Is this behavior impressive or repulsive? The influence of our ecology on our social evaluations

• Main Author: TAN, Kai Lin Lynn
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2024
• Subjects: life history strategy; prejudice; ecology; mortality threats; affordance management theory; Demography, Population, and Ecology; Social Psychology and Interaction
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/563; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/etd_coll/article/1561/viewcontent/PhD_Dissertation_GPPS_AY2019_PhD_Tan_Kai_Lin_Lynn.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Sexual unrestrictedness, impulsivity, and seeking immediate gratification—these traits generally carry negative connotations and tend to be frowned upon. However, are they necessarily maladaptive? Evolutionary psychologists map these traits onto a behavioural cluster known as a fast life strategy. While a wide body of work has examined many types of prejudices (e.g., sexism, ageism, racism, classism, attractiveness bias etc.) the literature has yet to examine prejudices against people who display behaviours that lie on the life history strategy continuum. I propose that in our modern world where life is relatively predictable and mortality rates are lower than in ancestral times, there exists a general negative bias towards fast (versus slow) life strategy traits (H1). Further, I expect that this bias would be attenuated by perceptions of ecological harshness (i.e., mortality threats) (H2) because a fast strategy offers adaptive value under conditions of threat. I test these hypotheses across several studies (total N ~ 1500 participants from the USA). Study 1 assesses affective reactions that people have towards targets described as a fast (vs slow) life strategist. Study 2 provides a high-powered replication while examining an exploratory mediator, net perceived affordance. Study 3 manipulates both ecology perceptions and the life strategy of the evaluated target. The results generally support our hypotheses that people hold unfavourable views toward fast (versus slow) strategy behaviours, and that this can be mitigated by ecology perceptions.