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Evolution of Risky Decision-Making in Men: Role of Relative Status and Resources

This study explores how relative social status influences men's risky decision-making in resource-related scenarios, supporting dominance theory. Men's motivations and cognitive mechanisms are found to be co-evolved to regulate competitive risks based on cues of status. The results suggest that men's decision-making is domain-specific and influenced by perceived social status, with implications for status and dominance in competitive situations.

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Evolution of Risky Decision-Making in Men: Role of Relative Status and Resources

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  1. EVOLUTION & MOTIVATIONErmer, E., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2008). Relative status regulates risky decision making about resources in men: evidence for the co-evolution of motivation and cognition. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 106-118 • By: Lindsey Convoy, Julia Ritchey, and Bekah Rossetta

  2. Dominance Theory • Predicts that men's motivation to take risks in pursuit of resources will be highest when two men of equal status want the same resource. • Motivations to risk injury in pursuit of resources are jointly regulated by the relative value of a resource to both contestants and their relative ability to harm one another. 2

  3. Risky Behavior in Men • Operationalized as a choice between two options that have an equivalent average expected payoff. • Can have implications for status and dominance • Men's minds have evolved domain-specific decision-making mechanisms designed to regulate competitive risks in response to cues of relative status. • Intrasexual competition • Influenced by perceived relative social status 3

  4. Hypotheses of Study • Relative social status will regulate men's choices in risky decision making about resources. • The joint presence of resource opportunities and status rivals will not elicit indiscriminate risk taking in men. • The effects of status on men's risk taking should be domain specific. • This pattern will only be found in men, not women. 4

  5. Procedure: Decision Problems • Resource loss problem • Medical loss problem • Perceived social status 5

  6. Results and Findings • Relative social status significantly affected how often men chose the risky option on the resource loss probem. • Supports dominance theory in men. • Decision-making mechanism is domain-specific because it is cue-activated by the presence of competitiors, which evolved from intrasexual competition. • No signficant effects found in female subjects. 6

  7. Critical Review • Agreements: • The use of a gain problem completely lacks any cue of impending competition. • We agree that doing a follow up experiment to assess men's level of personal involvement in the medical loss problem was important to remove the possibility of a third variable. • There must be an evolved motivational system in place in men. • More explanation needed • In the consclusion of this study, there was no discussion as to why researchers found a significant effect for status and the loss problem. 7

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