Numerous studies have found that piercing and tattooing the body is an increasingly prevalent trend in modern popular culture; however, this is not only a modern practice. Evidence of various forms of body ornamentation has been found in human societies dating back thousands of years. Although prior research has focused on the potential relationships between various personality traits and the likelihood of piercing or tattooing the body, few have approached this topic from an evolutionary perspective. For instance, the general motivations for getting tattoos and piercings have tended to fall into the same three categories for hundreds of years: (a) a symbol of an important past event, love, or friendship, (b) group membership, and/or (c) a marker of individuality. We argue that these motivations are simply proximate behaviors for an ultimate evolutionary reason: the perpetuation of one's genes. In this article, we propose two new theories about the origins of body ornamentation. First, in our "human canvas" hypothesis, we propose a link between body ornamentation and the human species' historical use of symbolic thought. Second, in our "upping the ante" hypothesis, we suggest that the steady rise in popularity of tattooing and piercing in Western culture has come about due to larger population densities and advancements in healthcare, which has led individuals to seek new and unique displays of fitness (i.e., body ornamentation). We then conclude with proximate examples in popular culture to display the proposed ultimate evolutionary reasoning behind body ornamentation.

No abstract

Human communication has been largely influenced by the global popularization of social network sites such as Facebook over the past decade. From PCs to mobile phones, humans can now communicate in ways never before experienced during our history on Earth; moreover, sites like Facebook are providing a novel platform for engaging in female intrasexual competition. Through cyberbullying, selfies, and Facebook “stalking,” females are engaging in traditional strategies of intrasexual competition (i.e., self-promotion, rival derogation, mate manipulation, and competitor manipulation) in an evolutionarily novel social environment. This chapter examines what is new about social interactions that take place online and what is an artifact of our evolutionary heritage. Additionally, it argues that the self-promoting material that Facebook users post to the site is indicative of underlying fitness; therefore Facebook postings are an example of a modern-day extended phenotype.

Although there has been a tremendous amount of research attention on differences in reactions to sexual infidelity and emotional infidelity, there is a lack of information available as to how the two constructs overlap with respect to actual behavior, how expectations for distress vary by behavior, and how sexual and emotional content influence expectations for distress. In order to address this issue, we asked participants to rate 50 behaviors on the extent to which each would constitute sexual infidelity and, separately, emotional infidelity. Participants also rated the degree to which they would be upset if their partner performed the behavior, which enabled us to determine the relationship between views of sexual infidelity, emotional infidelity, and anticipated distress. As predicted, ratings of sexual infidelity and emotional infidelity for the 50 behaviors were largely independent. In agreement with past research, ratings of emotional infidelity were stronger predictors of distress for women than for men, whereas ratings of sexual infidelity were overall stronger predictors of distress for men than for women. Furthermore, ratings of sexual infidelity were overall stronger predictors of distress than ratings of emotional infidelity for both women and men. However, ratings of sexual infidelity were overall stronger predictors of ratings of emotional infidelity for men than for women. The results generally support predictions derived from an evolutionary perspective, elaborating upon the existing understanding of sex differences in anticipated reactions to infidelity.

No abstract