Preschoolers' social dominance, moral cognition, and moral behavior: an evolutionary perspective.

Various aspects of moral functioning, aggression, and positive peer regard were assessed in 153 preschool children. Our hypotheses were inspired by an evolutionary approach to morality that construes moral norms as tools of the social elite. Accordingly, children were also rated for social dominance and strategies for its attainment. We predicted that aspects of moral functioning would be only loosely related to each other and that moral cognitions about rules (unlike emotion attributions and moral internalization) would demonstrate patterns suggestive of instrumentality. Results showed that cognitions about moral rules and internalized conscience were unrelated and that sociomoral behavior was more strongly related to the latter than to the former. In addition, promoting group norms (Selective Moral Engagement) positively predicted social dominance, whereas internalized conscience negatively predicted social dominance. Children who controlled resources via both prosocial and coercive means (i.e., bistrategic) showed enhanced moral cognitions about rules (despite high levels of aggression) but had deficits in emotional aspects of moral functioning in the eyes of teachers. Patterns of Selective Moral Engagement invite comparisons to tattling and impression management. The findings are contrasted with alternative hypotheses that are advanced from traditional yet prevailing approaches.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in early adolescents' friendship development: friendship selection, influence, and prospective friendship quality.

Friendships are essential for adolescent social development. However, they may be pursued for varying motives, which, in turn, may predict similarity in friendships via social selection or social influence processes, and likely help to explain friendship quality. We examined the effect of early adolescents' (N = 374, 12-14 years) intrinsic and extrinsic friendship motivation on friendship selection and social influence by utilizing social network modeling. In addition, longitudinal relations among motivation and friendship quality were estimated with structural equation modeling. Extrinsic motivation predicted activity in making friendship nominations during the sixth grade and lower friendship quality across time. Intrinsic motivation predicted inactivity in making friendship nominations during the sixth, popularity as a friend across the transition to middle school, and higher friendship quality across time. Social influence effects were observed for both motives, but were more pronounced for intrinsic motivation.

The Upsides and Downsides of the Dark Side: A Longitudinal Study Into the Role of Prosocial and Antisocial Strategies in Close Friendship Formation.

Resource control theory (RCT) posits that both antisocial and prosocial behaviors combine in unique ways to control resources such as friendships. We assessed students (N = 2,803; 49.7% male) yearly from junior (grades 8-10) to senior high school (11-12) on antisocial (A) and prosocial (P) behavior, peer nominated friendship, and well-being. Non-parametric cluster analyses of the joint trajectories of A and P identified four stable profiles: non-strategic (moderately low A and P), bi-strategic (moderately high on A and P), prosocial (moderately low A and moderately high on P), and antisocial (moderately low on P, and very high on A). There were clear benefits to youth using bi-strategic strategies in junior high: they attracted relatively high levels of opposite sex friendship nominations. However, this benefit disappeared in senior high. There were also clear costs: bi-strategic youth experienced relatively low well-being, and this effect was significantly more pronounced for females than males. Prosocial youth were the only ones who maintained both high friendship numbers and high well-being throughout high school. We discuss the cost/benefit trade-offs of different resource control strategies.

The effects of evolution education: examining attitudes toward and knowledge of evolution in college courses.

The present study examined changes in university students' attitudes toward and knowledge of evolution measured by the previously validated Evolutionary Attitudes and Literacy Survey (EALS) in response to curricular content. Specifically, student responses on the survey were compared across an evolutionary psychology course, an introductory biology course with significant evolutionary content, and a political science course with no evolutionary content. To this end, 868 students were assessed at a large Midwestern U.S. university prior to and following completion of one of the three courses. A multiple group repeated measures confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to examine latent mean differences in self-reported Evolution Knowledge/Relevance, Creationist Reasoning, Evolutionary Misconceptions, and Exposure to Evolution. A significant and notable increase in Knowledge/Relevance, as well as decreases in Creationist Reasoning and Evolutionary Misconceptions, was observed for the evolutionary psychology course, whereas the biology course demonstrated no change in Knowledge/Relevance and a significant increase in Evolutionary Misconceptions. The implications of these findings for evolution education are discussed.

Ontogeny and social dominance: a developmental view of human power patterns.

Developmental science has long evolutionary roots and has historically focused on individual differences. Accordingly, developmental models can inform conversations about phylogeny and personality. The present paper evokes life history theory to describe a theoretical model of competitive behavior that applies to both children and adults (resource control theory: RCT). The model suggests that prosocial and coercive behavior, though different in manifest form, serve similar evolutionary functions. Accordingly, RCT presents a view on social dominance that gives primacy to function over form that contrasts sharply from traditional views. This reformulation gives rise to novel questions (both developmental and non-developmental) and challenges long accepted views on prosociality (e.g., that it is altruistic) and aggression (e.g., that it is maladaptive). Similarly, RCT gives rise to a minority perspective that aligns aggression with social competence.

The evolutionary basis of risky adolescent behavior: implications for science, policy, and practice.

This article proposes an evolutionary model of risky behavior in adolescence and contrasts it with the prevailing developmental psychopathology model. The evolutionary model contends that understanding the evolutionary functions of adolescence is critical to explaining why adolescents engage in risky behavior and that successful intervention depends on working with, instead of against, adolescent goals and motivations. The current article articulates 5 key evolutionary insights into risky adolescent behavior: (a) The adolescent transition is an inflection point in development of social status and reproductive trajectories; (b) interventions need to address the adaptive functions of risky and aggressive behaviors like bullying; (c) risky adolescent behavior adaptively calibrates over development to match both harsh and unpredictable environmental conditions; (d) understanding evolved sex differences is critical for understanding the psychology of risky behavior; and (e) mismatches between current and past environments can dysregulate adolescent behavior, as demonstrated by age-segregated social groupings. The evolutionary model has broad implications for designing interventions for high-risk youth and suggests new directions for research that have not been forthcoming from other perspectives.

Social dominance and forceful submission fantasies: feminine pathology or power?

This study addresses forceful submission fantasies in men and women. Although many approaches implicitly or explicitly cast women's force fantasies in a pathological light, this study seeks to explore the associations of such fantasy to female power. By adopting an evolutionary meta-theoretical perspective (and a resource control theory perspective), it was hypothesized that highly agentic, dominant women prefer forceful submission fantasies (more than subordinate women) as a means to connect them to agentic, dominant men. In addition, it is suggested that dominant women would ascribe a meaning to the object of the fantasy different from that assigned by subordinate women (i.e., "warrior lover" vs. "white knight"). Two studies were conducted with nearly 900 college students (men and women) from a large Midwestern university. Hypotheses were largely supported. Analysis of meaning supports theoretical perspectives proposing that forceful submission reflects desires for sexual power on behalf of the fantasist. Implications for evolutionary approaches to human mate preferences are discussed.

Strategies of control, aggression, and morality in preschoolers: an evolutionary perspective.

Moral reasoning, moral affect, social problem solving skills, and social preferences were assessed in 163 ethnically mixed preschoolers (2.86-5.95 years). Participants were rated by their teachers on prosocial and coercive strategies of control, success at resource control, and aggression (overt and relational). Based on their employment of coercive and prosocial strategies of resource control, the children were categorized as bistrategic controllers, coercive controllers, prosocial controllers, noncontrollers, or typicals. Teacher-rated relational aggression was positively associated with moral maturity in girls. Bistrategic controllers, although aggressive, were morally mature and preferred play partners by their peers. The results are discussed in terms of hypotheses that arise from evolutionary theory which suggests that highly effective resource controllers would be simultaneously aggressive and yet well aware of moral norms. The findings are contrasted with alternative hypotheses that might arise variously from traditional and prevailing approaches.