Gaming is found in every human society, but why do we spend so much time competing under artificial rules? Our new research explores the possibility that games evolved as low-risk ways to assess skill, strategy, and reliability when forming alliances. www.hbes.com/evolutionary...

Evolutionary and social functions of gaming - HBES

– by Yago Moraes Imagine two strangers meeting for the first time. Instead of making small talk, they either play an ancient strategy game or role-play a mild disagreement between friends. Weeks later...

hbes.com

the personality structural foundations of facets of emotional intelligence link.springer.com/content/pdf/...

Run to become a leader of @w-plus-ebs.bsky.social! We work closely with evolutionary social & behavioral science societies -- HBES, CES, and EHBEA -- to foster spaces supportive of women and sexual and gender minorities. As incoming W+EBS president, I'm happy to chat if you have questions! 📞

W+EBS@w-plus-ebs.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Reminder! W+EBS leadership elections are coming up. Know someone (maybe you?) who'd be great as Chair-Elect or Secretary? Nominate them now! We'll start compiling nominations in the next few weeks. Don't be shy, self-noms welcome! #WplusEBS

Was chatting with a colleague recently about how academics navigate different stages of careers, and it reminded me of this great post from Elliot Berkman that I found helpful when I was getting started (and that I revisit periodically): www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

Advice for Grad Students (and Senior Faculty)

Starting a graduate program? Here is some advice about succeeding that you might not have heard.

psychologytoday.com

"PsychAdapter lets researchers dial in on personality traits, age, and mental health characteristics to generate text that sounds like real individuals, opening the door to training simulations and personalized content." hai.stanford.edu/news/todays-...

📢 Deadline extended! Abstract submissions for the 2026 FOSSIL conference are now due June 30. Join us Aug 7–8 at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK. All career stages & all areas of evolutionary human science welcome—please share widely! 📝 Submit: fossilconference.mystrikingly.com

FOSSIL Conference

Flyover State Scientists Integrating Evolution (FOSSIL) Conference---a new regional conference for evolutionary social scientists

fossilconference.mystrikingly.com

Language Genderedness and Its Association With Gender Differences in Personality Across 48 Languages osf.io/preprints/ps...

Thinking about pursuing a career in personality and social psychology? Jessica D. Ayers recommends having fun, finding a topic you're passionate about, and striving to find work-life balance. Learn more in our latest SPSP Member Spotlight: https://ow.ly/MKzi50Z4T5v

A response on @yaleaaup.bsky.social's recent faculty survey on academic freedom: Read the full report here: aaupyale.org/report/

Yale AAUP@yaleaaup.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Given employees with high conscientiousness and emotional stability contribute to bottom line through superb job performance, organizations likely establish virtuous cycle when they provide employees with satisfying work experience [actually increases both traits]" psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-...

"Contemporary problems ranging from allergies, myopia, and obesity to chronic anxiety, loneliness, and ultralow fertility can be understood as consequences of evolutionary mismatch intensified by the polycrisis" www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/16...

"outside usual east–west comparisons...wider range of cultural variety in psychological tendencies, within-culture variation...cultural dynamics of psychological phenomena at the individual level (psychological acculturation) and group level (cultural change)..." www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Advancing a dynamic approach to cultural psychology beyond stable dichotomies - Nature Reviews Psychology

The framework of individualism versus collectivism has encouraged conceptions of culture as dichotomous, bounded, monolithic and stable. In this Review, Uskul and Mesquita describe research that moves...

nature.com

"Openness vary across individuals, groups, historical periods: exploration modulated by ecological conditions such as safety and resource. When environments make exploration worthwhile, Openness expands; when conditions are harsh or precarious, it contracts." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

"promising efforts to operationalize novel constructs such as left-wing authoritarianism and progressivism"

PsyArXivBot@psyarxivbot.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A comprehensive systematic review of the psychometrics of left-wing ideology: https://osf.io/47bq3

"adverse effects of green-feminine stereotyping on men's green behavior are culturally contingent rather than universal" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

"an evolutionary mindset helps students understand why learning often feels hard, why it works best with others, why we all develop differently, and why it doesn’t stop when the school day ends" katiegruskin.substack.com/p/students-e...

Students' Evolutionary Mindset

4 Things All Learners Should Know About Their Evolved Brains and School

katiegruskin.substack.com

"virtual Girlfriend Experience contributes to fulfilling immediate needs for (a) sexual novelty, variety, and fantasy, (b) beauty, youth, and mutual mate choice, (c) social, emotional, and intellectual connections, and (d) dominance, autonomy, and control" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Outsourcing Love: an Evolutionary Approach to the Virtual Girlfriend Experience - Evolutionary Psychological Science

Evolutionary Psychological Science - This paper provides an overview of the “girlfriend experience” (GFE) from in-person to virtual. Drawing on OnlyFans and AI companion applications as...

link.springer.com

"Experts remain uncertain about which psychological mechanisms contribute to declining reproduction...novel mating environment that may be affecting female sexual strategies, pair-bonding, and reproduction in ways that remain poorly understood" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Bridging a Reproductively Oriented Evolutionary Psychology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives to the Emerging Reproductive Crisis - Evolutionary Psychological Science

Evolutionary Psychological Science - Over the past decades, unexpected reductions in fertility have resulted in a growing number of nations facing serious population declines. Experts remain...

link.springer.com

Conference update emails for #HBES2026 and #CESRabat will be sent soon. In the meantime, updated programs are live on both conference websites: airess.fgses-um6p.ma/hbes2026 airess.fgses-um6p.ma/ces2026 Check them out! @ces2026.bsky.social @hbes2026.bsky.social

"although women may face obstacles that hinder their sexual experiences, these findings suggest that partnered women do not report being less satisfied and instead report being slightly more satisfied with their sex lives than do partnered men" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Women Are Slightly More Sexually Satisfied in Their Romantic Relationships Than Men: An Integrative Data Analytic Approach - Archives of Sexual Behavior

Sexual satisfaction is a common goal within romantic relationships that contributes to individual and relational well-being. Yet, theoretical perspectives, and even popular assumptions, suggest that w...

link.springer.com

The best predictor of scientific impact isn't gender, seniority, methodology, or geography, it is the informal network of colleagues and mentors who provide guidance and feedback. We are often ignore the most important source of success--our social support network. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

"psychology still depends heavily on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic samples, with only modest and uneven progress toward inclusivity and transparency" psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...

"Blind participants showed higher agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, while reduced neuroticism compared to sighted controls...differences were partially due to increased perceived social support from friends." Friends! pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

In humans, some evidence that when a population becomes more generalist hunters...it's partly because individuals diversify and become specialists... nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The niche variation hypothesis predicts hunting returns across human cultures

The niche variation hypothesis (NVH) proposes that a broader population niche arises from greater individual specialization. Despite decades of empirical testing, research remains constrained to non-....

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Oikos@oikosjournal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

💥Ignite: 💭The niche variation hypothesis predicts hunting returns across human cultures vist.ly/4znxi #Foraging #IndividualSpecialization #IntraspecificVariation #SubsistenceHunting #WithinIndividualVariation #Plasticity

"supervisor satisfaction among 5660 employees across 19 countries...In low-inequality countries, highly Machiavellian and psychopathic followers responded positively to leader profanity, while narcissistic followers showed minimal effects" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

"In a replication of a famous psychology experiment, researchers found that people are just as likely to follow harmful orders from a female authority figure as they are from a male one" www.psypost.org/people-will-...

Female leaders command equal obedience in a modern replication of the Milgram experiment

Decades after a famous psychological experiment exposed the dark side of human obedience, researchers found that people are just as likely to follow harmful orders from a female authority figure as a ...

psypost.org

"20% of all respondents, and 29% of researchers working in states with divisive concepts or similar laws, reported having avoided certain research topics because of state laws and policies" study...https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/the-impact-of-state-and-federal-policies-on-academic-researchers/

"USA...higher county-level access to resources, including income, education, and health insurance, is associated with a lower prevalence of poor mental health...explained at least 68% of the variation in poor mental health" journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Economic factors associated with county-level mental health – United States, 2019

A better understanding of whether and how economic factors impact mental health can inform policy and program decisions to improve mental health. This study looked at the association between county-le...

journals.plos.org

PsyPost@psypost.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Is bad mental health an economic problem at its core?

"People generally accurate in perceiving partners’ attachment, but overestimated partners’ attachment anxiety and avoidance and often projected own attachment orientation. These perceptions persisted over time and depended on how the relationship was going." journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Truth and Bias in Partner Perceptions of Attachment Orientation Over Time: The Moderating Role of Relationship Quality - Jeewon Oh, Mariah F. Purol, William J. Chopik, Fiona Ge, Sally I. Powers, Paula...

People’s attachment orientations change over time and are linked with their relationship experiences. However, it is unclear whether perceptions of a partner’s ...

journals.sagepub.com