Evolutionary Psychology Research

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary Psychology is based upon the assumption that human behavior is a product of behavioral predispositions that were shaped by the process of natural selection in our ancestral environments. For a more complete description of the topics studied by evolutionary psychologists, check out the web page for my course on Evolution and Human Behavior. The major journals in the field are Evolution and Human Behavior and Human Nature.

I did not start doing evolutionary psychology until the 1990s, but since then it has become my primary area of specialization. I write an Evolutionary Psychology themed blog for Psychology Today Magazine - "Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind," and I am particularly interested in the evolution of human social behaviors such as aggression, gossip, creepiness, competitive altruism, and nonverbal communication. I have also studied how the strategies people use when choosing names for their children is influenced by evolutionary adaptions and how social interaction plays out through the internet in things like e-mail and social networking sites such as "Facebook."

One of my favorite evolutionary psychologist collaborators is Carin Perilloux, a former student of mine who received her Ph.D. working in David Buss's evolutionary psychology lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Carin is currently an assistant professor at Southwestern University in Texas. Charlotte de Backer at the University of Antwerp is another friend who is also a frequent research collaborator. Other faculty members at Knox who occasionally get involved with the research of evolutionary psychology students include Heather Hoffmann and Tim Kasser in psychology, and Jim Mountjoy and Jennifer Templeton in biology.

A list of presentations and publications generated by our research group over the past 30 years or so follows; most of these studies include Knox College students as co-authors. For links to other web sites related to evolutionary psychology, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

PUBLICATIONS

McAndrew, F. T. (2024 - IN PRESS). Heroic Behavior as Costly Signaling. In Allison, S. T., Goethals, G., Beggan, J., & Kinsella, E (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. New York: Springer International Publishing. (available online September 20, 2023)

McAndrew, F. T. (2024, January 22). Why Helping Other People Also Helps You. Essay in Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine.

McAndrew, F. T. (2024, January 4). How natural selection turned us into busybodies. Essay in Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine.

McAndrew, F. T. (2023). If you give a man a gun: The evolutionary psychology of mass shootings. In J. Densley (Ed.) The Conversation on Guns, pp. 54-61. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

McAndrew, F. T. (2023, August 1). How humans came to love gossip so much. Essay in Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine.

McAndrew, F. T. (2022, October 10). 5 ways our intuition leads us astray. Essay in Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine.

McAndrew, F. T. (2022, July 12). What makes people willing to risk their lives to save others? The Conversation, Scroll (India), Brooklyn Daily Eagle, St. George News, Asian Spectator, & more than two dozen other news outlets.

McAndrew, F. T. (2022). The namesaking of children as a strategy for managing kin relations and bonding fathers to their children. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 16 (3), 220-228.

McAndrew, F. T. (2022, April 4). Why Male and Female Friendships Are So Different. Essay in Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine.

McAndrew, F. T. (2022, January 13). Does having expensive things make someone more attractive? In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2021, November 9). Why intelligent men may not be as attractive as we thought. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F., T. (2021). Costly Signaling Theory. In T. Shackelford & V. Weekes-Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, pp. 1525-1532, New York: Springer International Publishing.

McAndrew, F., T. (2021). Heroic Rescue in Humans. In T. Shackelford & V. Weekes-Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, pp. 3677-3683. New York: Springer International Publishing.

McAndrew, F. T. (2020). The Psychology, Geography and Architecture Horror: How Places Creep Us Out. Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, 4(2), 47-61). (Available online, October 7, 2019)

McAndrew, F. T. (2020, September 11). Psychology explains why war heroes are not "losers or "suckers." In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2020, July 2). COVID Parties? The Reckless Psychology of Being Young. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2020, June 8). The Eternal Challenge of Conformity Pressure. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2019, October 28). Why we love big, blood-curdling screams. Appears in dozens of media outlets, including The Conversation, Time Magazine, Discover Magazine, The Big Think, LiveScience, & Medical Xpress.

McAndrew, F. T. (2019, October 21). Houses of Horror. Aeon Magazine.

McAndrew, F. T. (2018, July 26). Are heroism, philanthropy, and religion about showing off? In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2018, July 23). Is polygamy a better deal for men or for women? In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F., T. (2018). War. In T. Shackelford & V. Weekes-Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. New York: SpringerMeteor.

McAndrew, F. T. (2018, April 22). Why Pretty Girls Get Bullied. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind, Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2018, January 9). Why men will always be more disgusting than women. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2017). Competition. In P. I. Joseph (Ed.), Sage Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives (pp. 367-368). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

McAndrew, F. T. (2017, November/December). Beauty Cues: Four traits men unknowingly seek in women. Psychology Today Magazine, Vol. 50, #6, pp. 42-43. (Also appears in Your Tango)

McAndrew, F., T. (2016). Mail Order Brides. In T. Shackelford & V. Weekes-Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. New York: Springer International Publishing.

McAndrew, F. T. (2016). On the nature of creepiness. New Ideas in Psychology, 43, 10-15.

De Backer, C. J. S., Larson, C., Fisher, M. L., McAndrew, F. T., & Rudnicki, K. (2016). When strangers start to gossip: Investigating the effects of gossip on cooperation in a prisoner's dilemma game. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2, 266-277.

McAndrew, F. T. (2016, August). Why You Shouldn't want to Be Happy All of the Time. Article appeared in numerous online outlets under different titles, including Time, Business Insider, , Salon.com, CNN, The Guardian, & The Conversation.

McAndrew, F. T. (2016, June 1-6). The evolutionary psychology of nostalgia. [Published by invitation; not peer-reviewed. This appeared in several outlets under different titles, including The Washington Post, Business Insider, The Guardian, & The Conversation. It also appeared in the program for a play at London's Vaudeville Theatre in 2019]

McAndrew, F. T. (2015, December 4). If you give a man a gun: The evolutionary psychology of mass shootings. [Published by invitation; not peer-reviewed. This appeared several outlets, including The Huffington Post, CNN, IFLScience, & The Conversation]

McAndrew, F. T. (2015, October 29). Evolutionary psychology explains why haunted houses creep us out. [Published by invitation; not peer-reviewed. This appeared in more than a dozen different outlets, including Time, Newsweek, The Conversation, Quartz.com, Livescience, & Business Insider)

McAndrew, F. T. (2015). What men endure to be men. A review of Jonathan Gottschall, The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight, and Why We Like to Watch. New York: Penguin Press. Evolutionary Psychology, September, 1-2.

McAndrew, F. T. (2015, August). Mama's Baby, Papa's, MAYBE: Baby Names & Fathers' Anxieties. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2015, May). How We Decide Who's Creepy. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2015, March). The "Crazy Bastard" Hypothesis. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2015, February). The "Precarious Manhood" of the Santa Barbara Shooter. In Out of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.

McAndrew, F. T. (2014). On civilizing the unwashed masses. A review of Amy Alkon, Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*CK. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. Evolutionary Psychology, 12, 827-828.

McAndrew, F. T. (2014). The "Sword of a Woman:" Gossip and Female Aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19, 196-199.

McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2012). Is Self-Sacrificial Competitive Altruism Primarily a Male Activity? Evolutionary Psychology, 10, 50-65.

McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2012). The Selfish Hero: Study of the Individual Benefits of Self-Sacrificial Prosocial Behavior. Psychological Reports, 111, 27-43.

McAndrew, F. T. (2009). The interacting roles of testosterone and challenges to status in human male aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 14, 330-335.

McAndrew, F. T. (2008). Can gossip be good? Scientific American Mind Magazine, October/November, 26-33. (Cover Story)

King, R. A. (2008). Evolutionary fairy tales: Human mating in the Grimm fairy tales. Journal of Psychological Inquiry, 13, 23-24.

Templeton, J. J., & Christensen-Dykema, J. M. (2008). A behavioral analysis of prey detection lateralization and unilateral transfer in European starlings (Sturnis vulgaris). Behavioural Processes, 79, 125-131.

De Backer, C., Nelissen, M., Vyncke, P., Braeckman, J., & McAndrew, F. T. (2007). Celebrities: From teachers to friends. A test of two hypotheses on the adaptiveness of celebrity gossip. Human Nature, 18, 334-354.

Miller, S.S., Hoffmann, H., & Mustanski, B. (2007). Fluctuating Asymmetry and Sexual Orientation in Men and Women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36 (6),

McAndrew, F. T., Bell, E. K., & Garcia, C. M. (2007). Who do we tell, and whom do we tell on? Gossip as a strategy for status enhancement. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37, 1562-1577.
[This research, with a slightly different title, was also presented at the Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Austin, Texas (June, 2005).]

McAndrew, F. T. (2006). Female infidelity and paternal uncertainty: Evolutionary perspectives on male anti-cuckoldry tactics. A review of a book by the same title by S. M. Platek & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Cambridge University Press. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 27, 367-371.

Turner, S. L., & McAndrew, F. T. (2006). A Laboratory Simulation of Parental Investment Decisions: The Role of Future Reproductive Opportunity and Offspring Quality in Determining Levels of Parental Investment. Evolutionary Psychology, 4, 197-207. [This research, with a slightly different title, was also presented at the Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Berlin, Germany (July, 2004).]

Klinesmith, J., Kasser, T., & McAndrew, F. T. (2006). Guns, testosterone, and aggression: An experimental test of a mediational model. Psychological Science, 17, 568-571.

Minervini, B. P., & McAndrew, F. T. (2006). The mating strategies and mate preferences of mail order brides. Cross-Cultural Research, 40, 111-129. (Also a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Berlin, Germany, July, 2004).

McAndrew, F. T. (2003). Evolution and the problem of altruism: Current and historical perspectives. In S. Shohov (Ed.), Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 27 (pp. 277-288) Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

McAndrew, F. T. (2002). New evolutionary perspectives on altruism: Multilevel selection and costly signaling theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 79-82.

McAndrew, F.T., King, J.C., & Honoroff, L.R. (2002). A Sociobiological Analysis of Namesaking Patterns in 322 American Families. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 851-864.

McAndrew, F.T., & Milenkovic, M.A. (2002). Of tabloids and family secrets: The evolutionary psychology of gossip. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 1064-1082.

Mountjoy, D. J., & Leger, D. W. (2001). Vireo song repertoires and migratory distance: three sexual selection hypotheses fail to explain the correlation. Behavioral Ecology 12:98-102.

Kasser, T., & Sharma, Y. S. (1999). Reproductive freedom, educational equality, and females' preference for resource-acquisition characteristics in mates. Psychological Science, 10, 374-377.

Johnson, J.L., McAndrew, F.T., & Harris, P.B.(1991). Sociobiology and the naming of adopted and natural children. Evolution and Human Behavior, 12, 365-375. (Formerly Ethology and Sociobiology)

PRESENTATIONS

Thomas, I., Dorsey, M., Epstein, K., Maina, I., Rodriguez, Y., & McAndrew, F. T. (2020, February). Males' alcohol consumption signals traits to female mates. Poster presented at the annual meeting of The Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), New Orleans.

McAndrew, F. T. (2018, October 30). Creeped-Out: The psychology of Creepiness and Horror. Invited talk at Western Illinois University (Quad City Campus), Moline, Illinois.

McAndrew, F. T. (2016, October). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited address to the Department of Organization Science, Vrije University (VU), Amsterdam.

McAndrew, F. T. (2016, September 6). Why High School Never Ends. The Academic Minute (NPR).

McAndrew, F. T. (2016, September). Alpha Male or Omega Male? Precarious Manhood and the Violence of Young Men. Invited lecture and workshop at the C. G. Jung Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Klimaj, V. A., Lawrence, Z. E., Knutson, J. A., King, E. A., & McAndrew, F. T. (2016, January). Does hormonal birth control disrupt the assessment of mate quality through kissing? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Diego, CA.

McAndrew, F. T. (2015, September). The unavoidable awkwardness of family life. Invited Lecture at The Peoria Riverfront Museum in conjunction with a photography exhibit of “Awkward Family Photos,” Peoria, IL.

McAndrew, F. T. , & Koehnke, S. S. (2015, May). Can "Getting the Creeps" be an Evolutionary Adaptation? Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Columbia, Missouri.

McAndrew, F. T. (2014, October). The Evolution of Human Environmental Preferences. Guest lecture to the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) program on “Ecology and Human Origins,” Tanzania.

Klimaj, V. A., Lawrence, Z. E., Knutson, J. A., King, E. A., Schaefer, D. C., & McAndrew, F. T. (2013, July). Does hormonal birth control disrupt the assessment of mate quality through kissing? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Miami, FL.

McAndrew, F. T., & Koehnke, S. S. (2013, January). Creepiness. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), New Orleans, LA.

McAndrew, F. T., & Jeong, H. S. (2012, June). The Evolutionary Psychology of Facebook: mate seeking, status signaling, and the maintenance of kinship networks. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Albuquerque, NM.

McAndrew, F. T. (2011, September). The Selfish Hero? An invited address at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

McAndrew, F. T. (2011, October). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited talk in the Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri – Columbia.

McAndrew, F. T. (2011, October). The Selfish hero?. Invited talk in the Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri – Columbia.

McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2011, June). The Gender and personality Dynamics of Self-Sacrificial "Heroic" Behavior in Mixed-Sex Groups. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Montpellier, France.

McAndrew, F. T. (2011, April). The Science of Gossip: Why You Can't Stop Yourself. Keynote address at the annual ILLOWA Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference, Monmouth, IL

McAndrew, F. T. (2011, March). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited Presentation at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN

McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2010, June). Who becomes a Hero and what happens to them? A Study of Self-Sacrificial Behavior in Small Female Groups. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Eugene, OR.

McAndrew, F. T. (2010, April). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited Presentation at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.

McAndrew, F. T. (2010, September). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited Presentation at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana.

McAndrew, F. T. (2009, May). The Selfish Hero? A Study of the Individual Benefits of Self-Sacrificial Behavior in Small Groups. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Fullerton, CA.

Kelahan, L., Hoffmann, H., & Kohl, J. (2008, November). Olfactory pheromonal input and human female proceptive sexual behavior/preferences. Society for Neuroscience, Washington, D.C.

McAndrew, F. T. (2008, July). Evolutionary perspectives on popular culture. Invited lecture at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

McAndrew, F. T. (2008, March). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited presentation at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida.

Kelahan, L., Hoffmann, H., & Kohl, J. V (November, 2007). Androstenol/androsterone may condition a human female hormonal effect/behavioral affect. Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Indianapolis, IN. (This research was also presented at the meeting of The Association for Chemoreception Sciences in Sarasota Florida, April, 2007).

McAndrew, F. T. (2007, September). Information Age Media and Stone Age Minds: How the Entertainment Industry Succeeds by Pressing the Right Buttons in Our Hunter-Gatherer Brains. Invited Keynote Address at the first annual IDeoGRAMS Conference 2007: Contemporary Media. Leicester, England.

Templeton, J.J., Christensen, J.M., & Fink, S (2006). Searching for the search image in the avian brain. International Society for Behavioral Ecology (ISBE) meetings, Tours, France.

McAndrew, F. T. (2006, October). The evolutionary psychology of gossip. Invited presentation at the University of Texas at Austin.

McAndrew, F. T. (2006, October). The evolutionary psychology of gossip. Invited presentation at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Franciskovich,S., J., & McAndrew, F. T. (2006, June). Birth order, personality, and conformity to parental expectations in the choice of a long-term mate. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Phildelphia.

McAndrew, F. T. (2005, February). Gossip as entertainment: Why does bad news feel so good? Invited Presentation at a conference on Media and Universals 2005 – Focus on Film and Print, Universitat Siegen, Siegen, Germany.

McAndrew, F. T. (2005, October). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited Presentation at Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois.

McAndrew, F. T. (2004, November). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited Presentation at Carl Sandburg College, Galesburg, Illinois.

McAndrew, F. T. (2004, December). The Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited Presentation at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois.

McAndrew, F. T. (2004, July). Why is Gossip so Irresistible? Explorations in the Evolutionary Psychology of Gossip. Invited paper presented at a symposium of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Berlin, Germany.

McAndrew, F. T. (2003, February). The evolutionary psychology of gossip. Invited colloqium presented at Colby College, Waterville, Maine.

McAndrew, F. T. (2001, September). The evolutionary psychology of gossip. Invited colloquia presented at Binghamton University (SUNY)

McAndrew, F. T. (2001, November). The evolutionary psychology of gossip. Invited colloquia presented at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque).

McAndrew, F.T., Turner, S., Fiedeldey, A.C., & Sharma, Y. (1998, July). Are Human Environmental Preferences Universal? Evidence from a Cross-Cultural Study of Preferences for Visual and Non-Visual Features of Outdoor Environments. Paper presented at the annual meeting of The Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Davis, CA. Click here for the tables.

McAndrew, F.T.(1996, September). Evolutionary Psychology and the Naming of Children. Keynote address delivered at the Annual Congress of the Psychological Society of South Africa, Johannesburg.

McAndrew, F.T., and King, J.C.(1995, June). Birth Order and the Naming of Children: An Examination of Naming as a Strategy of Parental Investment. Paper presented at the meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Santa Barbara, CA.

McAndrew, F.T.(1992, March). The Evolution of Human Environmental Preferences. Invited colloqium presented at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa.

McAndrew, F.T.(1989, November). Why apes have eyebrows: Evolution and human nonverbal communication. Invited colloqium presented at the University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Links to other Evolutionary Psychology Web Sites:

Center for Evolutionary Psychology

Interactive Human Evolution Timeline

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online

The David Buss Evolutionary Psychology Lab at the University of Texas at Austin

Evolution versus Creationism

The Genographic Project: Early Human Migration Routes

Human Behavior and Evolution Society

Human Nature Daily Review

Institute of Cognition and Culture

International Society for Human Ethology

New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology