Family still matters: Human social motivation across 42 countries during a global pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused drastic social changes for many people, including separation from friends and coworkers, enforced close contact with family, and reductions in mobility. Here we assess the extent to which people's evolutionarily-relevant basic motivations and goals-fundamental social motives such as Affiliation and Kin Care-might have been affected. To address this question, we gathered data on fundamental social motives in 42 countries (N = 15,915) across two waves, including 19 countries (N = 10,907) for which data were gathered both before and during the pandemic (pre-pandemic wave: 32 countries, N = 8998; 3302 male, 5585 female; M age  = 24.43, SD = 7.91; mid-pandemic wave: 29 countries, N = 6917; 2249 male, 4218 female; M age  = 28.59, SD = 11.31). Samples include data collected online (e.g., Prolific, MTurk), at universities, and via community sampling. We found that Disease Avoidance motivation was substantially higher during the pandemic, and that most of the other fundamental social motives showed small, yet significant, differences across waves. Most sensibly, concern with caring for one's children was higher during the pandemic, and concerns with Mate Seeking and Status were lower. Earlier findings showing the prioritization of family motives over mating motives (and even over Disease Avoidance motives) were replicated during the pandemic. Finally, well-being remained positively associated with family-related motives and negatively associated with mating motives during the pandemic, as in the pre-pandemic samples. Our results provide further evidence for the robust primacy of family-related motivations even during this unique disruption of social life.

The Evolutionarily Mismatched Impact of Urbanization on Insomnia Symptoms: a Short Review of the Recent Literature.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: For the most part of human existence, individuals have been living a rural lifestyle in a rural setting. However, such sleep-conducive conditions have largely been transformed dramatically by urbanization within a relatively short span of time in recent history, and the resulting evolved mechanisms-environment mismatch is theorized to bring about an increased risk for insomnia symptoms. This brief review of the recent literature is designed to evaluate the veracity of this proposition. RECENT FINDINGS: The majority of recent findings have suggested that most proposed evolutionarily mismatched urban factors are indeed related to the presence of insomnia symptoms. However, there is a general paucity of longitudinal evidence (and for some other factors, a lack of enough evidence of any kind). Although there is a preponderance of recent findings indicating a link between evolutionarily mismatched urban phenomena and insomnia symptoms, more longitudinal data are needed before any causative conclusion can be drawn.

Cross-cultural regularities in the cognitive architecture of pride.

Pride occurs in every known culture, appears early in development, is reliably triggered by achievements and formidability, and causes a characteristic display that is recognized everywhere. Here, we evaluate the theory that pride evolved to guide decisions relevant to pursuing actions that enhance valuation and respect for a person in the minds of others. By hypothesis, pride is a neurocomputational program tailored by selection to orchestrate cognition and behavior in the service of: (i) motivating the cost-effective pursuit of courses of action that would increase others' valuations and respect of the individual, (ii) motivating the advertisement of acts or characteristics whose recognition by others would lead them to enhance their evaluations of the individual, and (iii) mobilizing the individual to take advantage of the resulting enhanced social landscape. To modulate how much to invest in actions that might lead to enhanced evaluations by others, the pride system must forecast the magnitude of the evaluations the action would evoke in the audience and calibrate its activation proportionally. We tested this prediction in 16 countries across 4 continents (n = 2,085), for 25 acts and traits. As predicted, the pride intensity for a given act or trait closely tracks the valuations of audiences, local (mean r = +0.82) and foreign (mean r = +0.75). This relationship is specific to pride and does not generalize to other positive emotions that coactivate with pride but lack its audience-recalibrating function.

Debate: Facing uncertainty with(out) a sense of control - cultural influence on adolescents' response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought about healthcare, economic, and psychological crises around the world. The psychological impact on adolescents is likely going to be uneven across different societies, as cultures vary in terms of their dominant learning style that may influence how people cope with uncertainty and perceive their sense of control. We postulate that for adolescents in individualistic cultures where individual learning prevails, their sense of control might be undermined by societal disease-control regulations that restrict personal freedoms, while adolescents' sense of control might increase via participating in societal preventive efforts in collectivistic cultures where social learning is more prevalent. Individual differences regarding one's sense of control would, in turn, have implications for adolescents' short-term adjustments to COVID-19-related challenges and their future development.

The evolutionarily mismatched nature of modern group makeup and the proposed application of such knowledge on promoting unity among members during times of intergroup conflict.

Many modern-day groups differ from prehistoric ones regarding the proportion of members who are related to any particular individual. From an evolutionary mismatch lens, an appreciation of this disparity could help better explain the potential dilution of group cohesion during peacetime and inform novel, more effective approaches to enhancing group unity - strategies that might enhance national security around the globe.

Mind the gap: Development and validation of an evolutionary mismatched lifestyle scale and its impact on health and wellbeing.

Identifying an integrative framework that could appropriately delineate underlying mechanisms and individual risk/protective factors for human health has remained elusive. Evolutionary mismatch theory provides a comprehensive, integrative model for understanding the underlying causes and mechanisms of a wide range of modern health and well-being problems, ranging from obesity to depression. Despite growing interest regarding its importance though, no psychometrically-sound measure of evolutionary mismatch yet exists to facilitate research and intervention. To construct such a scale, aimed at gauging individual differences in the extent to which people's modern lifestyles are mismatched with ancestral conditions, we conducted four studies (a pilot study, followed by 3 main studies, with a final sample of 1901 participants across the main studies). Results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses have produced a 36-item evolutionary mismatched lifestyle scale (EMLS) with 7 subdomains of mismatched behaviours (e.g., diet, physical activity, relationships, social media use) that is psychometrically sound. Further, the EMLS is associated with physical, mental and subjective health. We explore the potential of the EMLS as a tool for examining interpersonal and cultural variations in health and wellbeing, while also discussing the limitations of the scale and future directions in relation to further psychometric examinations.

Child maltreatment and resilience in adulthood: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Although child maltreatment (CM) has been linked to health problems and poor psychosocial functioning, not all individuals exposed to CM develop or experience negative consequences later in life. This suggests that some individuals show resilience after being exposed to CM. However, conclusions have been limited by inconsistent findings across different CM subtypes and resilience domains.Objective: To develop a protocol for conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis to quantify associations between CM (overall and its subtypes) and resilience (global and its multiple domains) in adulthood, and to examine moderators and mediators of these associations.Method: PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science will be searched to identify relevant studies on the association between CM (exposure) and resilience (outcome) in adults (≥ 18 years). Data will be screened and extracted by at least two independent reviewers. The methodological quality of the included studies will be independently assessed with a modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). If deemed viable, a meta-analysis will be conducted using a random effects model. Heterogeneity of evidence will be estimated with the I2 statistic, and publication bias will be assessed. The effects of potential moderators (e.g. timing and severity of CM, age, sex, family cohesion, socio-economic status, country/region) will be analysed using meta-regression and subgroup analyses, and meta-analytical structural equation modelling will be employed to synthesise indirect mediation effects. Candidate moderators and mediators (e.g. genetic factors, brain functioning, attachment style, personality traits, physical activity, and social support) will be also examined qualitatively.Conclusions: This protocol will facilitate a systematic review and meta-analysis that has the potential to enhance our knowledge about the association between CM exposure in early life and resilience in adulthood. Understanding associations and underlying mechanisms between CM and resilience is potentially important in informing prevention and interventions to sustain health and improve outcomes among adults with a history of CM.PROSPERO registration: CRD42023394120.

In this study protocol, we propose to quantitatively summarise the existing literature on the relationship between child maltreatment and resilience with regard to mental health consequences and psychosocial functioning later in life.This preregistered systematic review and meta-analysis will establish the procedures to investigate associations between an overall classification of child maltreatment and its different associated subtypes, and a global/trait classification of resilience and its different domains in adults.This protocol will further determine the analytical approach to explore and summarise effect moderators and mediators of the association between child maltreatment and resilience in adulthood.The resulting synthesis, that will be based on this protocol, could enhance our understanding of the strength of the association between child maltreatment and resilience and inform prevention strategies and clinical interventions to improve health and psychosocial functioning in adult survivors.

Disease History and Life History Predict Behavioral Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

It is puzzling why countries do not all implement stringent behavioral control measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 even though preventive behaviors have been proven to be the only effective means to stop the pandemic. We provide a novel evolutionary life history explanation whereby pathogenic and parasitic prevalence represents intrinsic rather than extrinsic mortality risk that drives slower life history strategies and the related disease control motivation in all animals but especially humans. Our theory was tested and supported based on publicly available data involving over 150 countries. Countries having a higher historical prevalence of infectious diseases are found to adopt slower life history strategies that are related to prompter COVID-19 containment actions by the government and greater compliance by the population. Findings could afford governments novel insight into the design of more effective COVID-19 strategies that are based on enhancing a sense of control, vigilance, and compliance in the general population.

Singles' Reasons for Being Single: Empirical Evidence From an Evolutionary Perspective.

A relatively large number of people in Western societies are single; that is, they are not involved in any romantic relationship. In this study, we have attempted to investigate the reasons for singlehood by asking singles themselves. A final sample of 648 American singles (307 of them women) rated 92 possible reasons for singlehood. These reasons were classified into 18 broad factors and four general domains. Among the most important reasons were poor flirting skills, freedom, fear of getting hurt, having different priorities, and being too picky. Significant sex and age effects were found across different factors and domains. More specifically, men were more likely than women to indicate that they were single in order to be free to flirt around, and because they were not into family making; while women were more likely to indicate that they were single in order to avoid getting hurt, and because they have considered themselves not to be desirable as mates. Younger people were more likely to indicate that they were single because they had poor flirting skills, because they did not see themselves as desirable mates, and because they did not like commitment; whereas older people were more likely to indicate that they were single in order to be free to do what they have wanted. Findings were examined and discussed using evolutionary theories relating to mate selection and evolutionary mismatch.

Family Matters: Rethinking the Psychology of Human Social Motivation.

What motives do people prioritize in their social lives? Historically, social psychologists, especially those adopting an evolutionary perspective, have devoted a great deal of research attention to sexual attraction and romantic-partner choice (mate seeking). Research on long-term familial bonds (mate retention and kin care) has been less thoroughly connected to relevant comparative and evolutionary work on other species, and in the case of kin care, these bonds have been less well researched. Examining varied sources of data from 27 societies around the world, we found that people generally view familial motives as primary in importance and mate-seeking motives as relatively low in importance. Compared with other groups, college students, single people, and men place relatively higher emphasis on mate seeking, but even those samples rated kin-care motives as more important. Furthermore, motives linked to long-term familial bonds are positively associated with psychological well-being, but mate-seeking motives are associated with anxiety and depression. We address theoretical and empirical reasons why there has been extensive research on mate seeking and why people prioritize goals related to long-term familial bonds over mating goals. Reallocating relatively greater research effort toward long-term familial relationships would likely yield many interesting new findings relevant to everyday people's highest social priorities.

Too materialistic to get married and have children?

We developed new materials to induce a luxury mindset and activate materialistic values, and examined materialism's relationship to attitudes toward marriage and having children in Singapore. Path analyses indicated that materialistic values led to more negative attitudes toward marriage, which led to more negative attitudes toward children, which in turn led to a decreased number of children desired. Results across two studies highlight, at the individual level, the tradeoff between materialistic values and attitudes toward marriage and procreation and suggest that a consideration of psychological variables such as materialistic values may allow for a better understanding of larger-scale socioeconomic issues including low fertility rates among developed countries. We discuss implications and describe how psychological factors relating to low fertility fit within evolutionary mismatch and life history theory frameworks.

Dichotic listening impairments in early onset schizophrenia are associated with reduced left temporal lobe volume.

Dichotic listening (DL) impairments, in particular the loss or reduction of right ear advantage (REA) in people with schizophrenia have been variously interpreted as both a state and trait marker for schizophrenia. To date, there has been no comprehensive investigation of dichotic language impairments in relation to the structural integrity of the temporal cortex--the likely neural substrate for such impairments. In this study of 39 early onset patients and matched controls we used a dichotic listening procedure and examined the findings in relation to MRI measurements of gross and regional cerebral volumes. No overall group difference in ear advantage was found between patients and controls but patients who showed absence of REA also demonstrated an accompanying reduction of left temporal lobe volume compared with patients who showed normal ear advantage and controls. The findings suggest that impaired DL performance is a correlate of structural change in the temporal lobe and that this is apparent in early onset cases.