Janko Međedović

Institute of Criminological and Sociological Research

Attachment styles are frequently viewed from within the evolutionary conceptual framework; however, their associations with evolutionary fitness are very rarely empirically explored. In the present research ( N = 448), we analyzed the relations between romantic attachment (anxiety and avoidance) and various fitness indicators in Serbian adults: mat...

Body mass is widely recognized as a morphological trait which is important for fitness optimization both in humans and other animals. Here, we propose that body mass is a part of fast life history trajectory-the fitness optimization pattern which emerges from harsh environment with a function to maximize reproductive output. To test this prediction...

Dark personality traits describe amoral and antisocial behavioral dispositions and are often described by psychopathy (i.e., interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial characteristics), narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism. These traits are related to various socially detrimental behavioral outcomes, including criminal behavior and del...

In this study, we hypothesized that traditionalist social attitudes (conservatism, religiousness, and authoritarianism) significantly predict COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs (Hiding Information and Harmless Virus), as well as conspiracy mentality in general. We also hypothesized that these relationships are mediated by the objectivity of the media thro...

We asked the unvaccinated participants (N=534) why they did not take the vaccine, what could motivate them to take a vaccine and their future vaccination intentions, and analyzed the associations between these measures and several contextual and dispositional constructs including conspiracy ideation, concerns about contracting a disease and having...

This study aimed to examine the role of socio-political attitudes and motivational tendencies supposed to mark closed-mindedness, as well as other relevant variables of individual differences (Disintegration, i.e., proneness to psychotic-like experiences/behaviors and Death Anxiety), in the Militant Extremist Mindset (MEM). A community sample of 60...

Previous studies showed the existence of general factors in cognitive abilities, personality traits, and psychopathology symptoms. We hypothesized a similar factor on the apex of social attitudes' hierarchy; furthermore, we assumed that this factor reflects a conservatism-liberalism dimension. This hypothesis is tested by factorizing the space of "...

Social attitudes like religiousness and conservatism have been rarely examined in a life history framework. However, there are two competing hypotheses regarding the role of religiousness in human life history: in evolutionary psychological research it is thought to indicate slow life history while the behavioral ecological framework highlights its...

Mating patterns are crucial for understanding selection regimes in current populations and highly implicative for sexual selection and life history theory. However, empirical data on the relations between mating and reproductive outcomes in contemporary humans are lacking. In the present research we examined the sexual selection on mating (with an...

One of the key life history assumptions is that mortality rates are positively associated with fast life history dynamics. Since the Covid-19 pandemic has elevated mortality rates throughout the world, we tested this assumption using reproductive motivation (desired number of children and desired age of first reproduction) as a key output measure u...

Empirical data on the relations between mating and reproductive success are rare for humans, especially for industrial and post-industrial populations. Existing data show that mating (and especially long-term mating) can be beneficial for fitness, especially that of males. This finding is in line with the hypothesis of sexual selection operating in...

In this study, we hypothesized that traditionalist social attitudes (conservatism, religiousness, and authoritarianism) significantly predict COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, as well as conspiracy mentality in general. We also hypothesized that these relationships are mediated by the objectivity of the media individuals inform themselves from, and the...

This study aimed to examine the role of socio-political attitudes and motivational tendencies supposed to mark closed-mindedness, as well as other relevant variables of individual differences (Disintegration, i.e., proneness to psychotic-like experiences/ behaviors and Death Anxiety), in the Militant Extremist Mindset (MEM). A community sample of 6...

This study investigates group differences in Militant Extremist Mindset (MEM) measures of Pro-violence, Divine Power, Utopianism, Vile World, and West, together with several variables building its nomological network. The study was based on groups from domicile population living within and outside the conflict zone and a sample of refugees/asylum s...

The examination of multiple life history indicators is essential to evolutionary sciences. However, the statistical analysis of life history parameters’ covariation is not apparently clear, due to the statistical limitations of “classic” procedures, like Factor Analysis, and conceptual problems in interpreting covariation between life history indic...

The roles of conspiracy beliefs and political trust for public health behaviour have seldomly been studied prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we tested whether conspiracy beliefs affect containment-related behaviour in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and whether this relationship is mediated by political trust, preference for saving t...

Ethos of Conflict (EOC) represents a set of societal beliefs regarding violent intergroup conflict. One of the important topic in intergroup conflict research is the political socialization of beliefs regarding conflict - the intergenerational transmission of the conflict-related beliefs from parents to children. However, the empirical data on this...

Football supporters represent a specific social group which is prone to violence and ideologically based extremist behavior. In the present study we explored whether football supporters in Serbia are characterized by Militant Extremist Mind-Set (MEM), a set of beliefs characterized by terrorists and ideological extremists. MEM is constituted of thr...

This study investigates the attitudinal and motivational bases of militant extremist beliefs in a postconflict society ( N = 600; 51% female). Militant extremist mindset (MEM) measures of proviolence, divine power, utopianism, vile world, and West, together with the Ethos of Conflict- Grudge Scale (EOC-grudge), were used to assess militant-extremis...

In the present research, we examined the role of intelligence in reproductive ecology with the hypothesis that intelligence has some characteristics of a slow life-history behavioral trait. We did this by analyzing the associations between intelligence, environmental harshness in childhood (parental investment, family dysfunction and economic pover...

In evolutionary psychology, it is customary to measure life-history via psychometric inventories such as the Arizona Life History Battery (ALHB). This approach has been criticized due to its questionable validity: it is argued that these measures are not congruent with biological life history events such as the number of children, age at first birt...

The HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) has evolved into one of the most heavily applied measurement tools for the assessment of basic personality traits. Correspondingly, the inventory has been translated to several languages for use in cross-cultural research. However, formal tests examining whether the different language versions...

State-dependent behaviour models of personality predict that fitness consequences of personality depend on various states. Hence, personality traits may be adaptive only in certain conditions. In the present research, we tested the state-dependent personality model of Big Five personality traits using harsh and unpredictable environments as the ext...

The relationships between subjective status and perceived legitimacy are important for understanding the extent to which people with low status are complicit in their oppression. We use novel data from 66 samples and 30 countries (N = 12,788) and find that people with higher status see the social system as more legitimate than those with lower stat...

Football (soccer) fans, particularly those with active involvement in supporting clubs, are especially prone to violence and criminal behavior. However, there is a gap in literature regarding individual characteristics which lead to criminal behavior in this group. In the present research, we examined the Dark Tetrad traits (narcissism, Machiavelli...

One of the key features of personality is the existence of inter-individual differences in motivation, emotions and behavior. Individual differences may be maintained in a population if personality traits are linked to states – conditions which affect the fitness-related outcomes of personality. We tested this assumption using the participants' sex...

Previous research suggested that psychopathy is related to diminished physical and mental health. However, this link could be specific to psychopathic lifestyle and antisocial behavior, while manipulative characteristics and emotional superficiality could be unrelated or even positively related to physical and mental health. Furthermore, psychopath...

In recent years there have been attempts to explain religiousness from an evolutionary viewpoint. However, empirical data on this topic are still lacking. In the present study, the behavioural ecological theoretical framework was used to explore the relations between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness (reproductive success and parental inves...

One of the major evolutionary puzzles of personality is the existence of inter-individual variation in behavior. The variation in personality may be maintained by natural selection if various states moderate the link between personality and fitness-if personality traits have beneficial contribution to fitness in certain conditions but detrimental i...

In their recent paper, Lukaszewski et al. proposed a socioecological hypothesis for analyzing the covariations between the Big Five personality traits. The hypothesis states that the shared variance between the personality traits is higher in less complex societies marked by lower economic development, urbanization, and niche diversity. We welcome...

In order to assess the potential of psychopathy to increase evolutionary fitness, we examined the relations between psychopathy and fitness indicators (number of children and grandchildren, problems in physical health both in parents and offspring) in a sample of post-reproductive individuals (N = 187; Mage = 66.52). Specifically, we explored the p...

Objective The examination of ultimate factors that maintain genetic (and consequently phenotypic) variance in a behavioral trait represents one of the key goals of evolutionary ecology of personality. One of these factors are adaptive trade-offs: if a trait is involved in a trade-off, than natural selection cannot deplete its genetic variance. We u...

After almost 20 years since the end of the armed conflicts in former Yugoslavia, we are witnesses to the fact that the main causes of the conflicts have not been overcome. Reconciliation between ethnic groups that had been in conflict by means of economic and political cooperation, must have a psychological foundation. This study investigates the r...

Previous theoretical accounts have predicted that warfare and intergroup conflict are environmental factors that contribute to the emergence of a fast life-history strategy. However, this assumption has never been directly empirically tested. We examined youth who grew up in a territory that experienced violent intergroup conflict and compared them...

Psychopathy may be related to some adaptive outcomes in the workplace environment. This phenomenon is called corporate psychopathy and it is based on the assumption that the corporate environment positively selects for psychopathic features, especially in top management. We tested the hypothesis of positive relations between psychopathy traits and...

In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that psychopathy emerges as an adaptive behavioral response to a harsh environment: psychopathy could represent a mediator in the link between a harsh environment and fast life history pathway. We measured environmental harshness, psychopathy (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition), and a wide range of...

One of the most prominent models of psychopathy operationalizes this construct as consisting of four factors: interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and antisocial traits. These traits show different relationship patterns with other constructs, and these relations may differ in men and women. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the relati...

We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings, with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance, to examine variation in effect magnitudes across samples and settings. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples that comprised 15,305 participants from 36 countries and territories....

Earlier research suggested that militant extremists could have certain aspects of psychopathic and psychotic characteristics. Relying on these studies, we investigated whether the Militant Extremist Mind-Set (MEM) could be explained by psychopathy, sadism, and Disintegration (psychosis proneness), as subclinical manifestations of amoral, antisocial...

Previous research has suggested that psychopathy may be involved in mating-parenting trade-off; furthermore, a harsh environment could facilitate this trade-off in psychopathy. We integrated these two hypotheses into a single research design. We hypothesized that psychopathy elevated mating but decreased parenting effort; in addition, we predicted...

There is an ongoing debate regarding the content of psychopathy, especially about the status of antisocial behavior and disinhibition characteristics as core psychopathy features. Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS) represents a novel model of psychopathy based on core psychopathy markers such as Interpersonal manipulation, Egocentricity a...

We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance to examine variation in effect magnitudes across sample and setting. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples and 15,305 total participants from 36 countries and territories. Using co...

We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings, with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance, to examine variation in effect magnitudes across samples and settings. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples that comprised 15,305 participants from 36 countries and territories....

The goal of the present research was to construct a short, reliable and valid scale for the rating assessment of psychopathy. By using existing models of psychopathy we constructed Short Psychopathy Rating Scale which measures three psychopathy traits: 1) Deceitfulness-lying and conning followed by high self-esteem (5 items); 2) Emotional coldness-...

Personality research has a long and fruitful history in psychology. In the past 15 years, this topic emerged as an important subfield in behavioral ecology as well. A large amount of empirical data has been gathered, and promising theoretical models have been developed. Despite all of this, there is almost no communication between personality resea...

The Triarchic personality model of psychopathy represents one of the most prominent operationalizations of psychopathy. According to this model, psychopathy is characterized by Meanness, Boldness and Disinhibition. The instrument which measures these three dimensions is labeled as Triarchic Personality Measure (TriPM). The goal of the present study...

Previous research has revealed the importance of body mass for biological fitness. However, studies that explore body mass index (BMI) in life-history perspective are still scarce. In the present research, we tested the hypothesis that a harsh environment facilitates faster growth, thus resulting in higher BMI; consequently, higher BMI should be re...

HEXACO personality framework represents one of the most prominent models of human personality traits. Despite of this, there are no empirical studies that estimate the fitness outcomes of HEXACO traits, although this topic represents a basic foundation for the study of the contemporary evolution of personality. In the present research we explored t...

The space of immoral, deceitful and antisocial personality dispositions has been usually depicted by the Dark Triad concept, consisted of psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism. Recently, a trait of sadism (enjoyment in pain of others) has been added into the concept, thus forming the Dark Tetrad. In the present research, we tried to expand t...

In behavioral ecology, state-dependent models are frequently used for the explanation of inter-individual variance in personality traits. Environmental characteristics are one of the external states which could influence this variance. The model predicts that environmental harshness should be related to fast life-history personality traits and that...

Recently there have been attempts to measure psychopathy via existing personality inventories. The aim of the present research was to explore whether six-factors personality structure (measured by HEXACO-PI-R) can be used for the assessment of the psychopathy model consisted of four traits: interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and antisocial (measur...

Previous research has shown that since the beginning of the 1990s, differentiation in the ideological orientations of political parties in Serbia has been increased. Comparing three samples, we explored the temporal stability of relations between evaluations of Serbian political parties (DSS, DS, SRS, SPS, SNS, and LDP) and lexically derived ideolo...

Recently, attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary status of psychopathy. However, there is still a gap in empirical literature regarding the connection between psychopathy and fitness. In the present study, we explored the relations between the four-factor model of psychopathy and reproductive success as a fitness indicator in a sampl...

The aim of this research is to validate the HEXACO model of personality in the Serbian language through psychometric validation of the 100–item version of the HEXACO–PI–R. The research was conducted on 2 independent samples, the first comprising 1,217 participants from a community sample (55.5% females; average age = 31.77 years), and the second 34...

The evolutionary status of intelligence is not clear: It is positively related to various indicators of fitness but negatively to reproductive success as the most important fitness marker. In the present research, we explored the links between intelligence and three fitness indicators: number of children (short-term reproductive success), number of...

Psychopathy and sadism are personality traits that share emotional deficits and propensity towards violence. However, sadism should be based on additional affective aberrations: pleasant emotional responses to hurting others or witnessing others in pain. In Study 1 (N = 116) emotional responses to violent and peaceful images and their associations...

Due to the operationalization of its factors, the HEXACO personality model could have explanatory potential in describing the personality of criminal offenders. Previous data and theory have suggested that the offenders profile should be based on decreased levels of the Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness traits. Thi...

The focus of the present research was the validation of the Serbian version of Mini IPIP-6 personality inventory. It is a 24-item selfreport questionnaire which measures six broad personality traits: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience and Honesty–Humility. We examined the scales’ reliability, latent...

In the present research we explored the presence of schizotypal traits in painters. Furthermore, the relations of schizotypy and creativity-related variables (intelligence, creativity and creative productivity) were analyzed. Study participants were divided into the criterion (132 students of art academy and art high school) and control group (119...

Narcissism is one of the Dark traits usually associated with amoral and antisocial dispositions. However, in difference to the other Dark traits, some aspects of narcissism are connected with socially acceptable aspects of human behavior. Dark and Light aspects of narcissism were identified by partialling out the variance of narcissism for the vari...

The goal of this research was an exploration of the relations between the militant extremist mind-set (MEMS), ethos of conflict (EOC), and political ideology. A specific hypothesis that was tested in the study was that EOC can be a mediator of the link between conservative ideology and the MEMS. Research participants were selected from a community...

Previous researches have shown that some aspects of Moral foundations do not correlate with indicators of immoral behavior, or even have positive correlations with them. The aim of this study was to explore the relations of Moral foundations with general (HEXACO personality model) and " dark " personality traits (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narc...

Life History Theory is an explanatory evolutionary framework which explains differences in fitness-relevant outcomes using the characteristics of the environment and individual organisms. Basically, individuals can be positioned somewhere on the r/K continuum of the Life History Strategy (LHS): a K or slow strategy represents later maturity and rep...

This study looked for a General Factor of Personality (GFP) in a sample of male convicts (N=226; mean age 32 years). The GFP was extracted from seven broad personality traits: FFM factors, Amoralism (the negative pole of the lexical Honesty-Humility factor) and Disintegration (operationalization of Schizotypy). Three first-order factors were extrac...

Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy are personality traits understood to be dispositions toward amoral and antisocial behavior. Recent research has suggested that sadism should also be added to this set of traits. In the present study, we tested a hypothesis proposing that these four traits are expressions of one superordinate construct:...

Hare΄s Psychopathy Check List – Revised (PCL-R) represents one of the most frequently used instruments for measuring psychopathy. However, there is a dispute regarding the optimal number of factors that configure its latent structure. Previous research in Serbia has shown that several tested models did not fit well with the empirical data. In this...

Hare΄s Psychopathy Check List – Revised (PCL-R) represents one of the most frequently used instruments for measuring psychopathy. However, there is a dispute regarding the optimal number of factors that configure its latent structure. Previous research in Serbia has shown that several tested models did not fit well with the empirical data. In this...

The objective of this study was to examine the relations between psychopathy – as assessed by ratings (PCL-R) and by self-report (SRP3) – on one side, and The Five-Factor personality Model – expanded to include the traits Amorality and Disintegration – on the other. Both methods examined four traits of psychopathy: interpersonal, affective, lifesty...

Suprotno važnosti konstrukata amoralnosti i šizotipije, posebno za razumevanje antisocijalnog i kriminalnog ponašanja, malo je istraživanja usmerenih na ispitivanje njihovog odnosa na različitim nivoima njihovog intenziteta. Ovo istraživanje imalo je za cilj da utvrdi da li je moguće izdvojiti smislene psihološke tipove u zajedničkom prostoru amora...

Militantno-ekstremistički mentalni sklop (Militant Extremist Mind Set - MEMS) predstavlja obrazac mišljenja distinktivan za ideološke ekstremiste i teroriste. Međutim, prethodna istraživanja su pokazala da i pripadnici opšte populacije pokazuju karakteristike ovog mentalnog sklopa u određenoj meri. MEMS je operacionalizovan preko tri faktora: A...

Istraživači Instituta za kriminološka i sociološka istraživanja su u prethodnom projektnom ciklusu dosta pažnje posvetili ispitivanju jednog od najvažnijih psiholoških prediktora kriminalnog ponašanja: stabilnih ličnosnih dispozicija. Veliki broj ličnosnih karakteristika je obrađen u nizu empirijskih studija: Poštenje - Skromnost; "Mračna" Tetrada...

HEXACO model, a novel lexical model of personality, can be particularly useful for determining the personality dispositions toward criminal behavior. HEXACO-PI-R inventory was used to predict multiple criteria of criminal behavior (number of offenses, number of verdicts and criminal-legal recidivism) in the sample of male convicts from two penal in...

Previous research has shown that there is a latent disposition toward psychotic-like experiences in the general population, labeled schizotypy. However, there is a dispute over the conceptual status of schizotypy: does it represent merely psychosis proneness, or is it a broad and general personality trait? If a disposition should be regarded even a...

Dve ili više varijabli često interreaguju pri delovanju na treću. Analitički okvir za proučavanje interakcija najčešće podrazumeva da jedna varijabla moderira povezanost između druge dve i zato se ovakvi modeli nazivaju moderatorskim. Moderirajuća varijabla može pojačati, amortizovati ili čak predstavljati određenu vrstu supresora kada je u pitanju...

REČI: psihopatija / poremećaj ličnosti / bazične dimenzije ličnosti / adaptacija, / evoluciona psihologija UVOD Ponašajni, emotivni i interpersonalni obrasci reagovanja osoba koje nazivamo psihopatama vrlo su često tokom istorije prepoznavani kao važni  Ovaj tekst je nastao kao rezultat rada na projektu "Kriminal u Srbiji: fenomenologija, rizici i...