Danielle J Delpriore

Pennsylvania State University - Altoona

Parents often respond negatively when a child discloses their minoritized sexual orientation. We propose that parents’ negativity in this context may be shaped by evolutionary concerns regarding their children’s reproductive outcomes. We tested relevant hypotheses in a correlational study (Study 1) and two randomized experiments (Studies 2 and 3) t...

Adolescents and young adults who disclose a minority sexual orientation (“come out” as gay, lesbian, or bisexual) to their parents often are met with varied negative reactions. The current work builds on a growing literature aimed at understanding the myriad causes of negative parental reactions to these disclosures. Specifically, this work evaluat...

Sexual coercion-pursuit of sexual activity with a partner who has not provided full consent (Huppin & Malamuth, Sexual Coercion, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2015) is a pervasive problem that carries psychological and financial costs. Although much past research has focused on sexually coercive acts performed by men and directed at women, the current work...

Adversity‐exposed youth tend to score lower on cognitive tests. However, the hidden talents approach proposes some abilities are enhanced by adversity, especially under ecologically relevant conditions. Two versions of an attention‐shifting and working memory updating task—one abstract, one ecological—were administered to 618 youth (Mage = 13.62, S...

Although evolutionary logic has provided abundant insight into how differential biological costs, mating opportunities, and exposures to psychosocial stressors shape functional variation in mating behavior among heterosexual men and women, it is less clear how such factors influence behavior among those who do not identify as heterosexual. Here, we...

This research: (1) implements a genetically informed design to examine the effects of fathers’ presence–absence and quality of behavior during childhood/adolescence on daughters’ frequency of substance use during adolescence; and (2) tests substance use frequency as mediating the relation between paternal behavior and daughters’ sexual risk taking....

Guided by paternal investment theory (PIT), the current research examines the effects of fathers on daughters' expectations for men in adulthood, and the role of these expectations in mediating women's short-term (casual or uncommitted) sexual behavior. Using a genetically informed differential sibling-exposure design (N = 223 sister pairs from div...

Previous research demonstrates that women’s beauty is rewarded across a myriad of social contexts, especially by men. Accordingly, from a functional perspective, another woman’s attractiveness can signal competitive disadvantage—and evoke negative responses—among female observers. Further, because the benefits of beauty are rewarded based on superf...

Previous research demonstrates reliable associations between low paternal investment and daughters’ precocious and risky sexual behavior. However, little is known about the psychological changes that occur in response to paternal disengagement that encourage these patterns. Here, we aim to redress this empirical gap by testing the effects of patern...

La psychologie évolutionniste a fourni un apport considérable à plusieurs secteurs de recherche en psychologie, incluant la science du bonheur. Certains obstacles à l’atteinte du bonheur sont identifiés : une discordance entre environnements ancestraux et modernes ainsi que des mécanismes psychologiques façonnés par la sélection qui induisent des a...

The target article explores the role of food insecurity as a contemporary risk factor for human overweight and obesity. The authors provide conditional support for the insurance hypothesis among adult women from high-income countries. We consider the potential contribution of additional factors in producing variation in adiposity patterns between s...

Girls who receive higher quality fathering engage in less risky sexual behavior (RSB) than their peers. Previous research identifies higher levels of parental monitoring/knowledge and reduced affiliation with deviant peers as potential mediators of this observed fathering effect. Although paternal investment theory posits a causal effect of fathers...

Life-history theory predicts that exposure to conditions typical of low socioeconomic status (SES) during childhood will calibrate development in ways that promote survival in harsh and unpredictable ecologies. Guided by this insight, the current research tested the hypothesis that low childhood SES will predict eating in the absence of energy need...

Researchers in the evolutionary sciences have long understood men's desire to mate with a variety of women. Because men's obligatory investment in offspring production is relatively small, men can directly increase their number of descendants by mating with multiple partners. Relatively less is known, however, about the conditions that favor sexual...

Much empirical evidence suggests that “what is beautiful is good,” particularly for women. Whether in the courtroom or the classroom, attractive women enjoy a variety of benefits not available to their less attractive peers. It is therefore often in a woman’s best interest to engage in efforts to enhance her appearance. Women utilize a number of st...

An abundance of research demonstrates a robust association between father absence-or low-quality paternal involvement-and daughters' accelerated sexual development, promiscuity, and sexual risk taking. Although recent natural experiments provide support for fathers playing a causal role in these outcomes, these effects have not been examined using...

We used insights from life history theory and the critical fat hypothesis to explore how environmental harsh-ness influences women's food and weight regulation psychology. As predicted by our theoretical model, women who grew up in poorer, more unpredictable environments responded to harshness cues in their adult environments by exhibiting a greate...

We used insights from life history theory and the critical fat hypothesis to explore how environmental harsh-ness influences women's food and weight regulation psychology. As predicted by our theoretical model, women who grew up in poorer, more unpredictable environments responded to harshness cues in their adult environments by exhibiting a greate...

The present research uses insights from evolutionary psychology and social cognition to explore the relationship between jealousy-both experimentally activated and chronically accessible-on men's and women's desire to start a family and invest in children. In our first two studies, we found that chronically jealous men and women responded to primed...

Although research has made progress in elucidating the benefits exchanged within same- and opposite-sex friendships formed between heterosexual men and women, it is less clear why straight women and gay men form close relationships with one another. The current experiments begin to address this question by exploring a potential benefit hypothesized...

Why do researchers regularly observe a relationship between ecological conditions and the heaviness of female body weight ideals? The current research uses insights from life history theory and female reproductive physiology to examine whether variability in female body ideals might emerge from the different life history strategies typically adopte...

In two studies, we explore causal domains of envy and test predictions about whether it is sex differentiated in nature. Study 1 explored the contexts in which envy is most frequently experienced by men and women. Study 2 built on these results, explicitly testing predictions about sex differences in envy. The results provide needed insight into se...

In a series of 4 experiments, we provide evidence that--in addition to having an affective component--envy may also have important consequences for cognitive processing. Our first experiment (N = 69) demonstrated that individuals primed with envy better attended to and more accurately recalled information about fictitious peers than did a control g...