John Tooby’s research while affiliated with University of California System and other places

This book provides a cutting-edge overview of emotion science from an evolutionary perspective. Part 1 outlines different ways of approaching the study of emotion; Part 2 covers specific emotions from an evolutionary perspective; Part 3 discusses the role of emotions in a variety of life domains; and Part 4 explores the relationship between emotions and psychological disorders. Experts from a number of different disciplines—psychology, biology, anthropology, psychiatry, and more—tackle a variety of “how” (proximate) and “why” (ultimate) questions about the function of emotions in humans and nonhuman animals, how emotions work, and their place in human life. This volume documents the explosion of knowledge in emotion science over the last few decades, outlines important areas of future research, and highlights key questions that have yet to be answered.

The decisions made by other people can contain information about the value they assign to our welfare-for example how much they are willing to sacrifice to make us better off. An emerging body of research suggests that we extract and use this information, responding more favorably to those who sacrifice more even if they provide us with less. The magnitude of their trade-offs governs our social responses to them-including partner choice, giving, and anger. This implies that people have well-designed cognitive mechanisms for estimating the weight someone else assigns to their welfare, even when the amounts at stake vary and the information is noisy or sparse. We tested this hypothesis in two studies (N=200; US samples) by asking participants to observe a partner make two trade-offs, and then predict the partner's decisions in other trials. Their predictions were compared to those of a model that uses statistically optimal procedures, operationalized as a Bayesian ideal observer. As predicted, (i) the estimates people made from sparse evidence matched those of the ideal observer, and (ii) lower welfare trade-offs elicited more anger from participants, even when their total payoffs were held constant. These results support the view that people efficiently update their representations of how much others value them. They also provide the most direct test to date of a key assumption of the recalibrational theory of anger: that anger is triggered by cues of low valuation, not by the infliction of costs.

The decisions made by other people can contain information about the value they assign to our welfare---for example how much they are willing to sacrifice to make us better off. An emerging body of research suggests that we extract and use this information, responding more favorably to those who sacrifice more even if they provide us with less. The magnitude of their trade-offs governs our social responses to them—including partner choice, giving, and anger. This implies that people have well-designed cognitive mechanisms for estimating the weight someone else assigns to their welfare, even when the amounts at stake vary and the information is noisy or sparse. We tested this hypothesis in two studies (N=200; US samples) by asking participants to observe a partner make two trade-offs, and predict the partner's decisions in other trials. Their predictions were compared to those of a model that uses statistically optimal procedures, operationalized as a Bayesian ideal observer. As predicted, (i) the estimates people made from sparse evidence matched those of the ideal observer, and (ii) lower welfare trade-offs elicited more anger from participants, even when their total payoffs were held constant. These results support the view that people efficiently update their representations of how much others value them. They also provide the most direct test to date of a key assumption of the re-calibrational theory of anger: that anger is triggered by cues of low valuation, not by the infliction of costs.

Negatively sanctioning cheaters promotes cooperation. But do all negative sanctions have the same consequences? In dyadic cooperation, there are two ways that cooperators can sanction failures to reciprocate: by inflicting punishment or withdrawing cooperation. Although punishment can be costly, it has been proposed that this cost can be recouped if punishers acquire better reputations than non-punishers and, therefore, are favored as cooperation partners. But the evidence so far is mixed, and nothing is known about the reputations of those who sanction by withdrawing cooperation. Here, we test two novel hypotheses about how inflicting negative sanctions affects the reputation of the sanctioner: (i) Those who withdraw cooperation are evaluated more favorably than punishers, and (ii) both sanctioners are viewed as less exploitable than non-sanctioners. Observers (US online convenience sample, n = 246) evaluated withdrawers as more cooperative and less vengeful than punishers and preferred withdrawers as a partner. Sanctioners were also viewed as more difficult to exploit than non-sanctioners, with no difference between punishers and withdrawers. The results were the same when punishment was costly (US college sample, n = 203) with one exception: Costly punishers, who lost their payoffs by punishing, were viewed as more exploitable than withdrawers. Our results indicate that withdrawing cooperation has advantages over punishing: Withdrawers are favored as cooperative partners while gaining a reputation as difficult to exploit. The reputational consequences of the three responses to defectors—punishing, withdrawing cooperation, and not sanctioning at all—were opposite to those predicted by group selection models.

Physical violence was a recurrent selection pressure in ancestral social environments. The psychology of partner choice may have partially been shaped by this. Here, we investigate whether people prefer partners who are willing and able to protect them from violence. In a series of 7 studies (N = 4,508), we systematically varied the willingness and ability of a date or friend to physically protect you from a violent attack, compared to scenarios in which you do not have this information. Independent of their physical strength (ability to protect), discovering that a person is willing to protect you greatly increased their attractiveness as a partner; this held for both women and men, and when evaluating both opposite- and same-sex partners of both sexes. In fact, partners who were willing to protect you were attractive even if they tried to do so but failed, and even if you were harmed because of their failure. Discovering that a partner is unwilling to protect you decreased their attractiveness. However, this effect varied with the sex of raters (greater decrease for women versus men) and targets (greater decrease for male than female targets); moreover, the decrease was greater for dates than friends. Indeed, discovering that a male date was unwilling to protect them was a deal-breaker for women. We found only weak evidence that ability to physically protect, independent of willingness, increases the attractiveness of a date or friend. We discuss the implications of this ancestrally evolved psychology for social decision-making in the modern world.

Evolutionary models of dyadic cooperation demonstrate that selection favors different strategies for reciprocity depending on opportunities to choose alternative partners. We propose that selection has favored mechanisms that estimate the extent to which others can switch partners and calibrate motivations to reciprocate and punish accordingly. These estimates should reflect default assumptions about relational mobility: the probability that individuals in one’s social world will have the opportunity to form relationships with new partners. This prior probability can be updated by cues present in the immediate situation one is facing. The resulting estimate of a partner’s outside options should serve as input to motivational systems regulating reciprocity: Higher estimates should down-regulate the use of sanctions to prevent defection by a current partner, and up-regulate efforts to attract better cooperative partners by curating one’s own reputation and monitoring that of others. We tested this hypothesis using a Trust Game with Punishment (TGP), which provides continuous measures of reciprocity, defection, and punishment in response to defection. We measured each participant’s perception of relational mobility in their real-world social ecology and experimentally varied a cue to partner switching. Moreover, the study was conducted in the US (n = 519) and Japan (n = 520): societies that are high versus low in relational mobility. Across conditions and societies, higher perceptions of relational mobility were associated with increased reciprocity and decreased punishment: i.e., those who thought that others have many opportunities to find new partners reciprocated more and punished less. The situational cue to partner switching was detected, but relational mobility in one’s real social world regulated motivations to reciprocate and punish, even in the experimental setting. The current research provides evidence that motivational systems are designed to estimate varying degrees of partner choice in one’s social ecology and regulate reciprocal behaviors accordingly.

In American politics, the truth is rapidly losing relevance. The public square is teeming with misinformation, conspiracy theories, cynicism and hubris. Why has this happened? What does it mean? What can we do about it? In this volume, leading scholars offer multiple perspectives on these questions, and others, to provide the first comprehensive empirical examination of the “politics of truth”—its context, causes, and potential correctives. Combining insights from the fields of political science, political theory, communication, and psychology and offering substantial new arguments and evidence, the experts in this volume draw compelling (if sometimes competing) conclusions regarding this rising democratic threat.

Evolutionary models of dyadic cooperation demonstrate that selection favors different strategies for reciprocity depending on opportunities to choose alternative partners. We propose that selection has favored mechanisms that estimate the extent to which others can switch partners and calibrate motivations to reciprocate and punish accordingly. These estimates should reflect default assumptions about relational mobility: the probability that individuals in one’s social world will have the opportunity to form relationships with new partners. This prior probability can be updated by cues present in the immediate situation one is facing. The resulting estimate of a partner’s outside options should serve as input to motivational systems regulating reciprocity: Higher estimates should down-regulate the use of sanctions to prevent defection by a current partner, and up-regulate efforts to attract better cooperative partners by curating one’s own reputation and monitoring that of others. We tested this hypothesis using a Trust Game with Punishment (TGP), which provides continuous measures of reciprocity, defection, and punishment in response to defection. We measured each participant’s perception of relational mobility in their real-world social ecology and experimentally varied a cue to partner switching. Moreover, the study was conducted in the US (n = 519) and Japan (n = 520): societies that are high versus low in relational mobility. Across conditions and societies, higher perceptions of relational mobility were associated with increased reciprocity and decreased punishment: i.e., those who thought that others have many opportunities to find new partners reciprocated more and punished less. The situational cue to partner switching was detected, but relational mobility in one’s real social world regulated motivations to reciprocate and punish, even in the experimental setting. The current research provides evidence that motivational systems are designed to estimate varying degrees of partner choice in one’s social ecology and regulate reciprocal behaviors accordingly.

The first reference on rationality that integrates accounts from psychology and philosophy, covering descriptive and normative theories from both disciplines. Both analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology have made dramatic advances in understanding rationality, but there has been little interaction between the disciplines. This volume offers the first integrated overview of the state of the art in the psychology and philosophy of rationality. Written by leading experts from both disciplines, The Handbook of Rationality covers the main normative and descriptive theories of rationality—how people ought to think, how they actually think, and why we often deviate from what we can call rational. It also offers insights from other fields such as artificial intelligence, economics, the social sciences, and cognitive neuroscience. The Handbook proposes a novel classification system for researchers in human rationality, and it creates new connections between rationality research in philosophy, psychology, and other disciplines. Following the basic distinction between theoretical and practical rationality, the book first considers the theoretical side, including normative and descriptive theories of logical, probabilistic, causal, and defeasible reasoning. It then turns to the practical side, discussing topics such as decision making, bounded rationality, game theory, deontic and legal reasoning, and the relation between rationality and morality. Finally, it covers topics that arise in both theoretical and practical rationality, including visual and spatial thinking, scientific rationality, how children learn to reason rationally, and the connection between intelligence and rationality. Contributors Rakefet Ackerman, Max Albert, Jason McKenzie Alexander, Ali al-Nowaihi, Hanne Andersen, Line Edslev Andersen, Jean-François Bonnefon, Rainer Bromme, John Broome, Anke Bueter, Ruth M. J. Byrne, Nick Chater, Peter Collins, Leda Cosmides, Nicole Cruz, Stephanie de Oliveira Chen, Sanjit Dhami, Franz Dietrich, Didier Dubois, Shira Elqayam, Orlando Espino, Jonathan St. B. T. Evans, Christoph Fehige, Klaus Fiedler, Lupita Estefania Gazzo Castañeda, Lukas Gierth, Andreas Glöckner, Vinod Goel, Till Grüne-Yanoff, Rebecca Gutwald, Ulrike Hahn, Alan Hájek, Stephan Hartmann, Ralph Hertwig, Eric Hilgendorf, Brian Hill, John Horty, Mateja Jamnik, Philip N. Johnson-Laird, Gabriele Kern-Isberner, Sangeet Khemlani, Karl Christoph Klauer, Hartmut Kliemt, Markus Knauff, Anastasia Kozyreva, Fenrong Liu, Henry Markovits, Ralph Mayrhofer, Linda McCaughey, Björn Meder, Georg Meggle, Arthur Merin, Julian Nida-Rümelin, Richard Nisbett, Mike Oaksford, Klaus Oberauer, David P. O'Brien, David E. Over, Judea Pearl, Andrés Perea, Danielle Pessach, Martin Peterson, Niki Pfeifer, Henri Prade, Johannes Prager, Henry Prakken, Marco Ragni, Werner Raub, Hans Rott, Olivier Roy, Hanno Sauer, Hans Bernhard Schmid, Gerhard Schurz, Niels Skovgaard-Olsen, Sonja Smets, Michael Smith, Kai Spiekermann, Wolfgang Spohn, Julia Staffel, Keith E. Stanovich, William B. Starr, Florian Steinberger, Thomas Sturm, Valerie A. Thompson, John Tooby, Maggie E. Toplak, Johan van Benthem, Hans van Ditmarsch, Michael R. Waldmann, Ralph Wedgwood, Ulla Wessels, Richard F. West, Alex Wiegmann, John Woods, Niina Zuber