PurposePsychology and social science research offer some promising work in the field of decision-making science. However, given the qualitative nature of much of this research, understanding some physiological bases of decision-making may assist by providing more objectivity. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explore hormonal and neurophysiological biomarkers of stress relative to strategic decision making, with and without an accompanying exercise stress.MethodsTwenty-one competitive male chess players were recruited to this study. On two separate occasions prefrontal cortex (a brain region involved in executive decision making which is sensitive to stress) hemodynamics were measured while participants played a standardized game of chess against a computer bot, once after exposure to a physical stressor (experimental condition) and once without (control condition). Participant’s stress hormones (testosterone and cortisol) were also measured in the morning of each test and immediately prior to the game of chess.ResultsParticipants were more likely to win under experimental conditions. Interestingly, there was no difference between conditions for baseline testosterone and cortisol concentrations, and the exercise protocol did not elicit a hormonal change. However, significant differences were observed for prefrontal cortex hemodynamics following the physical stressor (vs. control condition), and changes in prefrontal cortex hemodynamics were observed as games progressed (p ≤ 0.034).ConclusionOur results speculatively suggest several independent pathways exist to explain how stress affects decision making. This work opens several vistas for future research exploring decision making using neurohormonal/physiological biomarkers.

PurposeInfectious diseases have posed an existential threat to humans throughout history, resulting in a complex system of evolved psychological and behavioral mechanisms designed to help mitigate infection. Given that food consumption represents a significant route through which humans can be exposed to illness-causing pathogens, further research into the relationship between disease avoidance motivations and novel food avoidance (i.e., food neophobia) is warranted.MethodsAcross three studies (total N = 736), we investigated the relationship between trait disease avoidance motivation (assessed by the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease scale) and food neophobia.Results and ConclusionsResults from each of the three studies indicated that greater dispositional germ aversion significantly predicted greater food neophobia, whereas the relationship between dispositional perceived infectability and food neophobia was positive but more variable across the studies. Additionally, Study 3 revealed that while greater dispositional food neophobia predicted greater likelihood of avoiding foreign foods, experimentally priming disease threat was not associated with food choice. Lastly, an internal meta-analysis revealed that both germ aversion and perceived infectability were both uniquely positively associated with food neophobia. Limitations, conceptual issues, and avenues for future research are discussed.

PurposeDifferences in choices provide a window into the variety of human preferences and behaviors. Most non-trivial decisions recruit multiple regions of the brain with activity that shows substantial variation across individuals and also depends on personality traits and attitudes.MethodsThe present study measured nine physiologic factors and collected 15 types of psychological data while participants made decisions in standard tasks measuring risk aversion, patience, altruism, cooperation, generosity, trust, and trustworthiness. Robust predictors were defined as those that were statistically significant in both forward and backward stepwise regressions using all the collected independent variables.ResultsThe analysis showed that multiple measures of physiologic stress decrease cooperative behaviors while testosterone consistently increased antisocial behaviors. In addition, cognitive abilities robustly increased patience but decreased cooperation, while those more satisfied with their lives were more trustworthy. Participants scoring high on the personality trait of imagination were shown to be less altruistic and generous, while neuroticism increased prosociality.ConclusionThis study identified key drivers of behaviors that should be measured in decision-making experiments in order to capture the multiple factors that affect choices. We conclude with suggestions on how to establish causal relationships between the identified factors and decisions.

The January-March 2024 issue will also be the first issue of the 10th volume of AHBP. Our journal has now existed for 10 years. Earlier this year, Clarivariate assigned to AHBP its first impact factors: 1.6 as our 2002 impact factor and 1.8 as our five-year impact factor. This is a success story that would not have been possible without the support of Springer, the colleagues who have served on the AHBP Editorial Board, the researchers who have submitted manuscripts for publication, and those who have generously donated their time and effort to review these manuscripts over the past 10 years. My first Editorial for AHBP was titled 'The Evolution of Interdisciplinary Research on Human Behavior, Brain, and Body'. In it, I laid out my vision for a new scientific journal that would publish interdisciplinary studies of human behavior, integrating whenever possible the study of the adaptive function and evolution of human behavior with the study of its underlying genetic, neuroendocrine, neurobiological, developmental or psychological (emotional, motivational, cognitive, experiential) mechanisms. Some journals already existed that published evolutionary studies of human behavior as well as many others that published research on its proximate regulation, but no journal existed that specifically aimed at addressing and integrating these different levels of analysis. AHBP filled an empty niche that had been created by the growing need for multi-faceted and comprehensive analyses of and explanations for human behavior.

ObjectiveThe evolutionary-contingency hypothesis, which suggests that preferences for leaders are context-dependent, has found relatively consistent support from research investigating leadership decisions based on facial pictures. Here, we test whether these results transfer to leadership decisions based on voice recordings. We examined how dominance and trustworthiness perceptions relate to leadership decisions in wartime and peacetime contexts and whether effects differ by a speaker’s gender. Further, we investigate two cues that might be related to leadership decisions, as well as dominance and trustworthiness perceptions: voice pitch and strength of regional accent.MethodsWe conducted a preregistered online study with 125 raters and recordings of 120 speakers (61 men, 59 women) from different parts in Germany. Raters were randomly distributed into four rating conditions: dominance, trustworthiness, hypothetical vote (wartime) and hypothetical vote (peacetime).ResultsWe find that dominant speakers were more likely to be voted for in a wartime context while trustworthy speakers were more likely to be voted for in a peacetime context. Voice pitch functions as a main cue for dominance perceptions, while strength of regional accent functions as a main cue for trustworthiness perceptions.ConclusionsThis study adds to a stream of research that suggests that (a) people’s voices contain important information based on which we form social impressions and (b) we prefer different types of leaders across different contexts. Future research should disentangle effects of gender bias in leadership decisions and investigate underlying mechanisms that influence how people’s voices contribute to achieving social status.

ObjectivesThe phenomenon of mate copying (MC) suggests that an individual’s romantic desirability varies, to some degree, as a function of their romantic experiences. By manipulating relationship history, this research aimed to determine whether male desirability varied similarly for static stimuli (photographs) as it did for dynamic stimuli (short clips). Here we present 2 studies examining this idea.MethodsIn both studies heterosexual women aged 18–34 were recruited from social media and evaluated the desirability of men, before and after being given information about the level of relationship experience the men had previously had (either ‘none’, ‘some’, or ‘lots’).ResultsIn Study 1 (N = 278), we employed static images of men and Study 2 (N = 66) was methodologically similar but employed dynamic stimuli. Study 1 indicated that a man’s desirability to heterosexual women increased when it was revealed that he had a moderate amount of relationship experience but decreased if he had none. Results from Study 2 suggested that desirability was not affected by an individual’s relationship experience.ConclusionsMC was indicated when stimuli were static, but not when they were dynamic. These results suggest that MC may be a phenomenon that exists to a greater extent when stimuli are less informative.