We have a new paper out in EHB proposing a theory on how human intelligence evolved, led by our talented philosopher-turned-psychology-PhD-candidate @jonathanegeland.bsky.social!

Coalitional Psychology and the Evolution of Intelligence As evolutionary and behavioral scholars have long noted, humans are “uniquely unique,” partly due to our remarkable cognitive sophistication. Since Da…

Give the paper a read! The paper is open access, and we would love feedback, especially regarding creative new ways of testing the theory. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We also do some conceptual housekeeping. We clarify the difference between human intelligence as reflecting evolved mechanisms and the psychometric entity of g: factor analytic structure shouldn’t be mistaken for the mind’s functional architecture.

We argue that intelligence is adaptive in novel environments--not because it is a 'novelty adaptation', but because it functions as an honest, status-enhancing signal of coalitional value in such environments.

The theory is in line with several key findings in the intelligence literature, such as intelligence predicting status and leadership cross-culturally, and that people are surprisingly accurate at estimating intelligence levels of others.

We derive several predictions from the theory:

That is, smart individuals provide cognitive-computational services that help members of the group to flourish, which is rewarded with prestige and status. A form of social exchange.

We propose the coalitional intelligence hypothesis (CiH): behavioral outputs of intelligence (e.g., solving collective action problems) function as honest signals of coalitional value.

Humans form large stable coalitions with many non-kin individuals. How is this cooperation possible? A key part of how it works concerns prestige: Humans often grant influence by voluntarily deferring to individuals that are valuable to the group.

Why did humans evolve such extreme levels of intelligence? Many theories propose social aspects, but we try to specify the concrete mechanism.

We have a new paper out in EHB proposing a theory on how human intelligence evolved, led by our talented philosopher-turned-psychology-PhD-candidate @jonathanegeland.bsky.social!

In our new Evolution and Human Behavior paper, we examine the social function of uniquely human intelligence 🧠 Give it a read!

sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thanks to my coauthors: Leif Kennair and @thomaskleppesto.bsky.social

New paper out in Evolution & Human Behavior! Do people agree on what the ideal partner personality looks like, or is it just a reflection of their own traits? And do people care more about politics than the big five?
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Hvordan påvirker kunstig intelligens læringsutbytte og vurderingsgrunnlag? Når KI overtar deler av resonneringen, risikerer vi at mye av tenkningen «outsources» og at studentene blir mer passive i egen læring.

Nytt essay. Vi reflekterer over hva oppdraget til høyere utdanning bør være i språkmodellens era.

www.bi.no/forskning/bu...

Two positions as either PhD or postdoctoral fellow on health determinants of education Do you want to research how health influences school performance and leads to intergenerational inequality? We have two vacant 3-year positions as a PhD fellow or postdoctoral research fellow in the p...

Who wants to join us in Oslo to study how health influences educational underperformance? We are hiring PhDs postdocs candidates for our funded project. We will follow children from birth to emerging adulthood, using behavioural genetic methods and large datasets 945000.webcruiter.no/Main/Recruit...

The attractive personality: Like me, but better People tend to prefer mates who are similar to themselves, yet also desire partners with specific characteristics. The relative importance of assortat…

"These findings suggest that ideal partner preferences are shaped by one's own traits, especially for political personality, but some traits (e.g., low neuroticism) are broadly preferred across individuals."

doi.org/10.1016/j.ev...

I want to thank my coauthors that made important contributions: Mons Bendixen; @hfsunde.bsky.social; Brendan Zietsch; Kaitlyn T. Harper; Håvard Karlsen;
Marius Stavang; Nikolai H. Eftedal & Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair!

The attractive personality: Like me, but better People tend to prefer mates who are similar to themselves, yet also desire partners with specific characteristics. The relative importance of assortat…

More interesting details and discussions on "the attractive personality" in the paper! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In sum, we want partners who resemble us - few mate preferences are objective. But people also desire certain trait levels that most people consider attractive. Political personality is where similarity matters most, and neuroticism is where aspiration matters most.

Moreover, preferences don't always match what is available. For instance, women prefer men who are more agreeable than men tend to be, but men's agreeableness preferences match the average woman.

Here are some sex-differentiated ridgeplots of self and ideal distributions at the facet level of the big five:

But both men and women want partners who are more emotionally stable than themselves. This was the largest gap in the study, the strongest “aspirational” effect (d = 1.46). The diagonal line here represents perfect alignment between self and ideal trait values:

We asked NTNU students to rate their own big five and political personality (social dominance orientation), as well as their ideal partner’s. People tend to prefer partners similar to themselves, especially on political personality:

New paper out in Evolution & Human Behavior! Do people agree on what the ideal partner personality looks like, or is it just a reflection of their own traits? And do people care more about politics than the big five?
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions - npj Science of Learning npj Science of Learning - Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions

👉Behaviour genetics infographics www.nature.com/articles/s41...
👉ADHD, dyslexia & dyscalculia doi.org/10.1177/0956...
👉ADHD runs in families doi.org/10.1017/S003...
👉Education runs in families osf.io/preprints/ps...
Hosted warmly at @citystgeorges.bsky.social by Ansgar Endress & Katrina May Dulay 🙏

Attachment and Political Personality are Heritable and Distinct Systems, and Both Share Genetics with Interpersonal Trust and Altruism - Behavior Genetics The attachment and caregiving domains maintain proximity and care-giving behavior between parents and offspring, in a way that has been argued to shape people’s mental models of how relationships work...

"Contrary to popular and long-standing accounts of the causes and consequences of attachment styles, we find no evidence that attachment and ideology are jointly grounded in early familial experiences."

Visualization:

acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We have a new paper out, led by the great @hfsunde.bsky.social! We find that the correlation between parental income and offspring mental disorders may be partly causal in adolescence (phenotypic transmission), but that it is largely explained by passive genetic transmission in adulthood.

For Norwegian followers: Ett utvalg av mine forelesninger om personlighetspsykologi er nå tilgjengelig på YT for studenter og andre personlighetsinteresserte. Her er for eksempel en med biografisk perspektiv med fokus på Darwin & Munch:
t.co/DVt5O7Q0ih