Laith Al-shawaf
Bilkent University, Psychology, Faculty Member
- Institute for Advanced Study, College of Life Sciences, Department Memberadd
Error management theory is an important and fruitful scientific theory. However, it might be useful to revisit the way we conceptualize the commitment skepticism bias and the sexual overperception bias to improve their consistency with... more
Error management theory is an important and fruitful scientific theory. However, it might be useful to revisit the way we conceptualize the commitment skepticism bias and the sexual overperception bias to improve their consistency with the core logic of the theory. In this paper, I advance a novel view that allows for the possibility of a male commitment skepticism bias and a female sexual overperception bias. Discussion focuses on the new hypotheses this alternative conceptualization yields, the hidden assumptions it relies on, and the conceptual and empirical benefits it may offer.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
An evolutionary psychological perspective suggests that emotions can be understood as coordinating mechanisms whose job is to regulate various psychological and physiological programs in the service of solving an adaptive problem. This... more
An evolutionary psychological perspective suggests that emotions can be understood as coordinating mechanisms whose job is to regulate various psychological and physiological programs in the service of solving an adaptive problem. This paper suggests that it may also be fruitful to approach hunger from this coordinating mechanism perspective. To this end, I put forward an evolutionary task analysis of hunger, generating novel a priori hypotheses about the coordinating effects of hunger on psychological processes such as perception, attention, categorization, and memory. This approach appears empirically fruitful in that it yields a bounty of testable new hypotheses.
Research Interests:
The target article provides important theoretical contributions to psychology and Bayesian modeling. Despite the article’s excellent points, we suggest that it succumbs to a few misconceptions about evolutionary psychology (EP). These... more
The target article provides important theoretical contributions
to psychology and Bayesian modeling. Despite the article’s excellent
points, we suggest that it succumbs to a few misconceptions about
evolutionary psychology (EP). These include a mischaracterization of
evolutionary psychology’s approach to optimality; failure to appreciate
the centrality of mechanism in EP; and an incorrect depiction of
hypothesis testing. An accurate characterization of EP offers more
promise for successful integration with Bayesian modeling.
to psychology and Bayesian modeling. Despite the article’s excellent
points, we suggest that it succumbs to a few misconceptions about
evolutionary psychology (EP). These include a mischaracterization of
evolutionary psychology’s approach to optimality; failure to appreciate
the centrality of mechanism in EP; and an incorrect depiction of
hypothesis testing. An accurate characterization of EP offers more
promise for successful integration with Bayesian modeling.
Research Interests:
An evolutionary task analysis predicts a connection between disgust and human mating, two important but currently disconnected areas of psychology. Because short-term mating strategies involve sex with multiple partners after brief... more
An evolutionary task analysis predicts a connection between disgust and human mating, two important but currently disconnected areas of psychology. Because short-term mating strategies involve sex with multiple partners after brief temporal durations, such a strategy should be difficult to pursue in conjunction with high levels of sexual disgust. On this basis, we hypothesized that individuals with a stronger proclivity for short-term mating would exhibit dispositionally lower levels of sexual disgust. Two independent studies provided strong support for this hypothesis: among both men and women, an orientation toward short-term mating was associated with reduced levels of sexual disgust, but not with suppressed moral or pathogen disgust. Our discussion highlights an unexpected finding and suggests important questions for future research.
Research Interests:
An evolutionary perspective predicts that the intensity of the disgust response should depend on the ancestral costs and benefits of coming into contact with disease vectors. Previous research advanced the compensatory behavioral... more
An evolutionary perspective predicts that the intensity of the disgust response should depend on the ancestral costs and benefits of coming into contact with disease vectors. Previous research advanced the compensatory behavioral prophylaxis hypothesis: progesterone-induced immunosuppression should be accompanied by increased disgust and contaminant-avoidance. However, extant data do not address whether factors other than progesterone-induced immunosuppression also trigger heightened disgust. The current study delineates two competing prophylaxis hypotheses and adjudicates between them by testing whether stress and satiation, which shift the costs and benefits of prophylactic behavior but are unrelated to progesterone-induced immunosuppression, predict disgust sensitivity. Results revealed a sex–stress–satiation interaction in predicting Disgust Scale-Revised (DS-R) scores. This study provides evidence of a broader system of compensatory prophylaxis, illuminates the functional basis of facultative shifts in disgust, and presents conceptual and statistical analyses for more cleanly cleaving the psychology of disgust at its natural joints.