bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Confucianism in Japan
Authors: Paramore Kiri
Published: January 2023

Confucianism has been integral to statecraft and state since the inception of Japan’s government in the fifth century CE. Although its forms and visibility have varied widely over this period, Confucianism has consistently fed two competing, paradoxical rationales: one arguing for communal harmony, the other sanctioning state brutality. At times, this paradox underlying Confucianism has also been deeply connected with major trends in literary culture and religious practice and expression. This essay considers Confucianism’s varied manifestations in Japanese history and shows how in contrast to most scholarly claims, Confucianism’s political relevance persisted not only through the premodern period, but also into the twentieth century and beyond 1945, including regional consequences in areas occupied by Japan in the twentieth century. The Tokugawa era, in which there was a multifaceted flourishing of Confucianism, is addressed in a separate essay.
Confucianism in Korea
Authors: Pettid Michael J.
Published: January 2023

This chapter traces the development and changes brought about by the introduction of Confucianism to the Korean peninsula. It begins by describing the arrival and early spread of Confucianism, concluding that the influence of Confucianism before the tenth century was limited to the upper echelons of society, and even there had only a minimal amount of sway over extant indigenous folk practices and social systems. This changed during the Koryŏ dynasty when the influence of Confucianism—particularly in the administration of the state—became increasingly prominent. After describing the impact of Confucianism during the Chosŏn period, the chapter considers Confucianism during the colonial period. Also examined are the structural changes to society and some of the conflicts brought about by the imposition of Confucian notions. Finally, the role of Confucianism in contemporary Korea is discussed to demonstrate the lasting influence of this belief system.
Confucianism and the Lives of Women
Authors: Rosenlee Li-Hsiang Lisa
Published: January 2023

The connections between Confucianism and the lives of women have been a subject of interest since the turn of the 19th century, taken up, first, by missionaries and travelers as part of their anthropological observations of the “natives”; then by the Reform Movement and the May Fourth Movement, culminating in the Cultural Revolution as part of the nationalistic discourse; and lastly by the contemporary feminists as part of their “outreach” effort to form a global sisterhood. In all these three approaches, Confucianism is portrayed as a negative force in the lives of women. Up to the mid-1990s, the notion of universal victimhood of women overshadowed the notion of female agency in Chinese gender studies. Now with the rise of the field of comparative feminist philosophy exploring positive feminist space within Confucianism, the theoretical construction of Confucian feminism emerges as the latest attempt to reconceptualize the complex connections between Confucianism and the lives of women.
Confucianism and the State
Authors: Kim Sungmoon
Published: January 2023

This chapter introduces the Confucian perspective on the state with special attention to its underlying paradigm of virtue politics. It examines the pre-Qin establishment of the ideal of the “family-state” by classical Confucians such as Confucius and Mencius, which stipulates that the state exists to serve the well-being of the people and the ruler ought to treat the people like his own children; its radical transformation with the rise of Legalistic Confucianism after the Han dynasty; and the Neo-Confucian challenge to the imperial state, which stressed the perfect congruence between loyalty and filial piety in the service of the emperor’s absolutist power. It concludes by discussing the two most dominant visions of the Confucian state in contemporary Confucian political theory—Confucian democracy and Confucian political meritocracy.
Confucianism and Visual Arts
Authors: Murray Julia K.
Published: January 2023

This article discusses contexts for the visual arts in Confucian civilization, focusing on China in the later imperial period. It surveys various arts associated with Confucian rituals of both state and family worship, including temple architecture and decoration, altar vessels, and sculptural or painted portraits of the persons receiving sacrifices. The Sanli tu 三禮圖, an illustrated compilation based on the Classics, provided models for ritual paraphernalia in the Northern Song, but the antiquarian movement subsequently displaced it in favor of designs modeled on actual ancient vessels. This article also reviews a range of pictures relevant to Confucian governance (tu 圖), including cosmic diagrams, portraits and pictorial biographies of Confucius (Shengji tu 聖蹟圖), didactic illustrations of exemplary or cautionary stories, and paintings documenting imperial responsibilities and achievements. Finally, it notes the prestige of calligraphy and paintings by Confucian literati, conventionally presumed to be amateurs using the medium for self-expression.
Early Imperial Confucianism
Authors: Knapp Keith N.
Published: January 2023

This chapter examines the fitful growth and development of Confucianism from the Qin dynasty to the end of the Tang. It demonstrates that the tradition slowly gained influence at court and society at large—it was only in the Eastern Han that it became government ideology. Despite its loss of philosophical influence in the tumultuous Six Dynasties, Confucianism retained its importance because of the inroads it made into upper-class ritual life and its ability to accommodate other teachings. With the Sui and Tang unification of China, Confucianism once again extensively influenced both state and society. The catastrophe of the An Lushan Rebellion, though, caused Tang thinkers to re-evaluate the tradition. Many continued to embrace medieval Confucianism’s expansive and accommodating attitude, but a small minority began to envision the tradition in a new way, which would become the harbinger of Neo-Confucianism.
The Analytics of Natural Resource Management
Authors: Bahel Eric , Keutiben Octave , Tatoutchoup Francis Didier
Published: January 2023

This chapter presents the theoretical framework of how society allocates scarce natural resources. We distinguish between the cases of nonrenewable resources and renewable resources. Nonrenewable resources differ from renewable resources because they have a fixed stock of reserves that, once removed, cannot be replaced. Extracting a unit of resource today means that a lower resource stock will be available for future extraction. For both renewable and nonrenewable resources, the economic analysis aims to determine (i) the flow of production over time and (ii) whether and when the resource stock will be depleted. In the case of nonrenewable resources, we present Hotelling’s theory of the mine as well as its extensions. In the case of renewable resources, we examine the derivation of Faustmann’s optimal rotation for even-aged forests. These building blocks will be used in the next chapter to test the dynamic efficiency of Cameroon’s resource management.
Testing the Dynamic Efficiency of Extraction of Nonrenewable Resources
Authors: Tatoutchoup Francis Didier , Keutiben Octave , Bahel Eric
Published: January 2023

This chapter examines whether non-renewable resources are extracted and managed e-ciently in Cameroon. The analysis is performed by empirically evaluating the consistency between the theoretical extraction path dictated by the Hotelling model and its various extensions and the actual extraction path. We tested the dynamic e-ciency of the theoretical path of the main non-renewable resources produced in Cameroon. Based on the empirical evidence, the results showed that the basic Hotelling model, which incorporates technological progress for petroleum (the most important mineral produced in Cameroon) and natural gas is consistent with data. For all other minerals, the test was inconclusive or failed. The theoretical extraction model known as the Hotelling model cannot explain the evolution of the observed price path of these resources.
Oil Revenue Management: Cameroon’s Experience
Authors: Keutiben Octave , Tatoutchoup Francis Didier , Bahel Eric
Published: January 2023

Cameroon’s growth performance and development outcomes have not hit the level expected from its oil wealth and abundant resources endowments. This chapter first reviews the theory and practice of oil revenue management in the context of developing countries. It then highlights many political economy factors to explain why Cameroon has not harnessed its natural resources, especially oil, for sustained growth and shared prosperity. The chapter underscores that if Cameroon has ever suffered or is suffering from any ‘curse’, it should be referred to as ‘institutional curse’. Most importantly, the chapter asserts that accountability to the people of Cameroon, not donors, is momentous to transparency and good governance.
The Interplay Between Colonial History and Postcolonial Institutions
Authors: Mabeu Marie Christelle , Pongou Roland
Published: January 2023

We study the long-term impacts of Cameroon’s colonial history and its interplay with postcolonial institutions. We exploit both the arbitrary division of the German Colony of Kamerun between France and Britain after the First World War and the 1961 reunification of British Southern Cameroons and French Cameroon. Comparing individuals from the same ethnic homeland but living on either side of the British-French border within Cameroon, we find that individuals on the British side had higher educational attainment before the reunification, but that this initial advantage was partially erased by post-reunification governance. Despite achieving higher educational attainment overall, individuals on the British side have worse employment outcomes and roughly similar infant mortality rates. We provide further evidence of the interaction between colonial origins and postcolonial institutions by analyzing how the outcomes of individuals in former Southern Cameroons differ from their hypothetical outcomes, had they instead opted to join Nigeria in the 1961 plebiscite. We find that they have lower educational attainment, higher infant mortality rates, and worse employment outcomes relative to their co-ethnics living on the Nigerian side of the border between Southern Cameroons and Nigeria.
The Economics of Migration and Remittances
Authors: Yameogo Nadege D.
Published: January 2023

Cameroon international emigration pattern turned from an elite education-type of migration to a more adventurous type following the 1980s economic crises. More young Cameroonians aspired to escape economic hardships and find jobs especially in developed countries. Migration is more a family’s decision where the family invests in the costs of migration and in return, expects the migrant to send remittances. Remittance inflows spiked over the past decades and have replaced foreign direct investments. With a strong and educated diaspora abroad especially in OCED, Cameroon has a great opportunity to tap into their human, financial, and social capital to boost its economic transformation and create good jobs for those left behind.
Economic Evaluations of Health Financing Programs
Authors: Tchouaket Nguemeleu Eric , Robins Stephanie , Bélanger Emilie , Sia Drissa , Sieleunou Isidore
Published: January 2023

For several decades Cameroon’s healthcare system has faced a multitude of challenges. These challenges are associated with observed shifts in the country’s demographic profile, epidemiology, lifestyle, technological advances, and environment change. Health outcomes are among the poorest in the world. Cameroon’s medical infrastructure and available human resources fail to meet the demand for care. Public financing accounts for only 3% of the national budget, thus Cameroonians spend large shares of their household budget on healthcare. Cameroon has benefited from national and international financial support for healthcare. This has helped establish 31 healthcare financing programmes (HFP) in Cameroon. This chapter reviews the practice of economic and efficiency evaluations of HFP in Cameroon. It also presents the main challenges faced when conducting these assessments. The chapter stresses the need for continuous monitoring and evaluation of Cameroon’s healthcare sector financing, both in the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as in the post-pandemic period. Such critical appraisal of current HFP is necessary to achieve optimal, effective, efficient and sustainable investment that can promote healthcare for the Cameroonian population over the long term.
A Blueprint for Employment Creation
Authors: Monga Célestin
Published: January 2023

Despite major advances in contemporary macroeconomic theory, policymakers and citizens in most countries have been particularly frustrated by the inability of economists to provide reliable general blueprints and actionable policy frameworks to cure pervasive and persistent joblessness, which is perhaps the worse of economic and social ills. African economies such as Cameroon’s have suffered disproportionately from the consequences of this knowledge gap. While the range of market failures studied by economists over recent decades has been expanded to include market imperfections, they have not fully accounted for the implications of market failures in labor markets—including the prevalence of segmented markets that eliminate competition, or even the total absence of markets for certain skills or categories of workers. Relying on the miraculous fetichism of the price mechanism, conventional wisdom among economists has long viewed the labor market as mostly clearing or at worst in the process of quick return to market-clearing equilibrium. This chapter discusses the challenges to employment creation in developing country contexts—especially through industrialization—and offers a policy framework for creating employment.
Exploring the Role of Bodies and Gestures in Management with Merleau-Ponty
Authors: Grandazzi Albane
Published: January 2023

In a dematerialized economy, gestures and movements at work seem to be of less importance. However, our ‘sensorial experience’ remains the way we perceive the world even if our gestures are increasingly connected to the machines that power our everyday work. So, how do we think about, observe, and conceptualize gestures and movements in management theory? Merleau-Ponty was a prolific philosopher, exploring in particular this notion of ‘sensorial experience’ as a way of being, and a means of perceiving the world. If bodies, movements, and gestures seem to be part of a kind of sensory evidence, they must be reinterpreted, including our reflexive experience and relations with other bodies. This chapter is targeted at researchers in organizational theory, and aims to show Merleau-Ponty’s major contribution to the study of gestures and movements, exploring several notions developed by the author.
Animal Ontologies
Authors: Paring Géraldine
Published: January 2023

Posthumanist research has recently been undertaken to rectify the longstanding anthropocentric invisibilization of animals in organizing processes. The stake is both epistemological and political, with the growing awareness that the current ecological crisis is a crisis in our relationship with animals. Organizations studies have worked on organizations’ ontologies and methodologies to make way for animals but have tended to avoid the daunting task of exploring animal ontologies, making themselves liable to reconduct the humanist normative categories humanity/animality and leaving animals non-researchable subjectivities. This chapter draws on the long, central, and living tradition of phenomenological thinking about animals, from Von Uexküll to Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Burgat, Despret, and Morizot. Fully endorsing the view that the ontological is political, I make the case for exploring the specific historical construction of the hierarchical dualism humanity/animality—connected to but not equivalent to other dualisms such as person/object—to propose richer animal ontologies, such as animals’ and species’ life-worlds and ways of being, to build new relational ontologies.
The Process of Depth
Authors: de Vaujany François-Xavier
Published: January 2023

Depth appears as a key concept and direction both in the late thought of Merleau-Ponty and for the work of Deleuze at large. This chapter aims at comparing their views about the process of depth, in particular the distinctive topologies offered by each philosopher. As a set of invisibilities (for Merleau-Ponty) and folds or holes (for Deleuze) produced by movements and becoming themselves, depth appear as a very interesting perceptive and/or metaphysical ways to describe temporality as an organizing process and organizing as a temporality. The depth of experience is the in-betweeness of events at stake in organizing, in particular the happening and mattering of all images involved in a specific process of organizing. By means of cinematographic experience, this chapter explores further the potentialities of this thesis.
Organization as Autopoietic ‘Understanding’?
Authors: Kirkpatrick Andrew
Published: January 2023

This chapter considers the latent promise that a synthesis of Alfred North Whitehead’s process metaphysics and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s embodied phenomenology might hold for Management and Organization Studies when construed in terms of a ‘process phenomenology’. Though ostensibly working in two distinct philosophical traditions, it is shown how Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty ultimately arrive at complementary ontological schemes grounded in the primacy of experience qua perception. Partially explaining this convergence is Henri Bergson, whose influence on both Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty serves as a concrete link between the traditions of process thought and phenomenology more broadly. Outlining the basic principles of Whitehead’s process metaphysics alongside Merleau-Ponty’s Gestalt inspired phenomenology, it is shown how a Whiteheadian interpretation of Merleau-Ponty’s late ontology of flesh results in a dynamic, relational worldview in which the becoming of organisms, and indeed organizations, can be framed as an autopoietic process of ‘understanding’ oneself and one’s world.
Husserl
Authors: Riot Elen
Published: January 2023

We live in a time when a universal philosophy that would comprehend human relations to the world is now a bygone dream, as Husserl writes in Die Krisis in 1935. At the end of his life, he looks back at his constant efforts to defend the role of reason in relation to science and philosophy. He identifies a form of dissemination of philosophical views that tend to challenge the role of reason. He mentions the naïve realism of empirical evidence, positivism and its alienation of the idea of science, and post-Kantian theories of the construction of all experience to the world that challenge any form of objective knowledge. To counter these views, he defends a philosophical refoundation: a phenomenological method of investigation starting with the suspension of all judgement (epoché, in Greek). Assume the crisis Husserl mentioned has yet to be solved today. Then, following his method, we must rigorously consider anew our situation in the world. First, we must assess what we perceive through our senses in reference to our intentions. Then, we must reflect on this flood of experience to ultimately take action and take position on ‘the world of life’. Finally, in due course, taking in these sources of knowledge, sharing our various experiences and a form of open interconsciousness, we may settle on an ordered set of rules of reason that serves as a universal common ground, the guided enactment of our thoughts and actions. Let us see how it works.
Heidegger, Organization, and Care
Authors: Holt Robin
Published: January 2023

Heidegger’s figuration of the human as Dasein has us flickering between a condition of organizational capture and openness. Dasein always has to work from within a historically sedimented condition of instrumental relations and theoretical presentations into which it has fallen, and from which it projects. This chapter critically considers the nature of this capture and openness, specifically in relation to the discussion of conscience and care in Being and Time. Using the Pre-Raphaelite painting The Awakening Conscience by William Holman Hunt as a provocation, I argue the flicker lies with the re-organized disclosure of being that arises from the struggle of letting difference remain a difference.
From Phenomenology to a Metaphysics of History
Authors: de Vaujany François-Xavier
Published: January 2023

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is a major phenomenologist and philosopher of the 20th century. From his two seminal books Structure and Behavior and Phenomenology of Perception till his last unfinished opus The Visible and the Invisible, he moved from a phenomenology to what he called his ‘indirect’ or ‘sensible ontology’. This chapter details what was his first phenomenological thought before exploring his indirect ontology as interwoven with a broader ‘metaphysics of history’. Surprisingly, this metaphysics of history appears as very close to the thought of the last, ethical Foucault. It offers a very interesting temporal view of the relationship between the present and actuality, and productive differences at stake in historical processes.
Evolutionary Neuroarchaeology
Authors: Stout Dietrich , Hecht Erin
Published: January 2023

Evolutionary neuroarchaeology sits at the intersection of archaeological, evolutionary, and neuroscientific theory, adopting core elements of each and making its own contributions by articulating and elaborating connections between them. This unification is informed by the core neuroarchaeological project of drawing inferences about unobservable brains, behavior, and cognition from observable material remains. It thus has a natural affinity with theoretical perspectives that emphasize concrete context and materiality rather than abstract information processing, exemplified by parallel developments across anthropological practice theory, “4E” (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) cognition; predictive processing models of brain function; and the extended synthesis of evolutionary biology. This chapter reviews the logic and practice of research design in neuroarchaeology by giving specific examples and situating the field in the broader theoretical context of cognitive science.
Pyrotechnology in the Pleistocene
Authors: Twomey Terrence
Published: January 2023

This chapter considers the influence of controlled fire use on the evolution of human cognition during the Pleistocene using the principles of cognitive archaeology in conjunction with Material Engagement Theory (MET). It is proposed that this approach provides an effective way to better understand the causal and constitutive nature of domestic fire on human cognition. This proposal is supported through a discussion of the evidence for fire-keeping and fire-using practices of Middle Pleistocene humans from the sites of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov and Qesem Cave in Israel. These examples show that domestic fire would have influenced human cognition in complex ways, and that it makes sense to consider the material elements of fire as part of, not distinct from, cognitive processes. Before concluding, the chapter also considers the influence of fire use on brain evolution in light of MET.
Hawkes’ Ladder, Underdetermination, and the Mind’s Capacities
Authors: Currie Adrian , Meneganzin Andra
Published: January 2023

At base, cognitive archaeology is in the business of using the archaeological record as an inroad to the abilities and expressions of past human minds. This does important work: explaining assemblages and patterns in the record, reconstructing past societies and people, as well as testing and probing hypotheses about minds and their evolution. However, there is often a long bow to be drawn from material traces to cognition; archaeological interpretation is often underdetermined. Using “Hawkes’ ladder” as a foil and drawing on two cases of Neandertal cognition (mourning and numeracy), this chapter argues that hypotheses concerning cognitive features are not beyond archaeological inference. However, such hypotheses are often “thin”: concerning the capacities of past minds, as opposed to specific meanings or functions. Nonetheless, establishing thin hypotheses is critically important for at least two reasons. First, many productive debates in archaeology are about the cognitive requirements behind specific material traces. Second, establishing thin hypotheses about capacities is often necessary for disambiguating more detailed ideas about meaning and function, or about evolutionary histories, which affords both exploring cognitive possibility and potentially finding ways of testing between these. Inferential strategies in cognitive archaeology then can progressively circumscribe narrower forms of underdetermination, constraining and exploring the space of cognitive possibility.
Metaplasticity, Not “Modernity”
Authors: Roberts Patrick
Published: January 2023

Cognitive archaeology has traditionally focused on thresholds of development, scouring the material record for hallmarks of modernity and exploring reconstructed or living hominin brains to identify clearly bounded step changes in cognitive abilities. However, in the last decade or so, the concepts of metaplasticity and material engagement have been used to question not only the linearity of such changes, but also, in some cases, whether the human mind can realistically be considered as an entity separate from the material environments in which it operates. This chapter reviews the latest discussions in neuroscience, archaeology, and paleoecology, focusing in particular on Middle-to-Late Pleistocene human origins to promote the idea that environments, objects, and minds are inseparably intertwined. Building on elements of recent “4E” (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) approaches to cognition, it argues that the flexibility and fluidity with which our species forms connections between these realms, rather than any single material marker or behavioral horizon, point us toward what it means to be human.
What Is Cognitive Archaeology?
Authors: Malafouris Lambros
Published: January 2023

The field of cognitive archaeology has generated important and valuable insights into the cultural and evolutionary dimensions of human intelligence. However, the ways in which cognition is bound up with the body and the material world (forms and flows) has been traditionally overlooked or misrepresented. To the extent that such neglect continues, our understanding of human cognitive life and its material bases will remain necessarily restricted. This chapter explains why those problems persist and proposes an alternative material engagement approach to understanding the relationship between cognitive and material phenomena. One of the main objectives is to show how the theory of material engagement can aid understanding of the cognitive ecology of things and the material ecology of minds. Material Engagement Theory posits materiality as constitutive of human cognitive life. It also argues for the primacy of becoming over being. One can only understand human beings (what it is to be human) by understanding the modes of human becoming (how humans become). Such an approach requires a stretching of the archaeological imagination and vocabulary. To practice cognitive archaeology is to think across disciplinary boundaries in a radical sense. Mind is not in the head; mind is in the world. This chapter discusses the outline and implications of this alternative material engagement approach and illustrates some of the key concepts that can help us to rethink the concept of “mind” in the archaeology of mind.
From Technical Reasoning to Cumulative Technological Culture
Authors: Osiurak François , Bryche Chloé , Bluet Alexandre , Reynaud Emanuelle
Published: January 2023

Humans and their predecessors have modified the surface of Earth in an unparalleled way, raising the question of the neurocognitive origins of technical cognition. Surprisingly, cognitive scientists do not seem to pay attention to this topic and address it marginally, as if human technical skills did not reflect the existence of cognitive skills specifically directed toward the physical world. This chapter introduces a diametrically opposite approach: The technical reasoning hypothesis, which has initially received support from findings in neuropsychology and cognitive science. This hypothesis posits that technical cognition originates in technical reasoning skills, which involve notably the area PF within the left inferior parietal lobe. These skills are critical to enable humans to develop the technical potential necessary to constantly acquire and improve tools and techniques over generations. Recent advances indicated that this hypothesis could also be extended to explain how technical reasoning, in concert with social learning mechanisms, can favor the emergence of cumulative technological culture. The technical reasoning hypothesis offers a unified neurocognitive approach to how humans and their predecessors have modified their physical world by making and using tools as well as building constructions.
Searching for Shore
Authors: Ben-Aharon Naomi , Gibson Mason , Reidy Tyler
Published: January 2023

This chapter is a philosophical and autoethnographic study by three queer-identifying Canadian former graduate music therapy students. Through the evaluation of personal narratives and journals, themes were created that highlighted the isolation, shame, safety, authenticity, othering, pride, and identity synthesis that we faced during our education as music therapy students. These themes inspired us to make recommendations for future music therapy pedagogies that would include implementation of anti-oppressive and affirming approaches to supervision and education. This chapter seeks to provide representation for queer and trans music therapy students, music therapists, professors, and supervisors as well as examining how universities can become safer and more inclusive spaces for learning.
Ovulatory Cycle Effects and Hormonal Influences on Women’s Mating Psychology
Authors: Stern Julia , Penke Lars
Published: January 2023

Do hormones affect women’s mating psychology? In which way? Why? In this chapter, we address these questions and summarize the current evidence on associations between women’s ovulatory cycle, hormonal changes, and their mating psychology. We focus on potential changes in sexual motivation, mate preferences, and attraction to potential mates. We further evaluate potential changes in cues to fertility, whether they are detectable by others and whether these changes lead to corresponding affective and behavioral changes in romantic partners. We also discuss the potential implications of research on hormonal contraception on mating and point out reasons why some findings might not replicate.
Evolutionary Mismatch and Human Mating
Authors: Goetz Cari D.
Published: January 2023

Evolutionary mismatch is the idea that adaptations are operating in an environment that differs from the environment in which they were shaped by natural selection. Research on human mating from an evolutionary perspective requires thoughtful consideration of the evolutionary mismatch of modern subjects of study and their mating adaptations. In this chapter, I describe the concept of evolutionary mismatch and how it relates to the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. I provide examples of the importance of considering evolutionary mismatch that relate to some of the most well-studied domains of human mating including attraction, long-term relationships, sexual conflict, and sexual dysfunction. I advocate for the study of diverse populations as a tool to develop knowledge on the range of ecological conditions in which humans live and have lived, which is key to understanding evolutionary mismatch. I conclude by emphasizing the necessity of accounting for evolutionary mismatch when trying to understand underlying universal psychological design, and ultimately human nature.
Computational Models of Mate Choice
Authors: Conroy-Beam Daniel
Published: January 2023

Given mating’s close proximity to reproduction, human mate choice psychology would have recurrently both posed and solved critical adaptive problems. These same problems pose myriad computational challenges. Selecting a mate requires evaluating potential partners across multiple dimensions, summarizing these evaluations, and using finite resources to navigate mating markets occupied by mating rivals and potential mates with unknown interests. To make things harder, predicting mate choice behavior requires predicting through the interaction of these many processes, scaled up to the market level. Computational models provide researchers ideal tools for studying these otherwise intractable systems. With computational modeling tools, mating researchers can simulate the dynamics of complex mating markets and compare predictions of alternative models to real behavior. This chapter reviews the literature on computational models of human mating, with special emphasis on models of mate preferences, mate evaluation, and mate selection. It focuses on the computational problems inherent to human mate choice, models of how mating psychology solves these problems, and empirical data that speak to the plausibility of these models.
Mating Strategy Variation by Sexual Orientation
Authors: Frederick David A. , Alley Jenna C. , Semenyna Scott W. , Garcia Justin R.
Published: January 2023

There is tremendous variety in the sexual behaviors and mating strategies observable across individuals, genders, cultures, populations, and ecologies. One critically important variation in mating strategies among human and nonhuman animals is the extent to which they are interested in engaging in same-sex sexual behaviors and relationships. Same-sex sexual behavior has been observed in many species of mammals, including primates. Here, we focus primarily on sexual orientation and mating in humans. Specifically, we review different ways to conceptualize sex, gender, and sexual orientation and the widespread examples of same-sex sexual orientations and behaviors seen across cultures and across history. We then turn to the associations of sexual orientation to different mating behaviors and preferences, including sociosexuality and consensual nonmonogamy and preferences for physical characteristics, age, and other traits such as status and income. We also highlight mating preferences often considered by LGBTQ people when seeking mates, such as masculinity or femininity of potential partners and behavioral repertoire preferences (e.g., insertive or receptive sexual partners). Finally, we examine some of the evolutionary perspectives that have been offered to explain same-sex sexual behavior from an adaptationist or a by-product perspective. Overall, this review highlights the importance of considering the environmental, social, ecological, and evolutionary factors that concomitantly impact sexual orientation and the mating strategies of people across diverse LGBTQ identities.
Contest Competition for Mates and the Evolution of Human Males
Authors: Puts David , Carrier David , Rogers Alan R.
Published: January 2023

Accumulating evidence suggests that the phenotypes of human males were shaped by contest competition, the mode of sexual selection in which mating opportunities are obtained by using force or threat of force to exclude same-sex competitors. Phylogenetic, paleontological, and archaeological data indicate a great antiquity for male–male violence in our lineage, and human males possess a constellation of traits that suggest specialization for contest competition. Relative to females, males exhibit greater stature, muscle mass, strength, speed, aerobic capacity, ability to dissipate exercise heat loads, craniofacial robusticity, pain tolerance, risk-taking, behavioral displays of physical prowess and acuity to the formidability of same-sex conspecifics, outgroup discrimination, and a propensity to participate in dyadic and coalitional violence. Parallel evidence suggests that some characteristics that distinguish hominins from the other great apes increase formidability in fights (e.g., handheld weapons, habitual bipedalism, and proportions of the hand and face) or function to increase perceptions of dominance (e.g., low vocal frequencies). Many of these traits are consistent with having been shaped by contest competition over mates: they develop or elaborate at sexual maturity and predict success in male contests, mating, and reproduction. Although alternative evolutionary explanations for some of these sexually dimorphic traits are possible, the most parsimonious explanation is that they have been preserved by selection because they aided in contest competition among males throughout human evolutionary history. The evolutionary roots of much of the aggression, intolerance, and violence that plagues modern societies may ultimately lie in the selection that shaped our mating system.
Sex Differences in Jealousy
Authors: Edlund John E. , Sagarin Brad J. , Kinner Kristyn M.
Published: January 2023

The theory of evolved sex differences in jealousy has emerged as one of evolutionary psychology’s most prominent lines of research. In this chapter, we begin with a review of the theory itself and its statistical implications. We then discuss many of the prominent challenges to the theory. These challenges include a suggestion that sex differences in the interpretation of the questions often used in “sex difference in jealousy” studies confound the results, psychometric concerns regarding the response scales used to assess the sex difference in jealousy, whether actual experiences with infidelity mirror participants’ hypothetical reactions, potential cognitive influences on the sex difference in jealousy, ambiguous results regarding physiological manifestations of the sex difference in jealousy, meta-analyses that reach seemingly different conclusions regarding the existence of the sex difference in jealousy, and moderators (including sexual orientation) that attenuate the sex difference in jealousy. Finally, we evaluate the state of the theory in light of the evidence we review, we consider why researchers from different subfields of psychology appear to have such different interpretations of the evidence for sex differences in jealousy, and we outline recommendations for future research directions.
Sexual Harassment
Authors: Browne Kingsley R.
Published: January 2023

Sexual harassment is widely recognized as a serious problem in the workplace, and a nuanced understanding of it is a necessary precondition to effective management. Much of the social science literature contends that sexual harassment is “not about sex but about power.” An evolutionary perspective, though acknowledging the link between sex and power, suggests that the causal implication of social scientists is often backward and that much behavior that is labeled sexual harassment reflects the different sexual strategies of males and females. It is less that men use sex to obtain power over women than it is that they use power to obtain sex, as they have throughout our evolutionary history. The fact that harassers tend to prefer young, attractive targets—that is, those who possess traits that are desirable in a consensual partner—reinforces the view that they are acting on sexual motivations. An understanding of the different sexual psychologies of males and females also sheds light on the question whether a reasonable-person standard or a reasonable-woman standard should be used to assess whether an environment is a hostile one. Men and women often perceive situations differently because of their evolved psychologies, so that an androgynous reasonable-person standard makes little sense. An evolutionary perspective, with its more realistic explanation of sexual harassment than its purely sociological competitors, is more likely to lead to effective mechanisms to combat it.
The Impact of Hormonal Contraceptives on Women’s Sexual and Mating Psychology
Authors: Cunningham Katja , Hill Sarah E.
Published: January 2023

Women’s sex hormones play an important role in shaping women’s mating psychology and behavior. These hormones are disrupted by the use of hormonal contraceptives (HCs), which suppress the release of women’s own dynamically changing ovarian hormones and supplant them with a consistent dose of synthetics. Although a majority of reproductive-aged women have used HCs to manage fertility at some point in their lives, little is known about the impacts of the artificial hormones in HCs on women’s mating psychology and behavior. In the current chapter, we review what is known and not known about the relationship between HC use and women’s mating and sexual psychology. The chapter closes by addressing important limitations of the existing research and delineating fruitful areas for future study.
Hormones and Human Mating
Authors: Roney James R.
Published: January 2023

Hormones are integral to the regulation of mating behavior in most sexually reproducing species and are likely to have similar importance for human mating. This chapter reviews major research themes regarding the role of endocrine variables in the adaptations that implement human mating psychology and behavior, including the roles of hormones in the development of sexual orientation, the regulation of sexual motivation and its trade-offs with competing motivational priorities, the relationship between hormones and attractiveness, and the role of hormones in the regulation of mate preferences. Investigation of the endocrine predictors of specific variables can help to arbitrate between competing theoretical arguments regarding human mating, and the chapter systematically reviews the relevant data on hormone variables within the context of these theoretical debates. As a broad generalization, accumulating evidence in humans supports roles for gonadal hormones in regulating shifts in the allocation of behavioral and somatic effort toward mating versus alternative adaptive problems. In women, evidence supports the ovarian hormones estradiol and progesterone acting as a two-signal endocrine code that indexes temporal fluctuations in fecundity and increases the prioritization of sexual motivation when fecundity is elevated. In men, accumulating evidence supports testosterone as a signal that regulates trade-offs between effort invested in mate-seeking and mate competition versus in survival effort and investment in pair- bonds and paternal care. Similar patterns in many nonhuman species suggest that phylogenetically ancient roles for hormones have been partially conserved in humans and continue to exert important effects on human mating psychology and behavior.
Marriage and Monogamy in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Authors: Scelza Brooke A.
Published: January 2023

Much of our understanding of human partnership dynamics has historically come from a small subset of Western, industrialized societies, which share norms about monogamy and fidelity. Cross-culturally, however, there is substantial variation in both formal marriage systems and the role of nonmarital partnerships. Understanding this variability has important repercussions for evolutionary questions about mating and parenting, which this chapter addresses. In particular, the chapter covers (1) the evolution of monogamy; (2) variation in marriage and mating systems cross-culturally; (3) differences between social and genetic monogamy, and their repercussions for thinking about parenting and partnerships; (4) why concurrent and sequential partnerships might be adaptive, particularly in certain contexts; and (5) why the traditional relationship between paternity and paternal care is not always applicable. Throughout, I focus on data from non-WEIRD (non-Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) societies, as a counterpoint to the vast body of existing literature in psychology. Doing so allows me to highlight areas where universal patterns emerge and where cross-cultural differences are critical to understanding variation.
Information Markets and AI Development
Authors: Clark Jack
Published: January 2023

Good governance depends on good information. This chapter discusses how we can better measure and assess the state of AI progress by closely looking at the trends in the technical literature. Due to rapid progress in AI during the last decade, we are beginning to see large-scale deployment of AI systems into society, but this is happening at a time when the capacity for (most) governments to have a well-calibrated understanding of the technology is declining. We expect that, if the status quo situation holds, it will be increasingly hard for governments to effectively govern AI developers. Therefore, we believe an intervention is needed to increase the chance of AI being governed effectively in the future. In this chapter, I discuss how metrics and measures are used by the AI research community, how these measures are themselves used by the AI community as informal devices of self-regulation, and how governments could better integrate this data into their policymaking apparatus and use these measures to steer the private and academic AI sectors. I conclude with some specific recommendations for how policymakers could develop infrastructure for monitoring AI publications and outline how this infrastructure could be merged with policymaking.
Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Historical Political Economy
Authors: Dennison Tracy , Gehlbach Scott
Published: January 2023

Historical political economy sits at the intersection of history and the social sciences. To many, this intersection feels like a yawning divide. Differences in methodology and in research aims make it difficult for historians and social scientists to communicate, much less collaborate. Yet successful collaboration is possible, especially if one considers forms of cooperation beyond traditional co-authorship. Team projects can exploit historians’ familiarity with sources and social scientists’ comfort with data. Joint efforts to summarize the state of a field can bring depth and balance to the study of history. Workshops, journals, and blogs can provide opportunities for social scientists and historians to learn from each other. By bringing together different forms of expertise, interdisciplinary collaboration helps to shine new light on existing problems in historical political economy while opening new avenues of research within and across the disciplines.
Land and National Development Strategies in the Cold War Era
Authors: Kay Cristóbal
Published: January 2023

This chapter undertakes a comparative analysis by contrasting the national development strategies followed by most countries in Latin America with those of South Korea and Taiwan during the Cold War period. It seeks to find out why these two South-East Asian countries, though starting at a much lower level of development than most Latin American countries at the beginning of the Cold War, were able to achieve much higher and equitable standards of living at the end of it. Its argument is that the remarkable difference in the performance between both regions is mainly explained by the ability of these Asian countries to pursue a synergetic development strategy, whereas the Latin American countries failed to do so. The extent, scope, and timing of a redistributive land reform were a key ingredient of such a strategy.