Anti-Natalism from an Evolutionary Psychological Perspective

Brown, Faith L.; Keefer, Lucas A.

doi:10.1007/s40806-019-00226-9

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…For Mishra, the internet comes in handy here (Coates 2016, 85) It is, then, a matter of revelation, as it were, and education. Until then, antinatalism will spread fastest in the Western world which is roughly commensurate with the recent findings of Brown and Keefer (2019) who, for the first time, discuss antinatalism from the perspective of evolutionary psychology.…”

supporting

confidence: 75%

Between Iron Skies and Copper Earth: Antinatalism and the Death of God

Zandbergen¹

2020

Zygon

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The proclamation of the death of God came at a pivotal time in the history of humankind. It far transcended the concerns of the religious faithful and dented the entire fabric of human existence. Left to its own devices, humans intended their consciousness to replace God's. This proved to be a terrible mistake that collapsed the entire modern project. One of the worldviews that emerged in the wake of this eruption was antinatalism, which refers to the conviction that human reproduction should be brought to an absolute halt. This is the most modern outgrowth of the death of God and represents the most radical face of secular humanism. In spite of the admittedly dark fumes that leak out from the term 'antinatalism', this philosophical position emerges quite naturally when we consider the depletion of our traditional sources of philosophical enquiry.

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supporting

confidence: 75%

Between Iron Skies and Copper Earth: Antinatalism and the Death of God

Zandbergen¹

2020

Zygon

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“…This scale also has direct implications for the general psychological literature. First, it may help us directly address attitudes toward children that have been studied from a variety of angles like voluntary childlessness (Peterson & Engwall, 2019) or evolutionary psychology explanations of procreative behavior (Apostolou & Hadjimarkou, 2018; Brown & Keefer, 2020) from a new point of view. Second, our findings of the relationship of antinatalism to empathy, life satisfaction, and conservatism allow for a direct exchange between the results reported in this paper and these literatures in psychology more broadly, with potential intersections for further research, perhaps on the directional relationship between life satisfaction and antinatalist views.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Importantly, while there has not been much psychological work directly on antinatalism, the small empirical literature specifically on antinatalism has increased in scope over the past few years. For example, Brown (2020) recently investigated the relationship between optimism and support for antinatalism, finding that optimism about future children reduces support for antinatalism. Furthermore, Schönegger (2021) showed that antinatalist views stand in a strong relationship to dark triad personality traits and depressive attitudes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction and Validation of the Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS)

Schönegger

Maier

Bastos

2023

Psychological Test Adaptation and Development

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Antinatalism is the view that procreation is morally wrong. This paper introduces and validates the Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS) that allows researchers to measure antinatalist views. We conducted four preregistered studies with a total of 1,088 participants. First, we ran a study on Prolific ( N = 296) and conducted an exploratory factor analysis of an initial scale including 22 items drawn from the philosophical literature on antinatalism. In Study 2, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of a reduced 12-item scale, also on Prolific ( N = 396). Based on a Mokken scale analysis, we further reduced the scale to a 5-item version which we tested in a second confirmatory factor analysis, Study 3, on Prolific ( N = 297), where we also aimed to provide evidence of validity. The results indicated excellent model fit (RMSEA = 0.012) and evidence for validity (with life satisfaction, affective empathy, and conservatism correlating negatively with antinatalism). Lastly, we conducted Study 4 with a sample of self-identified antinatalists on Reddit ( N = 99) to provide additional evidence of validity. We find that the instrument is measurement invariant between self-described antinatalists and the general population and that antinatalists score significantly higher on the scale ( d = 2.80). This provides evidence in favor of reliability and validity with respect to the final 5-item Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS). We hope that the S-ANS, which is freely available to all researchers, advances rigorous research into antinatalism and its determinants across a variety of fields that relate to the value of life and procreation.

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“…The other one, local antinatalism, states that people who are unable to provide for their children, causing them to mainly experience suffering, should not procreate. Other types of antinatalism include philanthropic and misanthropic antinatalism, the first one stating that living always leads to suffering, whereas the other indicates that people always cause harm to everything that surrounds them, making their lives miserable [ 3 , 4 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Causes and Role of Antinatalism in Poland in the Context of Climate Change, Obstetric Care, and Mental Health

Karuga

Szmyd

Petroniec

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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Antinatalism is an umbrella term for numerous moral dilemmas associated with procreation. In the past few years, the deterioration of environmental conditions, social difficulties, global worsening of people’s mental health, and pandemics have induced discussion about antinatalism. Therefore, we aimed to characterize antinatalists in the Polish population in terms of the frequency and description of the main reasons behind this phenomenon. The cross-sectional study was performed in the Polish population. An online, four-part survey was performed between 19 and 25 January 2022. The study group comprised 1240 respondents. Antinatalists (n = 472, 38%) were defined as people who do not have children and want to be childless in the future, whereas pronatalists (n = 768, 62%) consisted of people who want to have offspring in the future and/or already have children. The opinion that climate change is a significant reason not to have a child appeared twice as often among antinatalists. Additionally, the performed binary logistic regression model highlighted the importance of the fear of climate change as an independent factor facilitating an antinatalistic attitude. Regarding females, the following factors discouraging them from having a child were observed: fear of child’s congenital diseases, pregnancy complications, dissatisfaction with medical services, and fear of exacerbation of maternal chronic diseases. Anxiety, depression, and stress were not found to be statistically different between pro- and antinatalist groups. However, further analysis revealed that female antinatalists were significantly more depressive and anxious. Our study helps us to understand why, as mentioned beforehand, around 38% of respondents prefer to stay childless. In conclusion, antinatalism views have become relatively prevalent in society, and its reasons include environmental antinatalism and medical factors, including depression and anxiety. However, better access to medical services and changes in climate politics were not found to be significant factors in encouraging society to decide to have offspring.

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Anti-Natalism from an Evolutionary Psychological Perspective

Cited by 18 publications

References 49 publications

Between Iron Skies and Copper Earth: Antinatalism and the Death of God

Between Iron Skies and Copper Earth: Antinatalism and the Death of God

Introduction and Validation of the Short Antinatalism Scale (S-ANS)

The Causes and Role of Antinatalism in Poland in the Context of Climate Change, Obstetric Care, and Mental Health

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