including the many insightful comments and suggestions – were very helpful, and the council will be using them to improve our annual conference moving forward. Below, we have included some highlights from the survey spanning […]

The HBES 2020 Conference website is now live! The conference will take place June 24-27, 2020 in Detroit, MI. Plenary speakers have been announced. Abstract submissions will open January 31, 2020.   More conference details to come!