Evolutionary Psychology (2024) 7th edition offers a comprehensive overview of how evolution has shaped the human mind.

evolutionary psychology 7th edition book cover

SUMMARY

About The Author:
David Buss is an evolutionary psychologist and researcher, currently teaching at the University of Texas. He is a widely recognized name in the field of evolutionary psychology and has authored several books, including ‘The Evolution of Desire‘, and ‘When Men Behave Badly‘.

Men’s Mating Strategies

Buss discusses how high baseline testosterone is associated with a greater interest in short-term mating strategies, especially among men.

Testosterone also moderates traits linked with short-term mating—like risk-taking, status seeking, and sexual assertiveness.

Conversely, entering committed relationships or fatherhood tends to lower testosterone, supporting long-term bonding and caregiving behaviors.

Mate Switching vs. Dual Mating Strategy

These two hypotheses attempt to explain why some women engage in short-term mating—despite the higher potential risks compared to men (e.g., pregnancy, reputation, safety).

Mate switching hypothesis suggests women may pursue short-term mates as a way to:

Replace a current mate
Test alternative partners
Secure a “backup” in case the current partner fails to provide resources or protection

In this 7th edition Buss states:

Stronger empirical supports the Mate Switching Hypothesis. It’s framed as a more functionally robust and flexible strategy, particularly:
- In contexts of relationship dissatisfaction, abuse, or neglect
- Where a woman’s current mate shows low mate value or investment

Studies show that:

Women’s short-term affairs often occur during troubled long-term relationships
These affairs precede breakups in many cases
Women sometimes “trade up” in mate value after switching

Buss emphasizes this strategy as more adaptive and behaviorally grounded, especially when parental investment theory is taken into account.

Why Dual Mating Strategy Hypothesis Is Weakened

The dual mating strategy suggests that women seek genetic benefits from high-quality men during peak fertility, while maintaining pair bonds with reliable but lower-quality partners.

This theory originally drew on:

Ovulatory shift research: Women’s preferences change near ovulation (e.g., more attracted to masculine, symmetrical men)
Infidelity during fertile windows as a covert strategy to secure “good genes”

Buss presents DMSH with caution in the 7th edition.
Despite the initial appeal and seeming logic of this theory, Buss:

Acknowledges the replication crisis in ovulatory shift research.
Notes mixed and weak support for key assumptions (e.g., that women reliably shift preferences or behavior during ovulation).
The empirical foundation for DMSH has eroded, especially as meta-analyses show weak effects and newer studies have failed to consistently replicate earlier findings.

Conclusion:

The Mate Switching Hypothesis is Buss’ favored explanation for women’s short-term mating, while the Dual Mating Strategy is treated as more speculative and less empirically solid.
And the argument and evidence presented back Buss’ take.

Sperm Competition May Be Real

We strongly criticized Sperm Warms on this website, and still believe the criticism is valid for the less-than-scientific approach.

However, Buss lends some support to sperm competition, discussing:

Physiological adaptations: e.g., volume of ejaculate based on time apart from partner
Men’s sperm delivery strategies (e.g., deeper thrusting, quicker ejaculation) vary in response to cues of female infidelity or absence (new evidence in the 7th edition)

Sperm competition is a component of short-term mating theory, especially from the male adaptation side.

🙋‍♂️Lucio’s Take: why I have doubts regarding sperm competition

Lucio:
Sperm competition is a fascinating topic.
Buss and newer studies convinced me to assign it more weight to its potential impact in humans than I had previously thought.

Still, several important questions remain—questions that, for now, limit how much I believe sperm competition truly shaped human evolution:

Pair bonding is a powerful evolutionary tool that reduces the need for sperm competition in the first place.
Universal expectations for loyalty add emotional and social controls that restrict women’s freedom to “sperm shop”—especially in our evolutionary past. A woman would have to hide not just from her partner, but also from his kin, allies, and possibly the tribe as a whole.
Female mate choice sidesteps sperm competition altogether. While some women pursue sex for its own sake, more restrained and conscious female choosers who pick and stick with a partner still limit the scope for post-mating competition.
Biology 1 – Timing: It can take less than an hour for sperm to reach the egg. Even if we allow for a few hours or a day, that short window places a major constraint on the opportunity for sperm to compete.
Biology 2 – Egg bottlenecks: The egg is a bigger bottleneck than sperm. Most healthy men have enough viable sperm to fertilize an egg. If the egg is the bottleneck, the human system simply doesn’t lend itself to discriminating against sperm

Unless these points are more fully addressed, I remain cautious about assigning sperm competition a major role in human evolution. And in modernity, it may happen less ‘in nature’ and more in sperm bank labs.

Mating Budgets

Mating budgets are part of the exchange model of dating.
The mating budget framework applies economic principles to mate selection.

It asks:

If you had a limited budget to “spend” on a mate, how would you allocate your priorities?

Buss uses this framework to distinguish between:

Women typically list resource acquisition ability, emotional stability, and kindness as necessities. Traits like muscularity, height, or humor tend to fall into the luxury category.
Men typically rate physical attractiveness and youth as necessities, while status, education, and shared interests are often considered luxuries.

This model helps explain:

Why mate preferences are not absolute (they adjust based on constraints)
Why high-status individuals can afford to be choosier (they have more mating “budget”)
Why lower-status individuals may feel frustrated if they prioritize luxuries without securing necessities

Also see:

Attachment Styles Make Evolutionary Sense

Similar to what we first learned in the Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology and Romantic Relationships in which Buss also penned a chapter:

1. Secure Attachment

Evolutionary advantage: Promotes exploration + safety
Typically results from responsive, consistent caregiving
Associated with:
- Greater trust
- Effective long-term bonding
- Higher likelihood of pursuing long-term mating strategies as adults

2. Anxious Attachment

May evolve in environments with inconsistent caregiving
Strategy: Stay close to caregivers (clingy, hyper-vigilant)
In adulthood:
- More jealousy
- Mate guarding
- Strong emotional needs
- Risk of short-term mating when seeking validation or fear of abandonment

3. Avoidant Attachment

Adaptive in contexts where caregivers are neglectful or unresponsive
Strategy: Self-reliance, emotional detachment
In adulthood:
- Reluctance to commit
- More open to short-term, low-investment mating
- Less parental investment

Buss doesn’t treat these as disorders, but as conditional strategies calibrated to the environment—a classic evolutionary-developmental approach.

Suicide Is Rrelated to Lower Reproductive Odds

Suicide, together with homosexuality, has often been listed as an evolutionary conundrum.

Buss proposes an explanation linked to reproductive odds, and whether one can add value, or take value from kins:

Individuals with low reproductive potential (e.g., who perceive that they are not attractive to members of the opposite sex) and high burdensomeness-to-kin reported more suicidal ideation, as well as more depression and hopelessness.

It’s important to note though that the impact of reproductive optential and burdensomeness seemed evident, but not a complete explanation.

Cooperative Alliances

The foundational concept is that helping others can be adaptive, as long as there’s a return.
In other words:

If I help you today, you’ll help me tomorrow, and we’re both better off.

For this to work, three conditions need to be in place:

Frequent interaction between individuals
Memory of past behavior (so you can tell who’s a good partner)
Ability to withhold help from cheaters

Buss describes this as the evolutionary logic behind friendship, especially in ancestral environments where interdependence often meant the difference between survival and death.

Trust, Cheating, and Game Theory

The chapter uses game theory to explain how cooperation evolves and breaks down.

Buss says:

Tit-for-tat is an evolutionarily stable strategy—cooperate first, then mirror your partner’s behavior. This allows cooperation while punishing cheaters.
Long-term relationships and repeated interactions increase the success of cooperation. That’s why real friendships require time and trust to develop.

Prestige and Reputation

Reputation matters.
People are more likely to cooperate with individuals who are:

Seen as generous
Known for fairness
Associated with high social status or prestige

Prestige isn’t just about dominance—it’s about being respected and chosen as a role model. Buss ties this into how people:

Promote their good deeds (even subtly)
Avoid behaviors that would brand them as exploitative or selfish

In short, your reputation is your social capital, and it can attract allies, mates, and protection.

Friendship as Strategy

Friendship, then, is more than just emotional—it’s strategic.
The book explains that:

Individuals choose friends with valuable traits (e.g., skills, loyalty, generosity)
Alliances shift when resources or status change
People often dissolve friendships after betrayal or freeloading

Status, Prestige, and Social Dominance

Humans go to extraordinary lengths to protect their status and avoid shame.

Whether it’s falsifying credentials or striving for respect, status is a universal motive in every known society (Anderson, Hildreth, & Howland, 2015).
People even choose death over a ruined reputation, highlighting status’s primal importance (Vonasch et al., 2017).

Studies show hierarchies form fast—within minutes in small groups—and people can predict their place in a new group just by sizing up others (Fisek & Ofshe, 1970; Kalma, 1991).

How Dominance Hierarchies Emerge

Dominance hierarchies are emergent outcomes of individual interactions.

And they apply across species because of their evolutionary logic:

hierarchies save individuals’ energy and minimize harm by letting animals assess their strength and act accordingly—dominant ones secure most resources and mates, while subordinates avoid costly battles (Pinker, 1997).

Evolutionary Theories of Status

The chapter explores two paths:

Dominance (force or threat)
Prestige (freely given respect for skills or generosity) (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001)

A bully might dominate through fear, while a skilled hunter earns prestige through admiration.

A newer theory argues competence—whether in fighting, leadership, or knowledge—is the root of both (Chapais, 2015).

Prestige often comes from costly signaling, like sharing food or donating publicly, which boosts reputation only when others notice (Bereczkei, Birkas, & Kerekes, 2007).

Leadership and the Service-for-Prestige Theory

Leadership evolves from reciprocal exchange: leaders provide skills like organization or wisdom, and followers grant prestige in return (Price & van Vugt, 2014).

Preferred leaders are competent, generous, and fair—though “fairness” varies.
This dynamic explains why groups rally behind leaders who solve problems, from hunting to conflict resolution (van Vugt, 2006).

Also interesting is the difference between contributors and ‘lower contributors’:

High contributors want equity (rewards based on effort), while low contributors prefer equality (equal shares regardless of effort).
You can always count on a scrounger to be a socialist :)

Sex Differences in Status-Striving

Men evolved stronger status-seeking motives due to reproductive stakes.

Such as, higher status men gain more mates and leave more offspring. Modern data confirms high-status men have more sexual partners and children, even in monogamous societies (Perusse, 1993).

Women also seek status, but often through subtler, prestige-based tactics, like nurturing or community roles, and their status often ties to physical attractiveness (Buss et al., 2020; Blake, 2022b).

Dominance Theory and Cognitive Strategies

Denise Cummins’s dominance theory argues humans evolved cognitive tools to navigate hierarchies (Cummins, 1998).

Kids as young as 3 show deontic reasoning—understanding rules about permissions and obligations—and check for rule-breakers, especially among lower-status peers. We also remember low-status cheaters better, suggesting our brains are wired to monitor hierarchy dynamics (Mealey, Daood, & Krage, 1996).

Social Attention-Holding Theory

Paul Gilbert’s theory focuses on emotions in hierarchies (Gilbert, 1990). Winning boosts elation and helping behavior, while losing triggers anxiety, shame, rage, envy, or depression.

These emotions motivate action: shame pushes us to avoid scorn, envy drives imitation or derogation, and pride fuels status-seeking (Sznycer et al., 2017).
Even nonverbal cues, like a victor’s raised arms, signal triumph across cultures (Matsumoto & Hwang, 2012).

Indicators of Dominance

Buss highlights that we’re lacking a comprehensive theory of indicators of dominance and how we appraise it.

But almost common knowledge signals likely include:

Confident posture: cominant people stand tall, speak loudly, gaze directly, and gesture confidently (Argyle, 1994)
Low-pitched voices, seen as dominant, and CEOs often have deeper voices (Puts, Gaulin, & Verdolini, 2006; Mayew, Parsons, & Venkatachalam, 2013)
Testosterone (T) and serotonin correlate with dominance in men, rising after wins and falling after losses, though causality is unclear (Mazur, 2005; McGuire & Troisi, 1998).
Physical size still matters—tall men are hired, promoted, and elected more often (Gillis, 1982).

Other correlates of dominance across cultures include:

Athleticism
Intelligence
Physical attractiveness
Humorousness
Good grooming

Self-Esteem as a Status Tracker

Self-esteem acts as a “sociometer,” gauging how much others value us (Leary & Downs, 1995).

High status boosts self-esteem, while rejection lowers it, motivating us to repair relationships or seek new ones (Barkow, 1989).
It also guides decisions about who to challenge or submit to, preventing costly missteps in the hierarchy (Mahadevan et al., 2023).

Submissive Strategies

Yes, as we claimed on this website, submissiveness and passive communication style can be strategies.

Appeasing negotiation: Women use appeasement gestures (e.g., smiling) more than men when negotiating with gatekeepers like nightclub doormen (Salter, Grammer, & Rikowski, 2005).

“Deceiving down”—lowering self-confidence to seem nonthreatening—may help subordinates avoid dominant wrath (Hartung, 1987)

Subordinates also derogate “tall poppies” (successful peers), taking pleasure in their downfall, especially if their success seems undeserved (Feather, 1994).

Practical Takeaways for Navigating Status in Everyday Life

Leverage Competence for Prestige: Build and showcase skills that others value—whether public speaking, problem-solving, or generosity—to earn respect without resorting to force (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001).
Mind Your Signals: Stand tall, speak confidently, and maintain eye contact to project dominance, but balance it with prosocial acts to avoid seeming selfish (Argyle, 1994; Buss et al., 2020).
Protect Your Reputation: Public acts of altruism boost your status, but only if others see it (Bereczkei, Birkas, & Kerekes, 2007).
Know When to Submit: Submissive strategies, like smiling or deferring, can help you navigate powerful gatekeepers or bide time for better opportunities (Salter, Grammer, & Rikowski, 2005).
Monitor Your Sociometer: Pay attention to your self-esteem—it’s a clue to how others perceive you. If it dips, strengthen social bonds or seek new groups (Leary & Downs, 1995).

Learn more here:

What’s social status and why it matters to you

Social Status: What It Is, Why It Matters, How to Master It

Updates of 7th Edition

Dark Triad and Short-Term Mating

The 7th edition doubles down on newer personality research, particularly:

Dark Triad traits linked to exploitative short-term mating strategies

The empirical foundation is clearer now: individuals high in Dark Triad traits are more likely to engage in sexual coercion, infidelity, and deceptive mating strategies. This area has exploded in research since the last edition.

Correction of the Kin Altruism Hypothesis for Homosexuality

The 6th edition presented the Kin Selection Theory as a leading contender for explaining male homosexuality (i.e., gay men increase their inclusive fitness by investing in kin).
The 7th edition challenges this view, citing weak support and preferring the Female Fertility Hypothesis (homosexuality persists because it’s linked to higher reproductive success in female relatives).

My Mote: Neither of these two hypotheses is very convincing to me.
Evolutionary psychology sometimes looks for neat explanations for evertyhing, even ‘evolutionary noise’ and random fluctuations that maybe just that: random.

Stronger Emphasis on Domain-General Mechanisms

Traditionally, evolutionary psychology has emphasized domain-specific modules (e.g., jealousy module, cheater-detection module).

But the 7th edition introduces greater appreciation for flexible, domain-general tools, such as:

General intelligence as an adaptive problem-solver
Learning and imitation in unstable environments
Cognitive flexibility in dealing with novel, modern mismatches

This addition feels like an intellectual maturing of the author and field.
Not abandoning modularity, but embracing a more integrative model.

Extra Case Studies, Data, and Real-World Applications

Coverage of “evolutionary mismatches,” discrepancies between modern environments and the ancestral environments in which humans evolved, is expanded.
Modern environment of internet dating, people search on computer or smartphone screens through hundreds or thousands of potential mates who could live anywhere—one example from a list of eight evolutionary mismatches in the domain of mating.
Female hunters challenging the narrative of large-game hunting as primarily a male activity. Recent evidence suggests that women may have played a far more active role in hunting than previously believed, a topic actively debated in the scientifi c community.
High scores on disgust may protect against different pathogens from the outgroup, potentially explaining why more easily disgusted people are more prejudiced toward outgroups
Men eat more meat. A study of 23 cultures found that men consumed more meat than did women in all of them, and women are more likely to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Fear is an evolutionarily ancient emotion. Sea slugs, moths, mammals, and primates all experience fear, suggesting that it dates back to at least 700 million years ago in the evolution of life on earth.
Physical attractiveness is linked with good immune functioning.
Higher-income and education are attractive: A study of 1.8 million online daters from 24 diferent countries found that men high in resource acquisition ability, as measured by stated income and level of education, received dramatically more positive responses from women.
Bisexuality is increasing in women. Recent studies point to a larger percentage of women who identify as bisexual
Incels always existed, but there may be more because of ‘evolutionary mismatches’ with dating apps rewarding top men the most. However, Buss points out that incels may also be overstating their comparative lack of options by comparing themselves to famous social media personalities
Children run away to get more investment: Offspring use a strategy of withholding cooperation from parents, such as socially withdrawing or running away from home, as a means to elicit greater investment from parents
My note: it may also help dissuade parents from having more children, thus monopolizing their investment. However, a lot of times, it may just be a troubled personality more than a ‘strategy’
Everyone prioritizes honesty in friends; displays of dishonesty are friendship deal-breakers.
Peer aggression increases status and popularity as young as the elementary school years.
Self-esteem tracks status: Lab experiments that increased a person’s status caused an increase in self-esteem, suggesting that self-esteem does indeed track social status.
Dark Triad men are more prone to sexual infidelity (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy)
We lost some odor sensitivity: because agriculture made odor detection less important, leading to a lower genetic sensitivity
Female hunters: Archaeological findings challenge the notion that hunting was exclusively male—now presented as a topic of ongoing debate.
Social media lowers female self-esteem

🙋🏼‍♂️ Lucio’s Analysis

The book is great and Buss is a top scientist, so consider these as personal and smaller notes that take little away from Evolutionary Psychology:

Effect sizes & sample sizes should be disclosed more often

This isn’t just Buss, but a criticism I have for many handbooks and textbooks, including in evolutionary psychology.

There is a tendency to share the outcome of a study and generalize with sentences like ‘men are more’, without disclosing the effect sizes.

However, if you checked the specific study, sometimes the sample was small.

And if you check the effect sizes of gender differences, they’re also sometimes very small and the overlap between gender may as telling as the difference.

I wished for more disclosure of effect sizes.

Possible overemphasis on income and education on men’s attractiveness

Says Buss:

In online dating, for example, a small percentage of men, typically those with higher incomes and more education, attract hundreds of women; many men receive few responses or none at all (Jonason & Thomas, 2022).

I took a cursory look at the study, and it seems to focus on resource-acquisition ability only.

However, online dating is heavily appearance-driven, especially in the early stages of matching. Based on both personal experience and years of coaching, I’d be surprised if education plays a larger role than physical attractiveness when it comes to initial interest.

This is worth noting because much of the research in this area relies on questionnaires and self-reports, which in my view tend to downplay the role of looks, social dominance, and social/dating skills, while overemphasizing prosocial traits like kindness.

Could the 7th edition have waited?

You know how it is, Buss writes a new book, I must read it (or listen to it).

But after only 5 years after the 6th edition, it’s a fair question.

Several new updates are interesting, and especially the expanded coverage of status made it worth it for me.
But a few years more wouldn’t hurt.

The incel phenomena has more explanations

I applaud Buss for engaging with more recent trend and phenomena and using their vernacular name.

And his analysis, as it’s often the case, is on point.
However, I believe there are even more, and potentially deeper explanations for the possible increase of ‘involuntary celibates’, including:

Women’s empowerment, making lower-status men less appealing to them
Libertine dating increase, reducing the number of monogamous pair bonding marriages

These are larger trends that have been ongoing for decades and accelerated recently.
Online dating gave a new outlet and a possible boost to these underlying trends.

Mate switching ‘VS‘ dual mating strategy?

There seems to be a tendency to view these two models as opposing and mutually exclusive.

I understand that there is ‘much at stake’ and that many men are keenly interested in women’s infidelity—evolutionary psychology itself explains why.

But while I agree with Buss that ‘mate switching’ seems a better explanation in most cases, it seems to me this issue has overly divided researchers into one camp or the other.
I see them as both valid.
Whichever best explains infidelity depends on the context.

Furthermore, a recent podcast by Macken Murphy strengthened the case for the dual mating strategy with what seemed like credible and recent evidence.

I’d advise sticking to evidence-based sources (less Pinker)

The author referenced and quoted Steven Pinker several times, including Pinker’s book How the Mind Works.

And while Pinker certainly doesn’t lack clout and popularity, I found his otherwise excellent books to be less evidence-based compared to some other researchers, and more opinion-based.

For example, Buss explains why status hierarchies evolved quoting Pinker.
However, I didn’t think Pinker offered a comprehensive explanation and I had many unanswered questions (eg.: what’s in it for the low-status individuals to accept the hierarchy? How do hierarchies become ‘evolutionary stable’?).
I had to look elsewhere to better understand how social hierarchies can become evolutionarily stable.

Caution against overextending evolutionary explanations

You know the saying: when you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Evolution is a powerful explanatory tool—but precisely because of that, there’s a risk of using it to explain everything, even when chance and randomness may be the ‘answer’.

Take this passage, for example:

Sensitivity to the odors produced by plants and animals was essential for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. With the advent of agriculture, odor detection became less important, leading to a lower genetic sensitivity to the odors of plants and animals.

To me, this feels overly mechanistic.

Yes, odor sensitivity may have become less crucial. But the fact that we lost some of it may just be a random walk down the evolutionary path. Reduced importance doesn’t necessarily lead to trait loss. It just reduces the selective pressure to maintain it.

Run the evolutionary dice another million times, and I’m sure that in some variations, we don’t lose much olfactory sensitivity. If it’s not vital to keep, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we were bound to lose it.

PROS

Epistemic caution

And more clarity.
The 7th edition seemed more careful to distinguish between what’s well-supported and what’s speculative, and I liked that.

Greater interdisciplinary openness, including cultural evolution

Borrowing more from anthropology, behavioral genetics, and cultural evolution, quoting both Doyle and Henrich.
I loved that and was curious to see if Buss had taken note of Henrich’s recent work.

Review

Evolutionary Psychology by David Buss stands as a rigorous, current, and expansive overview of human nature through the lens of evolution and remains the best overview of evolutionary psychology I’ve studied.

It comes just 5 years after the previous 6th edition, so while the changes are not massive, it still provides the most updated overview of the discipline.

I particularly loved the chapter on status—it’s a rich, well-researched section that will serve as a valuable resource for future status-related articles on this site.

Overall, I am grateful to Buss and his work. He made our articles and products more grounded, more rigorous, and ultimately more effective.