One of the key life history assumptions is that mortality rates are positively associated with fast life history dynamics. Since the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated mortality rates throughout the world, we tested this assumption using reproductive motivation (desired number of children and desired age of first reproduction) as a key output measure using a repeated cross-sectional design. We assessed reproductive motivation in Serbian young adults before the pandemic started (N = 362), during the pandemic-caused state of emergency (the peak of the epidemic's first wave: N = 389) and after the state of emergency (i.e., after the first wave: N = 430). Furthermore, in the third time-point we measured experiences during the state of emergency and additional measures of reproductive motivation (reasons for and against parenthood). Subsamples were matched by sex, education, and the sampling procedure. We found the between-group differences which are congruent with life history theory: the desired age of first reproduction was lowest after the state of emergency compared to the 2 previous time-points. However, there were no differences in the desired number of children. Furthermore, the analysis of the links between experiences during the epidemic and reproductive motivation yielded the results which are incongruent with life history theory-adverse experiences during the state of emergency were negatively related to the reproductive motivation. Since the findings were only partially in accordance with life history theory, we discuss possible reasons which may explain the heterogeneity of results. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement One of the key assumptions of life history theory is that elevated mortality rates should produce faster life history dynamics which should reflect in higher fertility. This hypothesis is important not only for understanding evolutionary processes in an ecological context but also for predicting demographic trends as well. This assumption was tested by examining the links between COVID-19 epidemic and reproductive motivation (desired number of children and desired age of first reproduction) in young adults. The results showed mixed support for the life history predictions and provide useful guidelines for future studies in this topic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

When dating, women seek men slightly older than themselves while men typically prefer younger women. Such patterns reflect differences in parental investment and age-related fertility, which are both concerned with maximizing reproductive outcomes. Using large samples of online daters, we considered whether having or wanting children was associated with the perceived importance of age as a matching criterion when dating (Study 1; N = 119,361), as well as how these two factors related to the preferred age of a match (Study 2; N = 486,382). Men without children (or those who wanted children) rated age as more important than those with children (or those who did not want children), and also selected a preferred age range that incorporated younger women. In contrast, women’s preferences showed little association with having or wanting children. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that age preferences may depend on factors in addition to those previously investigated, and that the relationships with the number of current children and the desire to have children are consistent with evolutionary predictions.

Attractiveness is an important aspect of human society.Attractive people enjoy multiple societal privileges and are assigned positive personality traits, and both men and women find attractiveness important when it comes to partner choice.Our universal preference for beauty might be reflected in implicit perception of human faces.In a series of three studies, we use Bayesian methods to investigate whether attractiveness or attractive traits modulate implicit attention and gaze cuing in a large community sample.In Experiment 1, we used a dot-probe task to measure attentional bias toward attractive faces.The results demonstrate that participants reacted faster when the probe appeared behind an attractive face but not when it appeared behind an unattractive face, suggesting that specifically attractive faces captured attention.In Experiment 2, we used a similar method to test whether facial symmetry, an oftenmentioned characteristic of attractive faces, modulated attention.However, we found no such effect.In Experiment 3, we used a gaze-cuing task to test whether participants were more likely to follow the gaze of attractive faces, but no such effect was found.To conclude, attractiveness affects our implicit attention toward faces, but this does not seem to extend to gaze cuing. Public Significance StatementThe present study investigates how attractiveness, which is an important aspect of our social environment, affects implicit cognition.Participants selectively attended to attractive faces that were very briefly presented but not to unattractive faces.However, facial attractiveness of the stimuli had no notable influence on the tendency to follow the gaze of the depicted individual.

Evolutionary accounts of the general factor of personality (GFP) state that high-GFP individuals tend to be selected as leaders more often. We directly tested this assumptionusing a simulated two-step (quasi-experimental) election campaign to decide whowould become a general student leader in a Chinese college. The results showed thatGFP scores, as assessed before the experiment, indeed could predict who becameleaders of their subgroups (in Step 1) and also who received the most votes to becomethe general leader (in Step 2). Additional analyses revealed that the lion share ofthe variance in election outcomes accounted for by personality (i.e., the Big Five) couldbe attributable to individual differences in the GFP. To our knowledge, this is the firstcontrolled social (quasi) experiment with a high ecological validity showing that theGFP is related to being able to successfully lobby for being elected as a leader. Thesefindings are in line with the evolutionary perspective on the GFP