Exploring the foundations of unilateral loyalty in coalitional psychology: Identifying mechanisms of identity, morality, and disgust.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Kruger
Keyword(s):  
Coalitional Psychology

Why do people believe in a zero-sum economy?

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel G. B. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
The Face ◽  
Zero Sum

AbstractZero-sum thinking and aversion to trade pervade our society, yet fly in the face of everyday experience and the consensus of economists. Boyer & Petersen's (B&P's) evolutionary model invokes coalitional psychology to explain these puzzling intuitions. I raise several empirical challenges to this explanation, proposing two alternative mechanisms – intuitive mercantilism (assigning value to money rather than goods) and errors in perspective-taking.

The (possible) Cognitive Naturalness of Witchcraft Beliefs: An Exploration of the Existing Literature

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 396-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora Parren
Keyword(s):  
Social Costs ◽  
Threat Perception ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Environmental Features ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
Reasoning Systems ◽  
Supernatural Beliefs

Abstract Cross-culturally, misfortune is often attributed to witchcraft despite the high human and social costs of these beliefs. The evolved cognitive features that are often used to explain religion more broadly, in combination with threat perception and coalitional psychology, may help explain why these particular supernatural beliefs are so prevalent. Witches are minimally counter intuitive, agentic, and build upon intuitive understandings of ritual efficacy. Witchcraft beliefs may gain traction in threatening contexts and because they are threatening themselves, while simultaneously activating coalitional reasoning systems that make rejection of the idea costly. This article draws possible connections between these cognitive and environmental features with an eye toward future empirical examination.

scholarly journals Public Reactions to Male Versus Female Terrorism: Experimental Evidence for the Male Warrior Hypothesis

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 147470491876457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Lindner
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Gender Attitudes ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Male Offenders ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Threat Cues ◽  
Terrorist Violence

One of the most consistent findings in the domain of criminal justice is that female and male offenders are perceived differently, often resulting in milder sentencing of women compared to men. Although previous studies have sought to identify factors that shape public reactions to terrorism and support for harsh interrogation techniques in its aftermath, empirical studies on differential reactions to female (vs. male) terrorist violence remain scarce. Here, it is argued that the often-violent evolutionary history of our species has shaped the way in which we perceive and react to female (vs. male) terrorist violence. Based on the framework of coalitional psychology—and specifically, the male warrior hypothesis—the assumption is tested that terror-suspect sex, in interaction with other threat cues such as in- or out-group membership and size of coalition, affects support for interrogational torture. This prediction was tested by conducting a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of 2,126 U.S. adults. Results demonstrated that terror-suspect sex significantly shapes reactions to and perceptions of terrorist violence. Further, nuanced responses based on respondent sex revealed that these associations were exclusively driven by male participants. Gender attitudes and mere punitiveness did not account for the findings, suggesting that male coalitional psychology is deeply ingrained and readily activated by cues implying intergroup conflict.

The evolutionary social psychology of religious beliefs

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 741-741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee A. Kirkpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
Supernatural Beliefs

Atran & Norenzayan (A&N) are correct that religion is an evolutionary by-product, not an adaptation, but they do not go far enough. Once supernatural beliefs are enabled by processes they describe, numerous social-cognitive mechanisms related to attachment, social exchange, coalitional psychology, status and dominance, and kinship are crucial for explaining the specific forms religion takes and individual and cultural differences therein.

scholarly journals The Evolutionary Psychology of War: Offense and Defense in the Adapted Mind

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 147470491774272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony C. Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Investment Theory ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Parental Investment Theory ◽  
The Relationship

The study of warfare from an evolutionary perspective has expanded rapidly over the last couple of decades. However, it has tended to focus on the ancestral origins, prevalence, and instruments of war rather than adaptationist analyses of its underlying psychology. I argue that our evolved coalitional psychology may contain a set of distinct evolved heuristics designed specifically for offensive and defensive coalitional aggression. Data from two survey experiments are presented, in which subjects were given scenarios depicting offensive or defensive aggression and were told to make decisions, for example, regarding their willingness to participate in the conflict, their opinions of others who did not choose to participate, and their expectations benefit. The results indicate that humans do indeed distinguish readily between these two domains and that their willingness to participate, as well as their emotional responses toward others, is highly contingent upon this informational cue in adaptively relevant ways. In addition, and consistent with parental investment theory, data reveal a range of sex differences in attitudes toward coalitional aggression in the two conflict domains. Beyond the study of warfare, this project has implications for our understanding of the relationship between individual behavior and group dynamics, as well as for our understanding of the mechanisms by which the psychological framing of political events can lead to important social outcomes.

scholarly journals Causes and Consequences of Coalitional Cognition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Cikara
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Intergroup Dynamics ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Category Labels ◽  
Over Time

What is a group? How do we know to which groups we belong? How do we assign others to groups? A great deal of theorizing across the social sciences has conceptualized ‘groups’ as synonymous with ‘categories,’ however there are a number of limitations to this approach: particularly for making predictions about novel intergroup contexts or about how intergroup dynamics will change over time. Here I join a growing chorus of researchers striving to systematize the conditions under which a generalized coalitional psychology gets activated—the recognition of another’s capacity for and likelihood of coordination not only with oneself but with others. First I review some recent developments in the cognitive processes that give rise to the inference of coalitions and group-biased preferences (even in the absence of category labels). Then I review downstream consequences of inferences about capacity and likelihood of coordination for valuation, emotions, attribution, and inter-coalitional harm. Finally I review examples of how we can use these psychological levers to attenuate intergroup hostility.

What War Narratives Tell About the Psychology and Coalitional Dynamics of Ethnic Violence

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Michael Moncrieff ◽  
Pierre Lienard
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
War Narratives ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Classical Economic ◽  
Core Features

AbstractModels of ethnic violence have primarily been descriptive in nature, advancing broad or particular social and political reasons as explanations, and neglecting the contributions of individuals as decision-makers. Game theoretic and rational choice models recognize the role of individual decision-making in ethnic violence. However, such models embrace a classical economic theory view of unbounded rationality as utility-maximization, with its exacting assumption of full informational access, rather than a model of bounded rationality, modeling individuals as satisficing agents endowed with evolved domain-specific competences. A newer theoretical framework hypothesizing the existence of a human coalitional psychology, an evolved domain of competence, allows us to make sense of core features of memorial narratives about ethnic violence. Qualitative data from the interviews of fifty-seven participants who were impacted by the Croatian Homeland War support expectations entailed by a coalitional psychology model of ethnic strife.

scholarly journals On the Compatibility of Terror Management Theory and Perspectives on Human Evolution

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 147470490700500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J. Landau ◽  
Sheldon Solomon ◽  
Tom Pyszczynski ◽  
Jeff Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Terror Management Theory ◽  
Terror Management ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Human Social Behavior ◽  
Human Awareness

Terror management theory (TMT) posits that the uniquely human awareness of death gives rise to a potential for debilitating terror, which is averted by the construction and maintenance of cultural worldviews. Over 300 studies have supported hypotheses derived from TMT. In a recent critique of TMT, Navarrete and Fessler (2005) argued that TMT is inconsistent with contemporary evolutionary biology and that the evidence supporting TMT can be better accounted for by an alternative “coalitional psychology” (CP), which posits a domain general mechanism whereby a wide range of adaptive threats activate an even wider range of judgments and behaviors all directed toward sustaining unspecified coalitions. In this paper, we argue that: a) Navarrete and Fessler do not adequately present either TMT or the empirical evidence in support of it; b) TMT is in no way inconsistent with modern evolutionary biology; and c) CP is not theoretically plausible and cannot provide a convincing empirical account of evidence supporting TMT. The broader goal of this paper is to encourage evolutionary theorists to move beyond overly simplistic alternatives that target superficial portrayals of TMT and the evidence supporting it, and contribute to a more useful integration of TMT and its findings with evolutionary thinking about culture and human social behavior.

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