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The need to belong resonates widely as a fundamental motivation to maintain close, continual human bonds. This commentary integrates findings and conclusions from the special issue of the Australi...

Suboptimal understanding of concepts related to hygiene by the general public, clinicians and researchers is a persistent problem in health and medicine. Although hygiene is necessary to slow or prevent deadly pandemics of infectious disease such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), hygiene can have unwanted effects. In particular, some aspects of hygiene cause a loss of biodiversity from the human body, characterized by the almost complete removal of intestinal worms (helminths) and protists. Research spanning more than half a century documents that this loss of biodiversity results in an increased propensity for autoimmune disease, allergic disorders, probably neuropsychiatric problems and adverse reactions to infectious agents. The differences in immune function between communities with and communities without helminths have become so pronounced that the reduced lethality of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in low-income countries compared to high-income countries was predicted early in the COVID-19 pandemic. This prediction, based on the maladaptive immune responses observed in many cases of COVID-19 in high-income countries, is now supported by emerging data from low-income countries. Herein, hygiene is subdivided into components involving personal choice versus components instituted by community wide systems such as sewage treatment facilities and water treatment plants. The different effects of personal hygiene and systems hygiene are described, and appropriate measures to alleviate the adverse effects of hygiene without losing the benefits of hygiene are discussed. Finally, text boxes are provided to function as stand-alone, public-domain handouts with the goal of informing the public about hygiene and suggesting solutions for biomedical researchers and policy makers. Lay Summary: Hygiene related to sewer systems and other technology can have adverse effects on immune function, and is distinct from personal hygiene practices such as hand washing and social distancing. Dealing with the drawbacks of hygiene must be undertaken without compromising the protection from infectious disease imposed by hygiene.

Cultural Mismatch Theory (CMT) has emerged as a paradigm to account for the disparate experiences and outcomes of first-generation students (FGSs). Past research on CMT demonstrate how social clas...

Existing meta-analyses have shown that the relationship between social media use and self-esteem is negative, but at very small effect sizes, suggesting the presence of moderators that change the relationship between social media use and self-esteem. Employing principles from social comparison and evolutionary mismatch theories, we propose that the social network sizes one has on social media play a key role in the relationship between social media use and self-esteem. In our study (N = 123), we showed that social media use was negatively related to self-esteem, but only when their social network size was within an evolutionarily familiar level. Social media use was not related to self-esteem when people’s social networks were at evolutionarily novel sizes. The data supported both social comparison and evolutionary mismatch theories and elucidated the small effect size found for the relationship between social media use and self-esteem in current literature. More critically, the findings of this study highlight the need to consider evolutionarily novel stimuli that are present on social media to better understand the behaviors of people in this social environment.

This study contributes to the growing literature linking physical characteristics and behavioral tendencies by advancing the current debate on whether a person’s facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) predicts a variety of antisocial tendencies. Specifically, our large-scale study avoided the social-desirability bias found in self-reports of behavioral tendencies by capturing survey data not only from more than 1,000 business executives but also from evaluators who reported knowing the focal individuals well. With this improved research design, and after conducting a variety of analyses, we found very little evidence of fWHR predicting antisocial tendencies. In light of prior research linking fWHR to social perceptions of evaluators, our results are suggestive of an evolutionary mismatch, whereby a physical characteristic once tied to antisocial tendencies in ancestral environments is—in modern environments—not predictive of such behaviors but instead predictive of biased perceptions.

Recent studies indicated that a considerable proportion of adult individuals experience poor mating performance: They face considerable difficulties in attracting and retaining mates. Using an evolutionary theoretical framework, we hypothesized that poor mating performance would be associated with more negative and fewer positive emotions as well as low life satisfaction. Evidence from an online sample of 735 participants provided strong support for this hypothesis. In particular, we found that individuals who indicated poor mating performance, experienced more negative emotions such as sadness and loneliness, and fewer positive emotions such as happiness and excitement, and they were less satisfied with their lives. On the other hand, those who indicated a good performance in mating, experienced more positive emotions and fewer negative emotions, and they were more satisfied with their lives. As indicated by the effect sizes, mating performance had a moderate to strong effect on positive and negative emotions and wellbeing. Also, consistent with the results of previous research, we found that about one in two participants faced difficulties in either starting or keeping an intimate relationship.

Romantic love is a phenomenon of immense interest to the general public as well as to scholars in several disciplines. It is known to be present in almost all human societies and has been studied from a number of perspectives. In this integrative review, we bring together what is known about romantic love using Tinbergen’s “four questions” framework originating from evolutionary biology. Under the first question, related to mechanisms, we show that it is caused by social, psychological mate choice, genetic, neural, and endocrine mechanisms. The mechanisms regulating psychopathology, cognitive biases, and animal models provide further insights into the mechanisms that regulate romantic love. Under the second question, related to development, we show that romantic love exists across the human lifespan in both sexes. We summarize what is known about its development and the internal and external factors that influence it. We consider cross-cultural perspectives and raise the issue of evolutionary mismatch. Under the third question, related to function, we discuss the fitness-relevant benefits and costs of romantic love with reference to mate choice, courtship, sex, and pair-bonding. We outline three possible selective pressures and contend that romantic love is a suite of adaptions and by-products. Under the fourth question, related to phylogeny, we summarize theories of romantic love’s evolutionary history and show that romantic love probably evolved in concert with pair-bonds in our recent ancestors. We describe the mammalian antecedents to romantic love and the contribution of genes and culture to the expression of modern romantic love. We advance four potential scenarios for the evolution of romantic love. We conclude by summarizing what Tinbergen’s four questions tell us, highlighting outstanding questions as avenues of potential future research, and suggesting a novel ethologically informed working definition to accommodate the multi-faceted understanding of romantic love advanced in this review.

Mass media extensively inform societies about events threatening the global food supply (e.g., pandemics or Brexit). Consumers exposed to such communication may perceive food resources as becoming scarcer. In line with the evolutionary account, these perceptions can shift decision-making in domains such as food preferences or prosociality. However, the current literature has solely focused on actual and past food insecurity experiences threatening mostly low-income families, thus neglecting the future-oriented perceptions among the general population. This paper broadens the food insecurity research scope by developing a new construct—anticipated food scarcity (AFS)—which is defined as the perception that food resources are becoming less available (in the future). We have developed and psychometrically validated the 8-item Anticipated Food Scarcity Scale (AFSS) in eight studies (N = 1333). The 8-item AFSS is unidimensional and has good psychometric qualities. The scale is sensitive to food scarcity cues and, therefore, can be used in experimental research. Moreover, the scale's relatively narrow set of items makes it an exceptionally potent tool for use in online surveys, field settings, and lab studies. Taken together, the AFSS presents an alternative approach to food scarcity measurement in affluent societies and, consequently, can foster novel research on food waste, sustainability, prosocial behaviors, and other similar topic areas.

Despite recent rapid advances in medical knowledge that have improved survival, conventional medical science's understanding of human health and disease relies heavily on people of European descent living in contemporary urban industrialized environments. Given that modern conditions in high-income countries differ widely in terms of lifestyle and exposures compared to those experienced by billions of people and all our ancestors over several hundred thousand years, this narrow approach to the human body and health is very limiting. We argue that preventing and treating chronic diseases of aging and other mismatch diseases will require both expanding study design to sample diverse populations and contexts, and fully incorporating evolutionary perspectives. In this paper, we first assess the extent of biased representation of industrialized populations in high profile, international biomedical journals, then compare patterns of morbidity and health across world regions. We also compare demographic rates and the force of selection between subsistence and industrialized populations to reflect on the changes in how selection operates on fertility and survivorship across the lifespan. We argue that, contrary to simplistic misguided solutions like the PaleoDiet, the hypothesis of evolutionary mismatch needs critical consideration of population history, evolutionary biology and evolved reaction norms to prevent and treat diseases. We highlight the critical value of broader sampling by considering the effects of three key exposures that have radically changed over the past century in many parts of the world-pathogen burden, reproductive effort and physical activity-on autoimmune, cardiometabolic and other mismatch diseases.

Human sleep is linked with nearly every aspect of our health and wellbeing. The question whether and to what extent human sleep is in a state of evolutionary mismatch has gained recent attention from both clinical and biological science researchers. Here, I use a comparative Bayesian approach aimed at testing the sleep epidemic hypothesis – the idea that, due to labor demands and technological disruption, sleep-wake activity is negatively impacted in post-industrial, economically developed societies. In contrast to the expectations of the sleep epidemic hypothesis, when compared to both large and small-scale subsistence societies that rely on agriculture for subsistence, foragers were the shortest, least efficient sleeping group. Coupled with previous work demonstrating that foragers have stronger circadian rhythms compared to those sleeping in buffered environments, I present the sleep-rhythm trade-off hypothesis – that sleep duration, quality, and synchrony is driven by trade-offs between sleep security and comfort versus sleep site environmental exposure. One strategy to improve wellbeing of modern sleepers would be to focus on behavioral interventions that reduce desynchronizations of circadian rhythms, while holding the positive ground of safe, secure, and regulated sleep environments typical of economically developed societies.

This chapter aims to identify the impact of misbelief and heuristics on the engagement of giggers and customers with gigging organisations. This is of value due to the plethora of gigging opportunities and our lack of knowledge about how and why people choose to take up these opportunities. In addition, the gigs may frequently go unrecorded with payments made through systems such as PayPal which can allow international payments to be made without remittances. This chapter utilises some of the primary evolutionary theories to explore the efficacy and conflict in communications between gigging organisations, their customers and providers (giggers). Those selected are: misbelief in the conscious mind; and heuristics, such as the availability and confirmatory heuristics in the unconscious mind. Misbelief is addressed as a spandrel, and heuristics are discussed through the lens of fast and frugal approaches. Through a text analysis of 77 international gigging organisations, the messages conveyed are assessed against both evolutionary theory and prior research into the gig economy. The findings are that evolutionary psychology provides a useful framework for analysing these messages, as well as aiding understanding of gigging behaviours. HRM practitioners could make use of this form of analysis to support their design of interactions with giggers to ensure clarity on both sides.

Efforts by the health and scientific community have focused on providing women with the means to control and regulate their fertility. We paid less attention to the reality of women achieving their reproductive revolution while burdened with a reproductive system that evolved to fit the life of our ancestor hunter-gatherers, where women were destined to spend most of their reproductive years pregnant or breastfeeding. This state of evolutionary mismatch impacts on women's health as the reproductive system continues incessantly to work, producing a monthly ovum and exposing the reproductive organs to cyclic hormonal stimulation without the benefit of pregnancy and breastfeeding. Women have to cope with a life of menstrual cycles, decreased fecundity owing to reproductive ageing, and a higher risk of reproductive cancers, in addition to uterine fibroids, and endometriosis. The burden will increase in low-resource countries as more women are adopting the new model of reproductive behavior, and resources to cope with the impact are limited. The reproductive revolution is benefiting not only women, but also their societies and the world at large. The health profession and the scientific community have an obligation to support women to cope with the impact of reproductive evolutionary mismatch.

Many people struggle to control their food intake and bodyweight. This is often interpreted as evidence that humans are generally predisposed to consume food when it is available, because adiposity offered insurance against the threat of starvation in our ancestral environment. In this paper we suggest that modern humans have actually inherited a far broader range of foraging skills that continue to influence our dietary behaviour. To evaluate this idea, we identify three challenges that would need to be addressed to achieve efficient foraging; (1) monitoring the ‘procurement cost’ of foods, (2) determining the energy content of foods, and (3) proactively adapting to perceived food insecurity. In each case, we review evidence drawn from controlled and observational studies of contemporary humans and conclude that psychological mechanisms that address these challenges are conserved. For contemporary humans who live in fast-paced obesogenic environments, this foraging ‘toolkit’ no longer serves the same function to which it was adapted, and in many cases, this leads to an increase in food intake. Understanding these forms of ‘evolutionary mismatch’ is important because it can provide a stronger theoretical basis for informed dietary interventions that leverage fundamental foraging goals rather than work against them.

This paper proposes a unifying evolutionary framework for understanding the genesis of a wide range of psychological disorders. Psychological disorders as a whole appear to develop at significant frequencies only under conditions of “evolutionary mismatch,” where people or animals live in environments, such as modern cities or industrialized cultures in general, that they are not evolutionarily or biologically adapted for. Evolutionarily mismatched environments appear to often cause disruptions in drive states that have evolved to maintain homeostasis. Based on several lines of evidence, I will suggest that painful, distressing emotional states can provide unconscious biochemical rewards in the brain and, under mismatched environmental conditions, can become reinforced, creating unconscious, compulsive “emotional addictions.” This core phenomenon may be the main driving force for the great majority of psychological disorders. The maladaptive drive or force that emotional addictions appear to generate, referred to here as the “non-homeostatic drive” or “addictive drive,” is suggested to dysfunctionally, unnecessarily, and repeatedly throw people out of homeostasis, creating systemic imbalances that can result in a variety of psychological dysfunctions.

A relatively large number of people in Western societies are single; that is, they are not involved in any romantic relationship. In this study, we have attempted to investigate the reasons for singlehood by asking singles themselves. A final sample of 648 American singles (307 of them women) rated 92 possible reasons for singlehood. These reasons were classified into 18 broad factors and four general domains. Among the most important reasons were poor flirting skills, freedom, fear of getting hurt, having different priorities, and being too picky. Significant sex and age effects were found across different factors and domains. More specifically, men were more likely than women to indicate that they were single in order to be free to flirt around, and because they were not into family making; while women were more likely to indicate that they were single in order to avoid getting hurt, and because they have considered themselves not to be desirable as mates. Younger people were more likely to indicate that they were single because they had poor flirting skills, because they did not see themselves as desirable mates, and because they did not like commitment; whereas older people were more likely to indicate that they were single in order to be free to do what they have wanted. Findings were examined and discussed using evolutionary theories relating to mate selection and evolutionary mismatch. Nanyang Technological University Published version This study was supported by the Nanyang Technological University’s NAP-SUG scheme that was awarded to GE.

Cultural mismatch theory suggests that a poor fit between the cultural values endorsed by individuals and the institutions to which they belong results in emotional distress and activation of physiological stress processes, particularly for underrepresented groups. To test a novel paradigm for reducing perceptions of this cultural mismatch, the current experiment evaluated whether reminding first-year Latino university students (N = 84; Mage = 18.56; SD = 0.35; 63.1% female; 85.7% Mexican descent; 65.5% first-generation college students) about institutional support for cultural diversity and inclusion would reduce neuroendocrine and affective responses to psychosocial stress. Prior to completing a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test, participants were randomly assigned to view either a video conveying university commitment to cultural diversity and inclusion (n = 45) or a control video (n = 39) depicting a campus tour. Five saliva samples assayed for cortisol and corresponding negative affect measures were collected to assess stress reactivity and recovery patterns (pre-task baseline, post-task +30 min, +45 min, +60 min, +75 min). Repeated measures data were analyzed using bilinear spline growth models. Viewing the culture video (compared to control) significantly reduced cortisol reactivity to the TSST and post-task negative affect levels, specifically for students endorsing higher Latino cultural values (e.g., familism, respect). Post-task cortisol levels were also reduced for students endorsing higher U.S. mainstream cultural values (e.g., self-reliance, competition). Results provide novel evidence for cultural diversity in stress responsivity and individual variation in approaches to reduce perceived cultural mismatch.

We present three models which attempt to explain the robust negative association between religion and intelligence: the Irrationality of Religion Model, the Cultural Mediation Hypothesis, and the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis. We highlight problems with each of them and propose that the negative religion-IQ nexus can be understood through substantially revising the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis. We argue that religion should be regarded as an evolved domain or instinct. Intelligence, by contrast, involves rising above our instincts. It follows that an inclination toward the non-instinctive will thus be an aspect of intelligence because it will help us to solve problems. Thus, intelligence will involve being attracted to evolutionary mismatch, to that which we would not be instinctively evolved to be attracted to. It is this, we argue, that is behind the negative religion-intelligence nexus. We respond to potential criticisms of our model and we examine how this model can be further tested.

Seeing one’s laptop to be missing, hearing silence and smelling fresh air; these are all examples of perceptual experiences of absences. In this paper I discuss an example of absence perception in the tactual sense modality, that of tactually perceiving a tooth to be absent in one’s mouth, following its extraction. Various features of the example challenge two recently-developed theories of absence perception: Farennikova’s memory-perception mismatch theory and Martin and Dockic’s meta-cognitive theory. I speculate that the mechanism underlying the experience is a body schema that has failed to update itself.

Humans are subject to a number of biases, such as hedonic adaptation, lack of self-control, and conspicuous consumption. A theoretical literature that analyzed the evolutionary origins of these biases has found that they generate behaviors that are adaptive but detrimental for the individual, what generates a gene-individual conflict. I propose the Biased Consciousness (BC) theory, that posits that biases and consciousness co-evolved, in such a way that adaptive behaviors that are detrimental for the individual operate outside of conscious awareness. The BC theory proposes a unified explanation for the origin of biases (independent of evolutionary mismatch and ecological rationality), that can shed light on issues on mental health and on the mechanisms for overcoming those biases, what has consequences for public policy. Moreover, the BC theory has implications for the study of consciousness, in particular about the “engineering of consciousness” in Artificial Intelligence: it might be optimal to endow a conscious agent with biases insulated from its conscious awareness, what raises pragmatic and ethical considerations.

Quality of Life (QoL) is a multi-dimensional concept that includes: a) the long-term sustainability of the earth; b) good health, education, welfare; and c) the psychological state of wellbeing. This article, which introduces a special issue on QoL from an evolutionary perspective, shows how modern evolutionary science provides a “toolkit” for studying all aspects of QoL.

In this commentary, we draw on two articles featured in this special issue to highlight the psychological and behavioral implications that the study of norms carries for underrepresented groups’ experience of fit and belonging in organizations. In particular, we discuss these implications with respect to our cultural mismatch theory of inequality. In the following sections, we first outline key tenets of cultural mismatch theory. Second, drawing on Gelfand and Harrington’s (2015) discussion of the factors that increase the motivational force of norms, we argue that these same factors characterize underrepresented groups’ experiences of cultural mismatches, which should increase their reliance on norms. Third, drawing on Morris and Liu’s (2015) distinction between peer and aspirational norms, we argue that the consequences of increased reliance on norms for experiences of cultural mismatch depend on whether underrepresented groups rely on peer versus aspirational norms.

School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UKIn this article, ontogenetic and phylogenetic causes of drug abuse and links to human emotional development are considered. Some evolu-tionary perspectives (e.g. that under certain conditions, consumption of otherwise toxic alkaloids may confer both physical and culturaladvantages) are reviewed. As described in the ‘mismatch theory’, the capacity of the human genome to evolve defences against toxins hasbeen outstripped by the pace of cultural change and technological development, such as purposeful fermentation of alcohol and more recentlydistillation of alcohol; purification and chemical manipulation of plant alkaloids; and the engineering of entirely novel psychoactivesubstances (NPS). The functions of the neurobiological substrates that mediate substance misuse and dependence are reviewed. Reasonsare given why NPSs present greater cause for concern than plant-derived substances of abuse. We argue that evolutionary biology providesan important orientation for the research agenda in substance misuse. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.key words—drug misuse; evolutionary perspective; psychiatry; pharmacophagy; toxic alkaloids

This chapter presents a new conceptual framework to characterize the interactions between modern environments and ancestral physiology that can influence health over the life course. Although the human body was not designed by natural selection to maximize health, it was nonetheless designed to function within certain environmental parameters. Physiology serves as the essential interface between genes and environment not only during life history transitions but also during short-term responses needed to regulate the impact of environmental variation on the internal state. Here, I argue that the contemporary habitat has become an “extreme environment” in the sense that, much like climbing Mount Everest, it requires the human body (and psyche) to function beyond the limits of its adaptive capacity, with potential dire consequences to health. Adaptive mechanisms that have become dysfunctional in an extreme environment show three distinct features: (1) gradient effects, often without overt signs of dysfunction, whereby (2) compensatory mechanisms themselves become the source of illness, and (3) involve systemic repercussions. I present an analysis of altitude hypoxia to illustrate an extreme environmental condition and then apply the same framework to a consideration of metabolic disorders. A conceptual framework that identifies lifestyle factors as being equivalent to entering an extreme environment conveys an immediate, intuitive sense of urgency and an implicit recognition that the human organism has strayed into a habitat for which it is ill equipped.

Author(s): Diggs, George M., Jr. | Abstract: The concept of evolutionary mismatch has been much discussed concerning diet and several other aspects of modern lifestyle. However, it applies much more broadly to include unequal distribution of resources, mistreatment of women, difficulty with long term planning (e.g., cigarette smoking, lack of retirement planning, failure to address environmental problems, etc.), sexual dysfunction and addiction, drug abuse, postural abnormalities, and many other challenges faced in the modern world. These mismatches can have a variety of proximal causes including people being faced with supernormal releasers, the modern social context being completely different than that in which we evolved, and the fact that our brain did not evolve to deal with certain situations. With an understanding of the underlying causes, some of these problems can be addressed in an effective way.

Neurobiological models of drug abuse propose that drug use is initiated and maintained by rewarding feedback mechanisms. However, the most commonly used drugs are plant neurotoxins that evolved to punish, not reward, consumption by animal herbivores. Reward models therefore implicitly assume an evolutionary mismatch between recent drug-profligate environments and a relatively drug-free past in which a reward centre, incidentally vulnerable to neurotoxins, could evolve. By contrast, emerging insights from plant evolutionary ecology and the genetics of hepatic enzymes, particularly cytochrome P450, indicate that animal and hominid taxa have been exposed to plant toxins throughout their evolution. Specifically, evidence of conserved function, stabilizing selection, and population-specific selection of human cytochrome P450 genes indicate recent evolutionary exposure to plant toxins, including those that affect animal nervous systems. Thus, the human propensity to seek out and consume plant neurotoxins is a paradox with far-reaching implications for current drug-reward theory. We sketch some potential resolutions of the paradox, including the possibility that humans may have evolved to counter-exploit plant neurotoxins. Resolving the paradox of drug reward will require a synthesis of ecological and neurobiological perspectives of drug seeking and use.

Do you have cirrhosis of the liver or diabetes? Are you finding it difficult to kick a habit? Are you depressed? Do you have skin cancer or incontinence? The blame may not lie with you or your lifestyle: you may have a genetic predisposition inherited from the Neanderthals.

This brief commentary, forthcoming in See Also an on-line adjunct to the Texas Law review, speculates about Justice Kennedy’s likely vote in the soon to be revealed decision in Fisher v. Texas. It specifically explores four factors that legally speaking are largely if not wholly irrelevant but may nonetheless influence Justice Kennedy’s position: These are (1) anger at the Fifth Circuit for how it handled the remand in Fisher 1; (2) Racially charged police killings and the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement; (3) arguments in amicus briefs regarding mismatch theory and science mismatch and (4) the death of Justice Scalia. The piece is highly speculative but until we know how Justice Kennedy decided it may be of interest.

The availability of an adequate pool of suitable labour is a key location factor for the labour‐intensive hotel and restaurant business. Yet, in spite of high unemployment (unemployment rate: 17,3%) and schemes to import foreign seasonal workers, the sector still encounters considerable difficulties in filling job vacancies. Of the many approaches towards elucidating the mystery of high levels of unemployment concurrent with a perceived scarcity of workers, key contributions are the high seasonal fluctuations in demand and the mismatch theory. The phenomenon of seasonal unemployment may be understood as a special aspect of demand scarcity. The seasonal dependence of tourism demand generates variations which in turn cause personnel to be fired at a grand scale at the end of a season. The mismatch theory goes a long way towards explaining a large part of the problems encountered in filling job openings while sectoral unemployment remains high. Key elements of the structural imbalance are qualifications and age, availability in terms of geography and time, and earnings expectations (including working conditions and career options). Further facts are also that the inflow of foreign workers keeps wages and working conditions down and drives austrian workers into unemployment or in other sectors. Overall, it appears that the future supply of an adequate number of qualified labour is a growing problem, because the need for operations to position themselves in the quality segment will raise the labour and qualification threshold.

To counter the "grand narratives" of the model minority myth, this study unveils the stories of a Chinese immigrant family who are encountering difficulties with schooling. The study demonstrates a complex interrelationship between home literacy, culture, and politics of schooling. Findings suggest that cultural mismatch theory alone cannot explain minority schoolfailure. Rather, multilevel interactions, including cultural differences, modes of incorporation, and differential power relationships between school and home, result in minority students' school difficulties.

Problems of sustainability and survivability are best met not with moralizing but with policies that take advantage of our increasingly understood evolved human psychology. This knowledge helps us understand why our problems recur, and why we need not expect them to have permanent solutions. What is needed is an evolutionary praxis. It is possible, for example, to create policies that work around our tendencies to hierarchize and to form into ethnocentric and mutually hostile groups. Although in many ways there may be a mismatch between our evolved human nature and contemporary society, the fact that it is we who construct our environments must reduce the extent of mismatch.

We developed new materials to induce a luxury mindset and activate materialistic values, and examined materialism’s relationship to attitudes toward marriage and having children in Singapore. Path analyses indicated that materialistic values led to more negative attitudes toward marriage, which led to more negative attitudes toward children, which in turn led to a decreased number of children desired. Results across two studies highlight, at the individual level, the tradeoff between materialistic values and attitudes toward marriage and procreation and suggest that a consideration of psychological variables such as materialistic values may allow for a better understanding of larger-scale socioeconomic issues including low fertility rates among developed countries. We discuss implications and describe how psychological factors relating to low fertility fit within evolutionary mismatch and life history theory frameworks.

As a prosecutor for approximately a dozen years, I tried to implement the judicial ideology of blind justice. My interdisciplinary approach connecting law with education and cultural studies has led me to believe that another kind of "blindness" – colorblind – is both unhelpful and unconscionable. Researchers, such as Professor Richard Sander and Thomas Sowell, have argued that there is often a “mismatch” between African American students and their institutions of higher education, resulting in lower levels of success for such students. Another implication of the mismatch theory is that affirmative action policies, that may have helped these students gain admission to top-tier universities, are failing because the students are not “succeeding” at these institutions or after graduation.My study’s purpose is to investigate, compare, and contrast the experiences of African American former law school students attending less-selective and more-selective law schools. An integral part will be a consideration of their “costs” and “benefits” suggested by the mismatch theorist. This will be a qualitative study, focusing on case studies of approximately 10 African American law school graduates but also including approximately 6 members of faculty and administration. I will conduct in-depth, structured interviews with study participants to gain an understanding of their law school and post-graduation experiences. Thereafter, the interviews will be coded, sorted, and triangulated for validity. Other sources of information will include interviews with faculty, the students’ undergraduate and law school grade point averages, law school aptitude test scores, rankings within their schools, job opportunities, experiences taking the bar examination, and career satisfaction.My primary aim is to provide a rich, contextualized, and nuanced picture of each participant’s law school and post-graduation experiences, so that we may better understand the applicability and accuracy of the mismatch hypothesis.

Emotion plays several important roles in the cognition of human beings and other life forms, and is therefore a legitimate inspiration for providing situated agents with adaptability and autonomy. However, there is no unified theory of emotion and many discoveries are yet to be made in its applicability to situated agents. One function of emotion commonly identified by psychologists is to signal to other cognitive processes that the current situation requires an adaptation. The main purposes of this chapter are to highlight the usefulness of this signaling function of emotion for situated agents and to present an artificial model of anger and fear based on mismatch theories of emotion, which aims at replicating this function. Collective foraging simulations are used to demonstrate the feasibility of the model and to characterize its influence on a decision-making architecture.

While the Supreme Court upheld some affirmative action programs as constitutional in 2003, the wisdom of affirmative action as a policy decision remains hotly contested. In the law school context, the challenge is to determine how affirmative action policies affect law schools, law students, and the legal profession. This paper takes up one strand of this challenge, estimating how minority students would fare in a world with different affirmative action policies than those currently implemented. I posit a model of law school performance that controls for entering credentials and allows for a mismatch between student and school (where the student is outmatch by his fellow students). The model also allows for differences in the law school experience for students of different races, which may be the result of discrimination or other differences in the way that law school cultures affect students. The results indicate that, if anything, reverse mismatch boosts the performance of students with low credentials. Using monte carlo simulations of graduation and bar passage with bootstrapped standard errors, I find that removing affirmative action policies decreases the number of new black lawyers each year by 13.4% ± 5.2%. This is in direct conflict with a recent study by Richard Sander that estimates an increase in the number of new black lawyers. Sander, however, assumes that there is no discriminatory effect on law student performance, and therefore confounds discriminatory effects with the mismatch effect in his analysis. Finally, recognizing that the data upon which I and others rely is imperfect and unable to provide a definitive answer regarding whether the mismatch theory applies in the law school context, I suggest some experimental additions to the data to correct for these problems.

In order to evaluate the impact of contemporary grandparenting, the view should not be restricted to developmental achievement effects in grandchildren. Both child happiness and grandparent happiness are high-ranking goals with implications for public policy. The beneficial impact of grandparenting for risk families appears unequivocal, and modern life still encounters all kinds of unpredictable risks. Contemporary grandparental care is no evolutionary mismatch.