Behavioral flexibility in life history strategies: The role of life expectancy.

Abstract

Life history theory is a mid-level evolutionary approach that is increasingly being utilized in psychology to examine ontogenetic development. In life history theory there are two prototypical strategies for facing the challenges of growth and reproduction. Differences in these strategies have primarily been thought to be caused by genetics, early life experiences, or a combination thereof as seen in gene x environment correlations and interactions. Although not exclusive of other views, an alternative view is that life history strategies afford a degree of behavioral flexibility and are adjusted based on situational cues. The cue examined in the current study was life expectancy. In support of this idea, when life expectancy was manipulated a change in mating preferences was recorded that was in line with the hypothesis.

The evolved psychological mechanisms of fertility motivation: hunting for causation in a sea of correlation

“…In vignette studies, people exposed to the idea of shorter life expectancies were more willing to sexually coerce a partner, had more aggressive and less generative (desire to positively influence future generations) tendencies [49,50,52]. For both sexes, cuing a shorter life expectancy increased preference for short-term mating, and cuing a longer life expectancy increased preference for long-term mating.…”

“…This is supported by a growing body of research, using experimental methods, that suggests encouraging people to think about death increases childbearing motivation. This evidence comes mostly from psychological experiments inspired by terror-management theory [6,41,42,60] and life-history theory [45,46,50,52,54,56,63].…”

“…Hill et al [56] examined preferences for female body size in harsh versus non-harsh environments using priming. Dunkel et al [50] used vignettes suggesting participants had five months, 5 years or 50 years left to live, to explore how life expectancy affects preferences for short-or long-term mating (see §6b,o,p).…”

“…B 371: 20150151 and with traditional populations [36]. These researchers used vignettes to address influences on maternal care [36], fertility aspirations [47], contraceptive use [48], sexual coercion [49], preference for long-versus short-term mating opportunities [50,51] and tendency toward aggressive or generative behaviour [52]. See § §5a-e, 6b,h,i,l-p.…”

Life History Theory and Exploitative Strategies

“…Work by Dunkel and colleagues also manipulated information relevant to life history (Dunkel, & Mathes, 2011;Dunkel, Mathes, & Beaver, 2013;Dunkel, Mathes, & Decker, 2010;Dunkel, Mathes, & Papini, 2010). Specifically, participants were asked to imagine that they had 5 months, 5 years, or at least 50 years left to live.…”