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David Buss Adaptation Theory (Buss and Duntley 1998; Duntley and Buss 2011). He created these inter- David M. Buss disciplinary scientific bridges during an era when The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, evolutionary biology was almost entirely absent USA from the field of psychology.

Definition Buss’s Personal Journey to One of the founders of evolutionary psychology, author of The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Buss’s fascination with understanding human Human Mating and Evolutionary Psychology: nature – what motivates people and how to char- The New Science of the Mind. acterize their basic mechanisms of mind – began as an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin (1971–1976). He opted to major in psy- Introduction chology, believing that this was the discipline that offered the greatest promise for his quest. Over the is one of the founders of the modern course of several years, he became discouraged. field of evolutionary psychology. He is the most All existing theories in psychology seemed some- heavily cited evolutionary psychologist in the what arbitrary. Why, for example, would the world, according to Google Scholar (48,773 human mind be designed to experience cognitive scholarly citations as of December, 2016). He is dissonance, intolerance of ambiguity, a desire to widely known for his scientific contributions to enhance self-esteem, or any of the dozens of understanding , sub- “effects” or phenomena psychologists had sumed under the label Sexual Strategies Theory. documented? The proliferation of dozens of He has made contributions to personality psychol- mini-theories in psychology, none connected to ogy, personality and social interaction, adaptive any of the others, seemed scientifically individual differences, tactics of manipulation, unsatisfying. Lacking was a non-arbitrary set of sexual conflict, stalking, sexual violence, and fundamental premises on which a science of the homicide. He authored or co-authored three mind could be built. This quest for explanations other evolution-based theories: Strategic Interfer- anchored in deeper origins ultimately led him to ence Theory (Buss 1989a), Error Management evolutionary theory. Theory (Haselton and Buss 2000), and Homicide

# Springer International Publishing AG 2017 T.K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1859-1 2 David Buss

Buss first encountered evolutionary theory in (1972) theory of parental investment and sexual an undergraduate geology class, and theories of selection (in a book on theory that cosmology and stellar evolution in an astronomy he stumbled across at a used bookstore in Cam- class. They captured his intellectual imagination. bridge) and ’ (1979) book, The He was awed by the fact that there existed theories Evolution of Human Sexuality. At the time, Buss designed to explain the origins of things, life in the was designing an empirical study of married cou- first case and the universe in the second. During ples and decided to test predictions about mate this period, Buss read a book called The Imperial preferences based on Trivers’ theory and articu- Animal written by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox lated in Symons’ book. (Tiger and Fox 1971). Although anchored in a Around this time (1981–1982), Leda now-outdated theory of , Buss Cosmides, then a graduate student at Harvard in saw for the first time that evolutionary theory psychology, heard that Buss was teaching a course might offer a non-arbitrary set of foundational on human motivation using evolutionary theory. premises for the field of psychology. His under- She introduced herself to Buss, and then to her graduate term paper, titled “Dominance/Access to husband, , a graduate student in bio- Women” (written in 1975) posited that men have logical anthropology. Cosmides and Tooby were evolved a status-striving motive, the sole reason in the process of developing the conceptual foun- being that elevated rank gave them increased sex- dations of evolutionary psychology, although at ual access to women. Simplistic perhaps, but a the time their only publication was on the evolu- start. tion of intragenomic conflict (Cosmides and In 1976 when Buss sought a PhD program, Tooby 1981). Buss’s friendship with Leda and there existed no evolutionary psychologists and John, and his intellectual connection to them and no field called evolutionary psychology. So Buss their magnificent work, endured during the subse- began graduate school in personality psychology quent decades and continues unabated. This at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976, friendship, in turn, led to meeting believing that this field had as a central goal the and when they spent a sabbatical development of grand theories of human nature. year at Harvard. Buss was influenced by Daly and During his first year, he conducted a study Wilson’s(1983) book, Sex, Evolution, and Behav- designed to test the hypothesis advanced in his ior, which contained many novel insights and undergraduate paper, although he never published testable hypotheses unknown to mainstream psy- those results. While completing his graduate work chologists (Daly and Wilson 1983). at Berkeley, he focused the bulk of his empirical In 1984, Buss published his first paper on work on developing The Act Frequency Approach evolutionary psychology, entitled “Evolutionary (with Ken Craik, his main graduate advisor), but Biology and Personality Psychology: Toward a also published articles with Jack Block and Jeanne Conception of Human Nature and Individual Dif- Block (two of his other mentors) on personality ferences” in the prestigious journal, American development, and as sole-author (on dominance Psychologist. Although naïve and ill-informed in and activity level). He continued in his spare time many ways, it signaled Buss’s enduring commit- to read widely in evolutionary biology and popu- ment to understanding species-typical psychology lation genetics, including E.O. Wilson’s now clas- and profound individual differences within a uni- sic tome (Wilson 1975). fied conceptual framework. His mainstream work in personality psychol- When Buss was invited to give a talk at Yale in ogy made enough of an impact to land Buss his 1984, he decided to take a chance – he presented first post-PhD job as assistant professor at Har- his first professional talk on the evolution of vard University in 1981. In teaching his first large human mating. In the audience there happened undergraduate course, Human Motivation,he to be the editor of the prestigious journal, Ameri- used evolutionary theory as the overarching can Scientist. On his return to Harvard a few days framework. He also discovered Trivers’ later, he received from him an invitation to write David Buss 3 an article on human mating. This led to the lead Sciences at Stanford. Elected fellows had the article, “Human Mate Selection,” published in opportunity to spend a year at the center and American Scientist in 1985. Requests for reprints could, if so inclined, propose a special project of this article poured in from all over the world. involving other scientists. Buss proposed “Foun- Buss responded by inviting scientists from 37 cul- dations for Evolutionary Psychology” and pro- tures to join him in conducting parallel research posed that co-lead the project under the banner “The International Mate Selec- with him. The project was one of only the two tion Project.” Invitations coming on Harvard Uni- approved by the center, and in 1989–1990 it came versity stationary probably helped produce the to fruition with Buss reuniting with Leda overwhelming positive response from what Cosmides, John Tooby, Martin Daly, and Margo ended up to be 50 international research Wilson. One of our goals was to co-author a book collaborators. on the foundations of evolutionary psychology, In 1984, Harvard promoted Buss to Associate and they made some progress in the form of Professor, but he simultaneously received an offer draft chapters. Although that collaborative book from the University of Michigan of Associate never came to fruition, the project morphed, lead- Professor. At the time, the Michigan Psychology ing Buss to sole-author the first textbook in the Department was ranked as the best in the country. field: Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science Buss was mostly known for his work in personal- of the Mind (first published in 1998; its 5th edition ity psychology. Had Michigan known that Buss’s was published in 2015). At the center, Buss also entire research program was in the process of began to work on his first book, The Evolution of shifting in an evolutionary direction, it is possible Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (published in they would not have extended the offer. On the 1994; revised editions published in 2003 and other hand, they were well aware of his evolution- 2016). Both books, translated into many lan- ary interests and arranged meetings with key evo- guages, continue to be widely used in college lutionary scientists at Michigan – Barb Smuts, courses throughout the world. Richard Wrangham, Dick Alexander, Warren Holmes, Bobbi Low, and Randy Nesse. Shortly after starting his position at Michigan Evolved Mate Preferences in 1985, he joined this interdisciplinary group and together they formed the Evolution and Human Although he found initial support for some key Behavior (EHB) group in 1986, funded with a hypotheses about evolved mate preferences based generous internal grant from a prescient dean. on studies conducted in Cambridge, Massachu- This rich intellectual environment provided Buss setts, Buss was keenly aware that the work, when with exposure to , evolutionary published, would be controversial. So he delayed anthropology, work on nepotism in ground squir- publication and spent 5 years gathering additional rels, and a stream of evolution-minded scientists data from what turned out to be known as the who saw Michigan as intellectual hub. Yearly 37-culture study, involving 10,047 participants EHB meetings became testing grounds for this from six continents and five islands. Participants emerging interdisciplinary science. In 1986, for included those from all major religious groups, example, Buss was honored to chair a symposium political systems, and geographical locations. with the invited speakers W.D. Hamilton, George Although he had advanced the evolution-based C. Williams, Mildred Dickemann, Martin Daly, hypotheses prior to the study, Buss did not know and Napoleon Chagnon. These yearly meetings what to expect. No one had ever conducted a eventually led to the formation in 1989 of the study of that magnitude (now such large-scale Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) studies are more common due to the internet). with W.D. Hamilton serving as its first president. Prior to the study, when he asked a dozen In 1987, Buss was elected to be a fellow at the non-evolutionary scientists from different disci- Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral plines to make predictions, not a single one 4 David Buss predicted universal sex-differentiated mate pref- By far the findings that received the most atten- erences. Most expected that perhaps they might tion were the discoveries of universal sex differ- occur in western cultures, or perhaps in capitalist ences, precisely as predicted. Men more than cultures, but certainly not universally. Buss women valued cues to fertility. They placed regrets not obtaining signed predictions from greater importance on physical attractiveness. these scholars, for once the results were Appearance contains a bounty of cues to fertility, published, one common reaction was “I could which, unlike in chimpanzees, cannot be evalu- have predicted that.” ated directly due to ovulation being relatively The first wave of results was published in a concealed or cryptic in women. Men also desired target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in younger spouses, supporting a second evolution- 1989 (Buss 1989a). It received 29 commentaries based prediction. Fertility is steeply age graded from diverse scholars. Buss found universal among women, more so than among men, so desires for some mate preferences – love, mutual youth is a powerful cue to fertility and future attraction, intelligence, dependability, kindness, reproductive potential. Women more than men emotional stability, and good health. The priority universally prioritized financial resources, eco- people universally placed on love and mutual nomic prospects, and nearly universally priori- attraction surprised Buss, since he had been taught tized cues that lead to resources, such as that love was a culture-specific emotion invented ambition/industriousness and social status. by some European poets a couple hundred years These basic findings provided the first massive ago. This finding was a heart-warming surprise, cross-cultural support for a key set of evolutionary not predicted in advance of the study, and psychological hypotheses. In 1989 when they reinforced the importance of science conducted were published, evolutionary hypotheses were in the context of discovery in addition to the widely regarded as speculative, lacking an empir- context of hypothesis testing. ical basis. These findings rendered that view no The study also discovered some striking cul- longer tenable. Since 1989, these basic findings tural variability. The most variable mate prefer- have been replicating in dozens of other cultures ence was for virginity in a potential spouse. The using multiple methods. They remain among the Swedes and French, for example, did not priori- most robust psychological sex differences ever tize virginity at all. The Chinese, in contrast, documented across cultures. It was an early “suc- viewed virginity as indispensable in a spouse. cess story” for the emerging field of evolutionary Countries such as Ireland and Japan fell in psychology and helped spur others to get into the between these extremes. Although Buss had pre- field. The study became a “citation classic” and as dicted universal sex difference in the desire for of 2016 has received more than 3,600 scholarly chastity (defined as no prior experience with sex- citations. ual intercourse), based on the adaptive problem that men, but not women, face regarding paternity uncertainty, men valued it more than women in Tactics of Attraction only 62% of the cultures. The other 38% showed no sex differences. In no cultures did women Preferential represents one compo- value virginity more than man. So Buss’s nent of Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. The evolution-based hypothesis received only partial second is intrasexual competition. Qualities that confirmation, certainly not robust confirmation, lead members of one sex to best same-sex rivals which would have required universality or near gain preferential mating access to the other sex. universality. The findings also showed that evolu- Although Darwin viewed intrasexual competition tionary psychological hypotheses can be falsified, as primarily one of “contest competition,” such as contrary to the oft-repeated but scientifically inac- two stags locking horns in combat, it is now curate criticism of evolutionary psychology (see widely recognized that the logic is more Confer et al. 2010). general – whatever qualities lead to success in David Buss 5 intrasexual competition, be they physical brawn fidelity, spreading false rumors about sexually or superior social skills, increase in frequency transmitted infections, derogating a rival’s intelli- (evolve) because of the preferential sexual access gence, and questioning a rival’s sexual orientation gained by the victors. Moreover, the mate prefer- (Buss and Dedden 1990). The studies supported ences of one sex should theoretically establish the the evolution-based predictions about ground rules for intrasexual competition in the sex-differentiated tactics. Men more than women other. If women prioritize athletic prowess in a derogated their rival’s resources (e.g., “He drives mate, for example, men should compete with each a poor car.”) and physical prowess (e.g., “He told other to beat other men in athletic displays. If men others that his rival was physically weak.”). prioritize physical attractiveness and youth, then Women more than men derogated their rival’s women should compete with other women to physical appearance (e.g., “She made fun of the enhance their appearance and display cues to size and shape of her rival’s body.”) and ability to youth. remain sexually loyal (e.g., “told others that her Buss tested these hypotheses, not in 37 cul- rival slept around a lot”). tures, but in more limited studies involving col- Other interesting findings, however, were not lege students and married couples. The results predicted in advance. Women were more likely again robustly confirmed the hypotheses. More- than men, for example, to call their competitors over, Buss developed the first taxonomy of tactics emotionally unstable. Men were more likely than of mate attraction, which includes 23 distinct tac- women to question their rival’s hygiene. Again, tics, including displays of kindness, devotion, this reinforced for Buss the utility of conducting resources, grooming, physical strength, and so studies simultaneously in a bottom-up manner on (Buss 1988a; Schmitt and Buss 1996). These that allowed discoveries unanticipated, as well as studies also discovered unpredicted tactics, such a top-down manner to test a priori hypotheses. as the display of humor, a topic that has subse- quently receive much research attention and the- orizing. Although the key sex-differentiated Tactics of Mate Retention hypotheses received robust support, the unpredicted findings intrigued Buss as well and Mates gained must be retained to reap the repro- convinced him of the importance of conducting ductive potential inherent in long-term mate selec- studies in a “bottom-up” manner in the context of tion. While reading a book called The Evolution of discovery, in addition to the “top-down” manner Insect Mating System (Thornhill and Alcock in the context of testing a priori hypotheses. 1983), Buss got the idea to study the tactics by which humans guard and retain mates once they have successfully attracted them. This led to the Derogation of Competitors first set of studies on tactics of mate retention in dating couples and married couples, as well as the Because mate competition is a zero-sum game in first taxonomy of mate retention tactics (Buss which one person’s gain in mating comes at a loss 1988b; Buss and Shackelford 1997). Tactics to a rival, one can conceive of two general ranged from vigilance (e.g., “He called her at strategies – enhancing one’s own attractiveness unexpected times to see who she was with.”)to relative to rivals (tactics of attraction) and render- violence (e.g., “He hit the guy who made a pass at ing rivals less attractive to mates relative to one- his girlfriend.”). self. This logic led Buss to conduct the first Studies of the use and perceived effectiveness empirical studies of derogation of of mate retention tactics supported evolution- competitors – the tactics that people use to impugn based predictions about sex differences. Men the desirability of their rivals. He developed the more than women retained mates through first taxonomy of derogation of competitor tactics, resource displays and gifts; women more than which included 28, such as questioning a rival’s men retained mates by enhancing their physical 6 David Buss appearance. But Buss also discovered unexpected The Emotion of Jealousy and unpredicted findings. Men (both in dating couples and in married couples), for example, Jealousy is a commonly experienced emotion in were more likely to use the submission and self- romantic relationships. Yet it was largely ignored abasement tactic, contradicting the stereotype that by emotion researchers when Buss began study- women are generally more submissive than men. ing it. The pioneer emotion researcher Paul Moreover, tactics involving displays of commit- Ekman told Buss that jealousy was not really a ment, love, kindness, and caring were perceived “basic emotion,” such as fear, anger, and disgust. as much more effective at mate retention for men Instead, it was a “blend” of different emotions. than for women. These two early publications, the Moreover, jealousy lacks a distinctive facial first to break ground on human tactics of mate expression, and this criterion was central to retention, have received more than 1,000 schol- Ekman’s theory of emotions, a view that can be arly citations. A short form of the Mate Retention traced back to himself. Buss Inventory (Buss et al. 2008) is now widely used in argued that criteria for an emotion being “basic” scientific studies and has been translated into should not require a distinctive facial expression. other languages (e.g., de Miguel and Buss 2011). Indeed, only emotions whose function is signaling or communication should have distinct facial expressions (Buss 2013). Moreover, if an emotion Mate Poaching evolved for specific functions, that of contributing to the solution to specific adaptive problems, and Mate poaching – attempting to lure someone who shows convergent evidence of “special design” is already in a mating relationship for either a for those functions, then it should qualify as short-term sexual encounter or a long-term “basic.” relationship – turns out to be quite common The hundreds of prior studies published on (Schmitt and Buss 2001). This should not be jealousy contained two key problems, according surprising in that desirable potential mates are to Buss. First, most scientists viewed jealousy as a often the objects of intense interest, and so often character defect, a sign of neurosis or insecurity, end up in relationships. Relationship status, how- or as a profound pathology. Second, almost none ever, does not seem to deter all others from of the hundreds of studies on jealousy had attempting to attract them. Together with David explored whether its psychological design dif- Schmitt (Buss’ student, then colleague in a collab- fered between men and women. The two excep- oration that has now spanned more than two tions were the writings of Donald Symons (1979), decades), they conducted the first studies of who argued that sexual jealousy was a universal human mate poaching and developed a taxonomy and obligate emotion in men, whereas it was as of its main tactics. Many tactics turned out to be “facultative” or context dependent in women similar to tactics of attraction. But some are (e.g., less strongly activated in the context of unique to the mate poaching contexts, such as polygyny due to the need to get along with befriending the couple in a platonic guise. co-wives). And Daly et al. (1982) argued that Another is derogating one partner to the other men’s jealousy should focus heavily on the sexual (e.g., “He doesn’t appreciate you.” or “You are aspects of a partner’sinfidelity, whereas women’s too good for him.”), implying a mate value dis- should focus more on cues to the loss of commit- crepancy. Mate poaching represents a domain ment and resources. previously unexplored prior to the Schmitt and Following these functional views, Buss sought Buss (2001) study, and the term “mate poaching” to test hypotheses about different functional has now entered the mainstream scientific lexicon design of jealousy. He collaborated with Drew (http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/ Westen, Randy Larsen, and Jennifer Semmelroth, why-poach-anothers-mate-ask-an-expert-or- and together they discovered strong evidence for brangelina/?_r=0). hypothesized sex differences in the weighting David Buss 7 given to triggers of jealousy. They posited that that emotions such as jealousy, anger, and upset emotional infidelity was a cardinal cue to the become activated when a person’s strategy for loss of a partner’s commitment for women, achieving a goal was impeded or blocked. whereas sexual infidelity as a key cue to A strategy of securing a partner’s sexual fidelity, compromised paternity certainty. Although both for example, was impeded by attempts by mate sexes are clearly upset about both sexual and poachers or rivals trying to lure one’s partner for emotional infidelity in a partner, when forced to sex or romance. To take another example, a choose which is more upsetting the predicted sex woman’s strategy of exercising “female choice” differences emerged. Moreover, men showed about when and with whom she consents to hav- greater physiological distress to imagining a part- ing sex would be impeded by a man who pursued ner committing sexual infidelity, whereas women a strategy of sexual force or aggression. Strong showed greater physiological distress to imagin- negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, and ing a partner committing emotional infidelity upset serve several key functions, according to (Buss et al. 1992). strategic interference theory: (1) they alert some- The publication created a firestorm of reac- one to the source of the interference, (2) motivate tions. Some proposed alternative theories, action to curtail the interference, (3) help to store although the original author of one later aban- interfering events in memory, which in turn func- doned his alternative theory and instead argued tions to (4) avoid future episodes of strategic that the sex differences were methodological arti- interference. facts. Another offered an incoherent “social cog- nitive” theory that failed to explain known findings, failed to generate novel predictions, led Error Management Theory to no new empirical research, and failed to gener- ate any empirical support subsequently. The sex Jealousy turned out to be illuminated by error differences in the design of jealousy have been management theory (EMT), originally developed replicated using multiple methods – forced by Martie Haselton, Todd DeKay, and Buss choice, continuous, physiological, fMRI, and (Haselton and Buss 2000). EMT is a theory of behavioral, and among individuals who have and selection, so it can be applied to any domain of who have not experienced an actual infidelity in psychology from perception to social interaction. their relationships (Buss and Haselton 2005). The EMT logic can be stated syllogistically as follows: sex differences even show up in verbal interroga- tions of partners suspected of cheating, such as 1. We live in an uncertain world. “Do you love her?” and “Did you have sex with 2. We experience cues that are only probabilisti- him?” (Kuhle 2011). It remains among a small cally related to cost-inflicting or benefit- handful of the most robust psychological sex dif- bestowing events. ferences ever documented across multiple 3. There are two ways to err – by inferring the methods and multiple cultures. The original existence of an event when it has not in fact 1992 article has become a “citation classic” and occurred and by inferring the nonexistence of currently is one of the 30 most heavily cited article an event when it in fact has occurred. over the past 30 years in all Association for Psy- 4. If there are recurrent cost-benefit asymmetries chological Science (APS) journals. in making these two types of errors, selection will favor adaptively biased inference proce- dures that function to minimize committing the Strategic Interference Theory more costly error, even at the cost of experienc- ing more frequent inferential errors of the less Buss saw the functional emotion of jealousy as costly variety. part of two larger theories. The first was strategic interference theory (Buss 1989b). He proposed 8 David Buss

Jealousy illustrates EMT logic. Buss argued intrasexual rival murder, and coalitional killing that the cost of missing a sexual infidelity that (warfare). Simply put, killing a rival, killing a has occurred is typically greater than the cost of rival’s offspring, or killing a rival’s kin have mistakenly suspecting an infidelity when none has been extremely effective ways of inflicting mas- occurred (Buss 2000). Because infidelities are sive costs on intrasexual competitors. The accu- typically conducted underneath a cloak of inten- mulating evidence of adaptations for conspecific tional secrecy, their existence must be inferred killing in chimpanzees (Wrangham 1999) leads to from probabilistic cues. Empirical evidence sup- the conclusion that some of these homicide adap- ports EMT logic applied to jealousy and infidelity tations predate the evolution of Homo sapiens. (e.g., Buss 2000; Andrews et al. 2008). Haselton Being killed inflicts severe costs on rivals, far and Buss also used EMT to illuminate design more than merely harming them nonlethally. It features of the male sexual over-perception bias terminates any future access to their current and the female commitment skepticism bias mates and future mating opportunities. It harms (Haselton 2003; Haselton and Buss 2000). And their children, since lack of an investing parent EMT logic has been used to illuminate a raft of leaves children vulnerable to abuse and exploita- other psychological phenomena, such as the audi- tion, sexual and otherwise. It harms the entire kin tory looming bias, the vertical descent illusion, group of the victim, which becomes weakened. So and adaptive biases in a number of domains of as soon as homicide entered the human arsenal of social functioning (for a recent review, see strategies of reproductive competition, selection Haselton et al. 2016). EMT logic has also been would immediately favor adaptations to prevent invoked to explain inferential biases about homi- becoming a homicide victim. HATargues that this cidal intent (Buss 2005). set into motion a dramatic coevolutionary arms race, with finely fashioned anti-homicide defenses evolving in ratcheting fashion with ever more The Evolution of Aggression and Murder sophisticated adaptations to commit murder and ever more sophisticated defenses to prevent being Because differential reproductive success neces- murdered. sarily hinges on reproductive competition, con- Buss and Duntley recognized that their theory specifics are necessarily rivals, albeit in the is controversial; that the existence of coevolved context of some levels of intertwined reproductive homicide and anti-homicide adaptations does not fates and win-win situations (“gains in trade”) that rule out the likely possibility that some homicides select for adaptations for cooperation in certain are by-products of “slips” as Daly and Wilson put contexts. Enhancing oneself relative to rivals is it, and that the current empirical evidence cannot one generic strategy. A second is inflicting costs definitively determine the precise number and full on rivals. Buss documented these two generic design of homicide adaptations. Nonetheless, they strategies in the context of mate believe that there is sufficient evidence – from the competition – tactics of attraction and derogation paleontological skulls and skeletons riddled with of competitors. In collaboration with Joshua unmistakable marks of murder to the psycholog- Duntley, Buss extended this argument to murder. ical and behavioral footprints of “special design” They argued, contrary to the Daly-Wilson claims for murder – to conclude that it is far more likely that murder is a by-product of adaptations than not that humans have experienced a long designed for nonlethal ends (Daly and Wilson coevolutionary arms race that created adaptations 1988), that humans have adaptations for murder for murder and defenses to prevent being (Buss 2005; Buss and Duntley 1998; Duntley and murdered. Buss 2011). Homicide Adaptation Theory (HAT) proposes that humans have evolved a number of distinct homicide adaptations, such as infanticide, David Buss 9

The Evolution of Personality and on. In short, situations are defined as the adaptive Individual Differences problems encountered and the corresponding evolved psychological mechanisms that render Although most evolutionary psychologists have some clusters of cues psychologically salient and focused on universal or species-typical adapta- other information invisible. tions, Buss has made contributions to understand- This formulation, in turn, provides a powerful ing personality and individual differences within way to conceptualize person-situation interac- the broader metatheory of evolutionary psychol- tions. Person-situation interactions come in two ogy. He has argued that humans have evolved main forms: (1) the ways in which person vari- difference-detecting adaptations, personality ables, through the processes of selection, evoca- assessment mechanisms, that help to solve prob- tion, and manipulation, lead to nonrandom lems such as determining who will be a good exposure to different suites of adaptive problems cooperator (e.g., those high on agreeableness), and (2) individual differences in the strategies coalition member (e.g., bravery), or hierarchical deployed toward solving the adaptive problems ally (e.g., those high in surgency or dominance). that people nonrandomly encounter. Buss These difference-detecting adaptations also help believes that a more comprehensive evolutionary individuals to avoid those who are dispositionally psychology must include a deep understanding of cost inflicting, such as those low on agreeableness the evolution of personality and individual differ- or high on dark triad traits such as Machiavellian- ences and anticipates that these formulations may ism or narcissism. Those high in narcissism and provide starting places for doing so. impulsivity, for example, are more likely to inflict the costs on their partners through infidelity and costs on their friends through poaching their Authored Books mates. The personalities of other individuals, in short, partly define the “social adaptive land- In an effort to reach a broader audience for evolu- scape” that must be navigated (e.g., Buss 1991; tionary psychology, Buss has authored several Buss and Penke 2014). books. These include The Dangerous Passion: Buss was among the first to highlight the pos- Why Jealousy is as Necessary as Love and Sex sibility that personality traits might represent (2000), The Murderer Next Door: Why The Mind “adaptive individual differences” (Buss 1991; is Designed to Kill (2005), and Why Women Have Buss and Greiling 1999), reflecting variation Sex (2009, co-authored with Cindy Meston) over time and space of which strategies are effec- (Meston and Buss 2009). His two most influential tive. High sensation seekers, for example, might books are The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of thrive in migratory or novel environments, Human Mating (1994, 2003, 2016) and Evolu- whereas low sensation seekers might thrive in tionary Psychology: The New Science of the more sedentary environments. Mind (1998, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2015). Finally, two key issues have eluded main- The Evolution of Desire. This book represented stream personality psychology – how to define the culmination of a decade of research by Buss “situations” and how to conceptualize “person- and a conceptual synthesis of hundreds of studies situation interactions.” Buss contributed to both on human mating by other scientists. It elaborated of these issues by defining situations as adaptive on Sexual Strategies Theory (Buss and Schmitt problems, the only non-arbitrary way to define 1993) and included chapters on what women and situations from an evolutionary perspective men wanted in long-term and short-term mates, (Buss 2009a). The “situation” of confronting strategies of casual sex, tactics of attraction, cues to a partner’sinfidelity can be illuminated causes of sexual conflict and breakups, mating by identifying those cues, detecting the presence over the lifespan, and harmony between the of a mate poacher, gauging the relative mate value sexes. The book was first published in 1994; two of the mate poacher compared to self, and so new chapters were added to a new edition 10 David Buss published in 2003; and the book was totally this text, Buss helped the field of evolutionary revamped in a thoroughly updated and revised psychology to grow and flourish, educating edition, published in 2016. It has received more undergraduates, informing professors, and than 2,000 scholarly citations, has been translated attracting new scholars to the field. into ten languages, and continues to be widely used in college courses worldwide. Edited Volumes Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind While evolutionary psychology began Buss has edited six volumes, including Personal- to emerge as a cogent metatheory for psychology ity Psychology: Recent Trends, Emerging Direc- in the late 1980s and early 1990s, professors tions (Buss and Cantor 1989); Biological began to offer courses in it. There existed no Approaches to Personality (Buss 1990); Sex, textbook. One was urgently needed. After getting Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Per- encouragement from a handful of people to write spectives (Buss and Malamuth 1996); and The such a text, and being approached by publishers, Evolution of Personality and Individual Differ- Buss signed a contract. He produced the first ences (Buss and Hawley 2011). His most influen- textbook in the field in 1998. The text provided tial edited volume, however, is The Handbook of historical reviews of evolutionary theory and psy- Evolutionary Psychology (Buss 2005), logging in chological science that converged on their synthe- at more than 1,000 double-column pages and sis (Chapter 1: The Scientific Movements Leading some 35 chapters. This led to a 2nd edition of to Evolutionary Psychology) and a chapter on the the Handbook (Buss 2016), which expanded to conceptual foundations of this new science of the more than 50 chapters. Both editions contained a mind, heavily influenced by the theoretical work foreword by , a special essay by of Leda Cosmides and John Tooby (Chapter 2: Don Symons, and an afterword by Richard The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology). Dawkins. Subsequent chapters were organized logically The Handbook documented the rapidly around adaptive problems – challenges of sur- expanding use of evolutionary psychology in vival, mating, parenting, kinship, and social empirical research. It has received nearly 1,000 group living (e.g., cooperation, aggression, status scholarly citations and helped to document the hierarchies). The final chapter called for the utility of evolutionary psychology in leading to evolutionizing of all subdisciplines within psy- insights and discoveries about the human mind chology, such as cognitive, social, personality, previously unknown to social scientists. It also developmental, and clinical; reviewed evolution- documented the utility of evolutionary psychol- ary empirical work within each; and ended with a ogy for far-reaching branches of sciences and call for a unified field of psychology that eventu- humanities, including business and marketing, ally could dissolve these somewhat artificial sub- literary analysis, political science, and the legal disciplinary boundaries. profession. Adoptions of this text increased with each suc- cessive edition, despite roughly a dozen compet- ing texts appearing since 1998. Buss’ Teaching and Mentoring PhDs in Evolutionary Psychology text remains the most Evolutionary Psychology widely used textbook in evolutionary psychology worldwide. It has entered into its 5th edition in Throughout his career, Buss has devoted consid- 2015 (Buss 2015), with a 6th edition underway. It erable effort to mentoring the future generation of has been translated into half a dozen languages, scientists. Of his 27 PhD students, roughly including German, Chinese, and Arabic. And it two-thirds have obtained tenured or tenure-track has become a citation classic, with more than professorial positions. The Association of Psy- 4,000 scholarly citations as of 2016. Through chological Science (APS) honored Buss with the David Buss 11

2017 Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement. Buss, D. M. (Ed.) (1990). Biological foundations of per- His former students such as Todd Shackelford, sonality: Evolution, behavioral-genetics, and psycho- physiology. Journal of Personality. Martie Haselton, and David Schmitt, in turn, Buss, D. M. (1991). Evolutionary personality psychology. have produced a number of PhDs in evolutionary Annual Review of Psychology, 42, 459–491. psychology and themselves have made major con- Buss, D. M. (2000). The dangerous passion. New York: tributions to the field. Free Press. Buss, D. M. (2005). The murderer next door: Why the mind is designed to kill. New York: Penguin. Buss, D. M. (2009a). An evolutionary formulation of Conclusion person–situation interactions. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 241–242. Buss, D. M. (2009b). How can evolutionary psychology The quest for a true science of the human mind has successfully explain personality and individual differ- been Buss’ lifetime mission. Although more ences? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, about the human mind remains unknown than 359–366. known, some of the key foundations for a science Buss, D. M. (2013). Sexual jealousy. Psihologijske Teme, 22(2), 155–182. of the mind are now in place. Buss likes to believe Buss, D. (2015). Evolutionary psychology: The new sci- that he has contributed to the emergence of evo- ence of the mind. Hove: Psychology Press. lutionary psychology through his conceptual and Buss, D. M. (1994/2003/2016). The evolution of desire: empirical work, his authored and edited books, Strategies of human mating. New York: Basic books. Buss, D. M., & Cantor, N. (Eds.). (1989). Personality and, importantly, through his students. psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions. New York: Springer. Buss, D. M., & Dedden, L. A. (1990). Derogation of competitors. Journal of Social and Personal Relation- Cross-References ships, 7, 395–422. Buss, D. M., & Duntley, J. D. (1998, July). Evolved homi- ▶ Act Nomination Method cide modules. In Annual meeting of the human behav- ▶ Error Management Theory ior and evolution society (Vol. 10). Davis, July 1998. ▶ Buss, D. M., & Greiling, H. (1999). Adaptive individual Homicide Adaptation Theory differences. Journal of Personality, 67, 209–243. ▶ Sexual Strategies Theory Buss, D. M., & Haselton, M. (2005). The evolution of ▶ Strategic Interference Theory jealousy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 506–507. ▶ The Evolution of Desire Buss, D. M., & Hawley, P. H. (Eds.). (2011). The evolution ▶ of personality and individual differences. New York: The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology Oxford University Press. Buss, D. M., & Malamuth, N. (Eds.). (1996). Sex, power, conflict: Evolutionary and feminist perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. References Buss, D. M., & Penke, L. (2014). Evolutionary personality psychology. In R. Larsen & L. Cooper (Eds.), The APA Andrews, P. W., Gangestad, S. W., Miller, G. F., Haselton, handbook of personality and social psychology, vol- M. G., Thornhill, R., & Neale, M. C. (2008). Sex ume 4: Personality processes and individual differ- differences in detecting sexual infidelity. Human ences. Washington, DC: APA Press. Nature, 19, 347–373. Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies Buss, D. M. (1988a). The evolution of human intrasexual theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. competition: Tactics of mate attraction. Journal of Per- Psychological Review, 100, 204–232. sonality and Social Psychology, 54, 616–628. Buss, D. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). From vigilance Buss, D. M. (1988b). From vigilance to violence: Tactics of to violence: Mate retention tactics in married couples. mate retention in American undergraduates. Ethology Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, and Sociobiology, 9(5), 291–317. 346–361. Buss, D. M. (1989a). Sex differences in human mate pref- Buss, D. M., Larsen, R. J., Westen, D., & Semmelroth, erences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. J. (1992). Sex differences in jealousy: Evolution, phys- Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12,1–14. iology, and psychology. Psychological Science, 3, Buss, D. M. (1989b). Conflict between the sexes: Strategic 251–255. interference and the evocation of anger and upset. Buss, D. M., Shackelford, T. K., & McKibbin, W. F. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, (2008). The mate retention inventory-short form 735–747. 12 David Buss

(MRI-SF). Personality and Individual Differences, 44, Kuhle, B. X. (2011). Did you have sex with him? Do you 322–334. love her? An in vivo test of sex differences in jealous Confer, J. C., Easton, J. A., Fleischman, D. S., Goetz, interrogations. Personality and Individual Differences, C. D., Lewis, D. M., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. 51, 1044–1047. (2010). Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, ques- Meston, C. M., & Buss, D. M. (2009). Why women have tions, prospects, and limitations. American Psycholo- sex: Understanding sexual motivations from adventure gist, 65,110–126. to revenge (and everything in between). New York: Cosmides, L. M., & Tooby, J. (1981). Cytoplasmic inher- Macmillan. itance and intragenomic conflict. Journal of Theoreti- Schmitt, D. P., & Buss, D. M. (1996). Strategic self- cal Biology, 89(1), 83–129. promotion and competitor derogation: Sex and context Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1983). Sex, evolution, and behav- effects on the perceived effectiveness of mate attraction ior. New York: Wadsworth. tactics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York: 70, 1185–1204. Transaction Publishers. Schmitt, D. P., & Buss, D. M. (2001). Human mate Daly, M., Wilson, M., & Weghorst, S. J. (1982). Male poaching: Tactics and temptations for infiltrating sexual jealousy. Ethology and Sociobiology, 3,11–27. existing mateships. Journal of Personality and Social de Miguel, A., & Buss, D. M. (2011). Mate retention tactics Psychology, 80, 894–917. in Spain: Personality, sex differences, and relationship Symons, D. (1979). The evolution of human sexuality. status. Journal of Personality, 79, 563–586. New York: Oxford University Press. Duntley, J. D., & Buss, D. M. (2011). Homicide adapta- Thornhill, R., & Alcock, J. (1983). The evolution of insect tions. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16(5), mating systems. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 399–410. Press. Haselton, M. G. (2003). The sexual overperception bias: Tiger, L., & Fox, R. (1971). The imperial animal. Evidence of a systematic bias in men from a survey of New York: Transaction Publishers. naturally occurring events. Journal of Research in Per- Trivers, R. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selec- sonality, 37,34–47. tion. In Sexual selection & the descent of man Haselton, M. G., & Buss, D. M. (2000). Error management (pp. 136–179). New York: Aldine de Gruyter. theory: A new perspective on biases in cross-sex mind Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology: The new synthesis. reading. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Cambridge, MA: Belknap. 78,81–91. Wrangham, R. W. (1999). Evolution of coalitionary kill- Haselton, M. G., Nettle, D., & Murray, D. (2016). The ing. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 110, evolution of cognitive bias. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The 1–30. handbook of evolutionary psychology. Hoboken: Wiley.