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The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioral Endocrinology offers a comprehensive and compelling review of research in behavioral endocrinology from an evolutionary perspective on human psychology. Chapters, written by renowned experts on human behavior, explore a number of subtopics within one of three themes (1) development and survival, (2) reproductive behavior, and (3) social and affective behavior. Such topics include hormonal influences on life history strategy, mate choice, aggression, human hierarchical structure, and mood disorders. This Handbook is situated at the intersection of evolutionary psychology and behavioral endocrinology. Its interdisciplinary approach makes it an important resource for a broad spectrum of researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates who are interested in studying the motivations and mechanisms that affect behavior.

Comprehensively examining the relationship between cognition and emotion, this authoritative handbook brings together leading investigators from multiple psychological subdisciplines. Biological underpinnings of the cognition-emotion interface are reviewed, including the role of neurotransmitters and hormones. Contributors explore how key cognitive processes--such as attention, learning, and memory--shape emotional phenomena, and vice versa. Individual differences in areas where cognition and emotion interact--such as agreeableness and emotional intelligence--are addressed. The volume also analyzes the roles of cognition and emotion in anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder, and other psychological disorders.

Social comparison (SC) processes between romantic partners have been shown to occur each and every day. In this thesis, an experimental design was applied, which induced SC in couples by a systematic variation of performance feedback in a manipulated pretend IQ test. Sixty-two healthy heterosexual couples were randomly assigned to four experimental groups, in which either men (N=16 couples), or women (N=16 couples) were provided with a superior performance feedback and compared to couples, who received equal feedback (N=15 couples) or no feedback (N=15 couples). The immediate affective as well as physiological responses of partners to SC were assessed using repeated measures of mood and the level of the gonadal hormones Testosterone (T) and Estradiol (E2) and the stress hormone Cortisol (C). Our results revealed that women were subjectively as well as physiologically more affected by SC, indicated by significant changes in mood and the level of the gonadal hormones T and E2. In a second study, couples engaged in a decision making task, which was coded for the assessment of interpersonal behavior on the dimensions of dominance and affiliation. Salivary T and E2 were assessed prior to the interaction and were tested for their predictive value of females'and males'expressed social behavior towards their partners. Estradiol levels in women were positively associated with the total amount of friendly behavior.

In IMoving Beyond Self-Interest/I, psychologists, neuroscientists, economists, and political scientists discuss and extend cutting-edge developments in the science of caring for and helping others. Their insights help readers appreciate the human capacity for engaging in altruistic acts, on both a small and large scale.

Since the beginnings of psychology as a discipline, interpersonal trust has been regarded as a crucial aspect of human functioning. Basic levels of interpersonal trust among people were believed to be necessary for the survival of society and the development of successful psychosocial functioning. Some research has shown that interpersonal trust is linked to physical health, cognitive functioning, and social functioning (including close relationships) across development. This book presents research in the growing field of interpersonal trust during childhood and adolescence (up to the onset of adulthood). It deals with the extent to which children and adolescents demonstrate the multiple facets of trust and trustworthiness, and how these multiple facets affect their social relationships with a wide range of social contacts: parents, peers, and social groups. It will be of interest to developmental, social, educational and clinical psychologists.

Humans live in large and extensive societies and spend much of their time interacting socially. Likewise, most other animals also interact socially. Social behaviour is of constant fascination to biologists and psychologists of many disciplines, from behavioural ecology to comparative biology and sociobiology. The two major approaches used to study social behaviour involve either the mechanism of behaviour - where it has come from and how it has evolved, or the function of the behaviour studied. With guest articles from leaders in the field, theoretical foundations along with recent advances are presented to give a truly multidisciplinary overview of social behaviour, for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Topics include aggression, communication, group living, sexual behaviour and co-operative breeding. With examples ranging from bacteria to social mammals and humans, a variety of research tools are used, including candidate gene approaches, quantitative genetics, neuro-endocrine studies, cost-benefit and phylogenetic analyses and evolutionary game theory.