Use of an AI dating simulator may help single men who struggle to connect. They experienced a reduction in anxiety, loneliness, & distress related to their sex lives. https://www.psypost.org/therapists-test-an-ai-dating-simulator-to-help-chronically-single-men-practice-romantic-skills/

Cross-sex and intrasexual theory of mind..."Men overestimated women's desire for sexual variety...Unexpectedly, women showed similar biases when estimating the desires of men...both men and women overestimated the sexual desired of their same sex peers." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The interdisciplinary journal "Culture and Evolution" brings all the scientific tools for studying culture and evolution to the same table…publication fees waived for papers submitted by Dec 31, 2026; registered reports and replication studies welcomed! submit.akademiai.com/cultev/index...

Incels capture extraordinary public attention not because they are especially numerous or violent, but because their stories tap into deep-rooted psychological biases that make them unusually memorable and shareable. https://www.psypost.org/the-psychology-behind-societys-fixation-on-incels/

Evolutionary psychology distinguishes between two broad mate retention strategies Benefit-provisioning Cost-inflicting (derogation, restricting autonomy) The manosphere advocates the latter Research consistently finds cost-inflicting tactics are used more often by lower mate value individuals.

As of 2024: 81% of US women have kids by their 40s, down 9 points from 1976. 79% get married (seven-of-eight of them have kids). 21% don't get married (half of them have kids). Since the 1970s, married with kids dropped about 20 points, while never-married with kids increased 10 points.

Coming soon…

If anyone is interested in an alternative to this “just so story” (ironic) about how evolutionary psychology derives hypotheses and its conceptualisation the environment(s) of evolutionary adaptedness that shaped our psychological mechanisms, then I suggest you read for yourself.

See Buss and Schmitt (2019) Annual Review of Psychology. Mate Preferences and Their Behavioral Manifestations. labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/files/2...

Remarkable to characterise evolutionary psychology as solely interested in self report when it’s been triangulating diverse sources of evidence for hypotheses for decades, including substantial cross cultural evidence for the behavioral manifestations of mate preferences.

"14,532 participants across 42 societies...sex similarities and differences in the strength of social motives across adulthood and sociocultural contexts, employing generalized additive models that account for spatial autocorrelation" royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

🎯"[T]here are so many who are ideologically motivated to dismiss evolutionary psychology... There are those who think that we should not bother defensively correcting misconceptions and instead just focus on improving our field. I think we can and should do both."

Evolutionary themed valentines cards in our house. Saff couldn’t decide so got me two 😂

"In placing human agents—and their evolved interests—at the heart of cultural dynamics, the ecological approach to culture [...] reclaims the original power of inclusive fitness theory that grounded the evolutionary study of behavior"

Just a reminder. (From the evolutionary psychology FAQ I wrote as a grad student back in the 90's). 🧪 grasshoppermouse.github.io/evpsychfaq/

As the perceived time available to make a sexual decision decreases, men's odds of saying yes increases—a scarcity effect. https://www.sexandpsychology.com/blog/2020/2/17/men-are-more-likely-to-agree-to-a-hookup-when-their-phones-battery-level-is-low/

vilifying victims is an effective strategy for perpetrators seeking to avoid blame"

People don't like individuals who vigilantly monitor and reprimand wrongdoings at work. These "hall monitors" are seen as less moral and hyper competitive (the only people who like them are other vigilantes). www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The belief that evolutionary psychology makes unfalsifiable hypotheses is old, but deeply misconceived: New paper by @costellowilliam @ProfDavidBuss et al. psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections may be elevated for women during the days when the endometrium is receptive to embryo implantation (“the implantation window”).

Now out in Evolutionary Psychological Science. OA link: rdcu.be/e2g4X

This week, we talk to @joshtybur.bsky.social about the immune system in your head. 🤯 youtu.be/O0t8WpICTyo www.podbean.com/eas/pb-x6vk5... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

Thanks for taking the time to review our paper and other recent work from our lab. We will try to take your constructive criticism on board going forward. I will respond to a few points here in this thread.

People strongly prefer to date someone who shares their politics (r=.62). Only 7.7% of couples are dating someone from the opposite political party (a Democrat dating a Republican). People who see their partners as politically dissimilar have worse relationships sites.lsa.umich.edu/whirl/wp-con...

Bonus: Response to two comments: buff.ly/WyjrbJo TL;DR:🧵 by @williamcostello.bsky.social: buff.ly/LTMlCRR 2/2

Unlike the general *biological* Theory of Evolution, evolutionary psychology doesn’t even have fossils to counter criticism of unfalsifiability. But @williamcostello.bsky.social et al put up a robust defence of the falsifiability and testability of its hypotheses: buff.ly/I9fS5nf 1/2

⚡️"an often-overlooked aspect of evolutionary psychology: It holds itself to a higher standard than many other human behavioral sciences regarding evidentiary burden" psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

The evolutionary psychological hypothesis that ‘humans faced adaptive problem X, and so have adaptive solution Y’, can be falsified by showing that ‘they did not face problem X’, and/or ‘they do not have solution Y’ 🤷‍♂️

"study supports a putative universality of attractiveness halo effects and also contributes to a deeper understanding of subtle variations in the halo effects of men’s and women’s attractiveness in more individualistic versus more collectivistic cultures"

In our new American Psychologist paper, we debunk the decades old zombie idea that evolutionary psychology is unfalsifiable. 🧵

🎯"Their discussion is relevant to all of psychology given the well-documented issues with empirical replications and ideological bias within academia more broadly" psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

"False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long...several evolutionary psychological hypotheses have generated specific, falsifiable predictions; undergone multiple empirical tests; and been refuted" psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Out now and open access for four weeks as the editor's choice Topic in Focus in American Psychologist. Contrary to popular belief, evolutionary psychology hypotheses are testable and falsifiable. psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

New in Evolution and Human Behavior from Buss lab members past and present. Project started in my 1st year of grad school & led by Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters. Men underestimate how upset women feel after sexual assault. Women overestimate how upset men feel. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Important: evolutionary mismatch is not a vague just-so story. It generates testable predictions about when traits should become impairing: rapid environmental change, decoupling of cues from outcomes, and loss of developmental calibration.

"[M]ale’s sexual overperception bias strengthens throughout mid-to-late adolescence and may first emerge around age 17. In contrast, female’s sexual underperception bias appears to be activated and relatively stable already by age 16."

Thrilled that our forthcoming article in American Psychologist: “Evolutionary Psychology Hypotheses Are Testable and Falsifiable” has been chosen as the journal’s Topic in Focus & Editor’s Choice. Coming soon with two commentaries + our reply. Open access for the first 4 weeks.

Terrific essay from Mitch Brown, one of the best ambassadors our field could hope for. inquisitivemag.org/articles/fie...

👍"As anyone in my field will tell you, humans evolved to maintain bonds through cooperation and helping each other. So I view my conversations with skeptics and critics in this light and as a perfect way to highlight this fact."

The safest place on the internet is the r/bald subreddit. I have no idea why this came up on my Reddit, but I now follow religiously, as men support one another through the decision to go bald. It is SO positive and wholesome. Amazing to see men supporting each other about body-related concerns.

What evolutionary psychology to the rescue of the humanities looks like: "The Cognitive Foundations of Fictional Stories"

This trend was already evident in sociocultural anthropology twenty years ago and it was one of the main reasons I felt the need to move in a different direction. unherd.com/2025/12/tear...

We just launched Boys & Men Online, a new program at the American Institute for Boys and Men studying how digital technologies shape the lives of boys and men. Led by David Sasaki, with fellows Isaac Rose-Berman and Bailey Way. Learn more: aibm.org/boys-men-onl...

"If psychological scientists succumb to the same biases as others do, it is important to consider how harm concerns and identity-based biases might be shaping the production and dissemination of knowledge about human behavior."

New adversarial collaboration…among White Americans self-report measures of racial prejudice predict behavioral discrimination (explaining ~45% of variance)…indirect/implicit prejudice measures explain ~2.5% beyond direct, self-report measures

This week, love and regret with Cari Goetz! www.podbean.com/eas/pb-mazyp... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e... youtu.be/XWTV4Wj-v4s

Early Christmas present for the Buss lab Coming soon along with much more in 2026

🚨 SynthNet is out 🚨 Researchers propose new constructs and measures faster than anyone can track. We (@anniria.bsky.social @ruben.the100.ci) built a search engine to check what already exists and help identify redundancies; indexing 74,000 scales from ~31,500 instruments in APA PsycTests. 🧵1/3

Could you enjoy having sex with someone you hate? X poll of 1264 respondents. Men were much more likely than women to say that they could.