| 21. |
- Dutton, Edward, et al.
(författare)
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Execution, violent punishment and selection for religiousness in medieval England
- 2018
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Ingår i: Evolutionary Psychological Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2198-9885. ; 4:1, s. 83-89
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Frost and Harpending, Evolutionary Psychology, 13 (2015), have argued that the increasing use of capital punishment across the Middle Ages in Europe altered the genotype, helping to create a less violent and generally more law-abiding population. Developing this insight, we hypothesise that the same system of violent punishments would also have helped to genotypically create a more religious society by indirectly selecting for religiousness, through the execution of men who had not yet sired any offspring. We estimate the selection differential for religiousness based on genetic correlation data for conceivably related traits, and compare that to the actual increase in religiosity across the Middle Ages. We further explore other mechanisms by which religiousness was being selected for in Medieval England, and conclude that executions most likely contributed substantially to the increase in religiosity, but that other selection pressures also played a role.
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| 22. |
- Dutton, Edward, et al.
(författare)
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Gender Dysphoria and Transgender Identity Is Associated with Physiological and Psychological Masculinization : a Theoretical Integration of Findings, Supported by Systematic Reviews
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sexuality Research & Social Policy. - : Springer. - 1868-9884 .- 1553-6610. ; 142:3, s. 216-220
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Gender dysphoria (GD) is associated with several psychiatric conditions, but the causal links are not known. We note that some of these conditions are associated with physiological masculinisation.Methods: Here, we explore this association through a series of systematic reviews, using Google Scholar, on original studies that test the relationship between GD and at least one correlate of androgens, namely autism spectrum disorder, left-handedness, 2D:4D ratio, being male and male heterosexuality.Results: Individuals with GD tend to exhibit scores that reflect heightened levels of androgens and masculinity compared with non-GD individuals. We further show that these same androgen indices are also associated with other identity disorders (or dysphoriae).Conclusions: Autism is associated with masculinisation, and we argue that GD may reflect autism spectrum disorder traits that indirectly lead to anxiety and to one questioning one’s sense of self. We note that this is consistent with Blanchard’s transsexualism typology, which successfully integrates a wide range of empirical findings.
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| 23. |
- Dutton, Edward, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Genius and premature birth: little evidence that claims about historically eminent scientists are accurate
- 2021
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Ingår i: Indian Journal of History of Science. - : Springer. - 0019-5235 .- 2454-9991. ; 56, s. 20-27
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A number of very eminent and highly creative individuals are often claimed to have been born prematurely, and the idea that widely recognised scientific geniuses such as Newton, Kepler, and Darwin were preterm has become a cultural meme through the popular press, and through popular and academic science books. This potentially raises very important questions, related to the nature and origin of creativity and innovation, as it has been suggested that prematurity and genius may be linked. Here, we review suggested links between prematurity and genius, in terms of psychological traits associated with genius, and compare the percentage of top geniuses in Murray's Human Accomplishment who are claimed to have been born prematurely to that of Western populations in general. Although a significant number of those in Murray's sample have been asserted to be preterm, we found that none of them could be said with certainty to have been so, refuting the hypothesis that there is a clear connection between prematurity and scientific genius.
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| 24. |
- Dutton, Edward, et al.
(författare)
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Life History and Race Differences in Puberty Length : A Test of Differential-K Theory
- 2016
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Ingår i: Mankind Quarterly. - : Scott - Townsend Publishers. - 0025-2344. ; 56:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Life history speed has been argued to differ across the three main races, with Sub-Saharan Africans adopting the fastest (most r) strategy, Northeast Asians adopting the slowest (most K) strategy and Caucasians being intermediate, but closer to Northeast Asians (Rushton, 1995). Differential-K theory would predict that puberty begins earlier in the more r-strategy groups. Here, we extend this hypothesis to the length of puberty rather than its onset. Examining previously published data, we find that puberty is shortest amongst Caucasians and longest amongst Sub-Saharan Africans, and argue that this pattern is consistent with Differential-K theory.
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| 25. |
- Dutton, Edward, et al.
(författare)
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Sex differences on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices within Saudi Arabia and across the Arab world : females' advantage decreases from childhood to adolescence
- 2018
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Ingår i: Personality and Individual Differences. - : Elsevier. - 0191-8869 .- 1873-3549. ; 134, s. 66-70
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sex differences in intelligence are of great importance with regard to understanding intelligence's underlying evolutionary forces. Previous research in this area has had a strong focus on Western countries and data across developmental stages are fragmented. Here, we present new data on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices from three samples in Saudi Arabia, and combine these with nine previously published studies from other Arab countries, which also provide data for each year of age. We specifically consider Lynn's developmental theory of sex differences in intelligence, whereby a female advantage becomes pronounced due to earlier average puberty and then decreases as males enter puberty. The estimates for each age do not differ significantly from zero, and very few from each other, apparently due to large heterogeneity across studies. Nevertheless, the age trend is largely consistent with Lynn's model. Moreover, its specific predictions are seemingly borne out in many individual countries. Plausible explanations for incongruities in Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are also examined.
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| 26. |
- Dutton, Edward, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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Spare the rod and spoil the group’s cultural fitness? : Conditions under which corporal punishment leads to detrimental and beneficial outcomes
- 2020
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Ingår i: Medical Hypotheses. - : Elsevier. - 0306-9877 .- 1532-2777. ; 145
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Corporal punishment of children is common across human history, and the specific practice of striking the buttocks, known as spanking, seems to have developed independently across a number of separate cultures. This pattern suggests adaptive value, posing a paradox in view of the many reviews stating that spanking has purely negative outcomes on future mental health, and the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics that it be outlawed. We purport to resolve this paradox by separating this particular type of corporal punishment from less controlled lashing out in anger, and we reanalyze these reviews in terms of psychological and physical health outcomes. We find that spanking is associated with positive mental health outcomes when (1) performed by calm parents in a (2) ritualized, structured fashion and combined with (3) other disciplinary techniques within (4) a loving relationship with the child, typically (5) as part of the practice of moral, collective religiosity, and when (6) controlling for confounding variables. In that spanking is noticeably practiced by conservative religious cultural groups, we hypothesize that it can be a fitness-promoting form of behaviour in line with religiousness being an example of a group-fitness-promoting adaptation.
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| 27. |
- Dutton, Edward, et al.
(författare)
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The intelligence and personality of Finland's Swedish-speaking minority
- 2016
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Ingår i: Personality and Individual Differences. - : Elsevier BV. - 0191-8869 .- 1873-3549. ; 97, s. 45-49
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is evidence that Finland's Swedish-speaking minority (Finland-Swedes) may have a distinct intelligence-personality profile from the Finnish-speaking Finns (Finns). We test this through an examination of the two groups' PISA (Programme of International Student Assessment) scores (which assesses representative samples of 15 year olds from OECD countries) and their personality scores, drawing upon a representative Finnish sample. We found Finland-Swedes to have slightly lower average intelligence. However, when controlling for gender and age, the Finland-Swedes score significantly higher on Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Emotional Stability. Overall, we found a Jensen Effect whereby most of the personality differences between the two groups could be attributed to the General Factor of Personality (GFP), which reflects the shared variance of lower-order personality traits. The GFP is assumed to reflect general social effectiveness.
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| 28. |
- Dutton, Edward, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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The mutant says in his heart, "There is no God" : the rejection of collective religiosity centred around the worship of moral gods is associated with high mutational load
- 2018
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Ingår i: Evolutionary Psychological Science. - : Springer. - 2198-9885. ; 4:3, s. 233-244
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Industrialisation leads to relaxed selection and thus the accumulation of fitness-damaging genetic mutations. We argue that religion is a selected trait that would be highly sensitive to mutational load. We further argue that a specific form of religiousness was selected for in complex societies up until industrialisation based around the collective worship of moral gods. With the relaxation of selection, we predict the degeneration of this form of religion and diverse deviations from it. These deviations, however, would correlate with the same indicators because they would all be underpinned by mutational load. We test this hypothesis using two very different deviations: atheism and paranormal belief. We examine associations between these deviations and four indicators of mutational load: (1) poor general health, (2) autism, (3) fluctuating asymmetry, and (4) left-handedness. A systematic literature review combined with primary research on handedness demonstrates that atheism and/or paranormal belief is associated with all of these indicators of high mutational load.
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| 29. |
- Dutton, Edward, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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The myth of the stupid believer : The negative religiousness-IQ nexus is not on general intelligence (g) and is likely a product of the relations between IQ and Autism Spectrum traits
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of religion and health. - : Springer. - 0022-4197 .- 1573-6571. ; 59:3, s. 1567-1579
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Numerous studies have found a negative relationship between religiousness and IQ. It is in the region of - 0.2, according to meta-analyses. The reasons for this relationship are, however, unknown. It has been suggested that higher intelligence leads to greater attraction to science, or that it helps to override evolved cognitive dispositions such as for religiousness. Either way, such explanations assume that the religion-IQ nexus is on general intelligence (g), rather than some subset of specialized cognitive abilities. In other words, they assume it is a Jensen effect. Two large datasets comparing groups with different levels of religiousness show that their IQ differences are not on g and must, therefore, be attributed to specialized abilities. An analysis of the specialized abilities on which the religious and non-religious groups differ reveals no clear pattern. We cautiously suggest that this may be explicable in terms of autism spectrum disorder traits among people with high IQ scores, because such traits are negatively associated with religiousness.
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| 30. |
- Dutton, Edward, et al.
(författare)
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Why do Finnish men marry Thai women but Finnish women marry British men? : Cross-national marriages in a modern, industrialized society exhibit sex-dimorphic sexual selection according to primordial selection pressures
- 2017
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Ingår i: Evolutionary Psychological Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2198-9885. ; 3:1, s. 1-9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Male and female Finns who contracted cross-national marriages had spouses from very different countries. We tested the possibility that this might reflect sexual selection, with nationality being a proxy for certain kinds of social status. It is predicted from evolutionary theory that females tend to sexually select for status to a greater extent than do males, who rather select for youth and beauty. Across the 36 out of 161 countries of origin for which there were sufficient numbers of immigrant spouses, we found that the ratio of wives from richer countries to Finnish husbands was less than 1, which was, consistent with the hypothesis, which was also the case for the ratio of husbands from poorer countries to Finnish wives. A few exceptions to this general pattern could plausibly be explained by particular circumstances regarding these countries. A careful consideration of alternative explanations did not render any one more convincing than the proposed dimorphic pattern of inherited mate preferences.
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