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Contempt is typically studied as a uniquely human moral emotion. However, this approach has yielded inconclusive results. We argue this is because the folk affect concept “contempt” has been inaccurately mapped onto basic affect systems. “Contempt” has features that are inconsistent with a basic emotion, especially its protracted duration and frequently cold phenomenology. Yet other features are inconsistent with a basic attitude. Nonetheless, the features of “contempt” functionally cohere. To account for this, we revive and reconfigure thesentimentconstruct using the notion (...) of evolved functional specialization. We develop the Attitude–Scenario–Emotion (ASE) model of sentiments, in which enduring attitudes represent others' social-relational value and moderate discrete emotions across scenarios. Sentiments are functional networks of attitudes and emotions. Distinct sentiments, includinglove,respect,like,hate, andfear, track distinct relational affordances, and each is emotionally pluripotent, thereby serving both bookkeeping and commitment functions within relationships. The sentimentcontemptis an absence ofrespect; from cues to others' low efficacy, it represents them as worthless and small, mutingcompassion,guilt, andshameand potentiatinganger,disgust, andmirth. This sentiment is ancient yet implicated in the ratcheting evolution of human ultrasocialty. The manifolds of thecontemptnetwork, differentially engaged across individuals and populations, explain the features of “contempt,” its translatability, and its variable experience as “hot” or “cold,” occurrent or enduring, and anger-like or disgust-like. This rapprochement between psychological anthropology and evolutionary psychology contributes both methodological and empirical insights, with broad implications for understanding the functional and cultural organization of social affect. (shrink)

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Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable (...) if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement. (shrink)

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Across taxa, strength and size are elementary determinants of relative fighting capacity; in species with complex behavioral repertoires, numerous additional factors also contribute. When many factors must be considered simultaneously, decision-making in agonistic contexts can be facilitated through the use of a summary representation. Size and strength may constitute the dimensions used to form such a representation, such that tactical advantages or liabilities influence the conceptualized size and muscularity of an antagonist. If so, and given the continued importance of physical (...) strength in human male-male conflicts, a man’s own strength will influence his conceptualization of the absolute size and strength of an opponent. In the research reported here, male participants’ chest compression strength was compared with their estimates of the size and muscularity of an unfamiliar potential antagonist, presented either as a supporter of a rival sports team (Study 1, conducted in urban California, and Study 2, conducted in rural Fiji) or as a man armed with a handgun (Study 3, conducted in rural Fiji). Consistent with predictions, composite measures of male participants’ estimates of the size/strength of a potential antagonist were inversely correlated with the participant’s own strength. Therefore, consonant with a history wherein violent intrasexual selection has acted on human males, a man’s own physical strength influences his representations of potential antagonists. (shrink)

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For decades, intensive research on emotion has advanced general theories of culture and cognition. Yet few theories can comfortably accommodate both the regularities and variation empirically manifest in affective phenomena around the world. One recent theoretical model (Gervais & Fessler, 2017) aims to do so. The Attitude-Scenario-Emotion (ASE) model of sentiments specifies an evolved psychological architecture that potentiates regular variation in affective experience and behavior in lived interaction with social, ecological and normative contexts. This model holds that sentiments – functional (...) networks of bookkeeping attitudes and commitment emotions – produce context-dependent universals in salient social-relational experiences, predictably patterning affect concepts. The present research aims to empirically evaluate implications of the ASE model of sentiments using quantitative data from 10 months of fieldwork in Indigenous iTaukei villages on Yasawa Island, Fiji. Study 1 is a series of structured interviews that aim to elicit the full breadth of the Yasawan affect lexicon. In freelists and sentence frames, Yasawans use distinct sets of terms to refer to “feelings about” particular people (attitudes), and “feelings because of” particular events (emotions). Study 2 uses a pile sort task to show that the salient features of Yasawan affective experience are social-relational dimensions of communion and power, while both HCA and MDS reveal distinct social attitudes – “love” (lomani) and “like’ (taleitaki), “respect” (dokai), “contempt” (beci), “hate” (sevaki), and “fear” (rerevaki) – anchoring the conceptual organization of Yasawan emotions. Study 3 uses hypothetical vignettes with a between-subjects attitude manipulation and Likert-style emotion ratings to show that these attitudes differentially moderate emotions across social scenarios; differences are both quantitative and qualitative; each attitude is emotionally pluripotent; and divergent attitudes (e.g., “love” and “hate”) produce the same emotions in starkly different situations – a predicted three-way interaction of attitude x scenario x emotion. These data are broadly consistent with ASE hypotheses; population variation in affective worlds may follow from differential engagement of universal attitude-emotion networks (sentiments) experienced across social, ecological and normative contexts. (shrink)

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Cook et al. laudably call for careful comparative research into the development of mirror neurons. However, they do so within an impoverished evolutionary framework that does not clearly distinguish ultimate and proximate causes and their reciprocal relations. As a result, they overlook evidence for the reliable develop of mirror neurons in biological and cultural traits evolved to work through them.

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The target article argues that contempt is a sentiment, and that sentiments are the deep structure of social affect. The 26 commentaries meet these claims with a range of exciting extensions and applications, as well as critiques. Most significantly, we reply that construction and emergence are necessary for, not incompatible with, evolved design, while parsimony requires explanatory adequacy and predictive accuracy, not mere simplicity.

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We question whether the postulated revenge and forgiveness systems constitute true adaptations. Revenge and forgiveness are the products of multiple motivational systems and capacities, many of which did not exclusively evolve to support deterrence. Anger is more aptly construed as an adaptation that organizes independent mechanisms to deter transgressors than as the mediator of a distinct revenge adaptation.

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