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It is widely agreed that humans must reduce their environmental impact. We propose that an improved understanding of our evolved human nature can help to improve programs and policies to address environmental problems. Combining evolutionary and social psychological approaches, we argue that environmental problems are often caused or exacerbated by five evolutionarily adaptive psychological biases: Humans (1) value personal over collective outcomes (self-interest), (2) prefer immediate over delayed rewards (shortsightedness), (3) value relative over absolute status (status), (4) copy the behaviors of others (social imitation), and (5) ignore problems that we cannot see or feel (sensing). By considering how and why these five 'Stone Age' biases continue to influence modern environmental practices, although acknowledging the role of individual and cultural differences, we present novel ways that human nature can be harnessed to develop intervention strategies to lessen resource depletion, restrain wasteful consumption, curb overpopulation, and foster green choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Most research on consumer choice assumes that decisions are usually made by individuals, and that these decisions are based on an individual''s personal attitudes, beliefs, and preferences. Yet, much consumer behavior—from joint decisions to individual choices—is directly or indirectly shaped by people with whom we have some relationship. In this target article, we examine how each member in a relationship can affect how consumer decisions are made. After reviewing foundational work in the area, we introduce a powerful and statistically sophisticated methodology to study decisions within relationships—a dyadic framework of decision-making. We then discuss how the study of consumer decisions in relationships can be informed by different theories in the relationships field, including attachment, interdependence, social power, communal/exchange orientations, relationship norms, and evolutionary principles. By building on the seminal foundations of prior joint-decision making research with theories and methods from contemporary relationship science, we hope to facilitate the integration of the consumer and relationships literature to better understand and generate novel hypotheses about consumer decisions in relationships. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

According to a recent evolutionary life history model of development proposed by Ellis, Figueredo, Brumbach, and Schlomer (2009), growing up in harsh versus unpredictable environments should have unique effects on life history strategies in adulthood. Using data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation, we tested how harshness and unpredictability experienced in early childhood (age 0-5) versus in later childhood (age 6-16) uniquely predicted sexual and risky behavior at age 23. Findings showed that the strongest predictor of both sexual and risky behavior was an unpredictable environment between ages 0 and 5. Individuals exposed to more unpredictable, rapidly changing environments during the first 5 years of life displayed a faster life history strategy at age 23 by having more sexual partners, engaging in more aggressive and delinquent behaviors, and being more likely to be associated with criminal activities. In contrast, exposure to either harsh environments or experiencing unpredictability in later childhood (age 6-16) was, for the most part, not significantly related to these outcomes at age 23. Viewed together, these findings show that unpredictable rather than merely harsh childhood environments exert unique effects on risky behavior later in life consistent with a faster life history strategy. The findings also suggest that there is a developmentally sensitive period for assessing environmental unpredictability during the first 5 years of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can evolved human nature be leveraged to help eliminate or alleviate environmental problems? The authors examine the evolutionary bases of destructive and ecologically damaging human behavior. They propose that many modern environmental and social problems are caused or exacerbated by five adaptive tendencies rooted in evolutionary history: (1) propensity for self-interest, (2) motivation for relative rather than absolute status, (3) proclivity to unconsciously copy others, (4) predisposition to be shortsighted, and (5) proneness to disregard impalpable concerns. By considering the evolutionary processes that produced these tendencies, the authors present ways that marketers, policy makers, and social entrepreneurs can harness evolved human tendencies to lessen or even eradicate environmental and social problems. From an evolutionary perspective, optimally effective influence strategies must work with humans' evolved tendencies, rather than ignoring them or working against them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research shows that women experience nonconscious shifts across different phases of the monthly ovulatory cycle. For example, women at peak fertility (near ovulation) are attracted to different kinds of men and show increased desire to attend social gatherings. Building on the evolutionary logic behind such effects, we examined how, why, and when hormonal fluctuations associated with ovulation influenced women's product choices. In three experiments, we show that at peak fertility women nonconsciously choose products that enhance appearance (e.g., choosing sexy rather than more conservative clothing). This hormonally regulated effect appears to be driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women. Consequently, minimizing the salience of attractive women who are potential rivals suppresses the ovulatory effect on product choice. This research provides some of the first evidence of how, why, and when consumer behavior is influenced by hormonal factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Restrictive eating attitudes and behaviors have been hypothesized to be related to processes of intrasexual competition. According to this perspective, within-sex competition for status serves the adaptive purpose of attracting mates. As such, status competition salience may lead to concerns of mating desirability. For heterosexual women and gay men, such concerns revolve around appearing youthful and, thus, thinner. Following this logic, we examined how exposure to high-status and competitive (but not thin or highly attractive) same-sex individuals would influence body image and eating attitudes in heterosexual and in gay/lesbian individuals. Results indicated that for heterosexuals, intrasexual competition cues led to greater body image dissatisfaction and more restrictive eating attitudes for women, but not for men. In contrast, for homosexual individuals, intrasexual competition cues led to worse body image and eating attitudes for gay men, but not for lesbian women. These findings support the idea that the ultimate explanation for eating disorders is related to intrasexual competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the results of research on the ways in which different types of positive emotion can affect the purchasing decisions of consumers. It focuses on the differences in shopping patterns associated with feelings of self-esteem or contentment. Details of the research protocol are provided, which involved three studies in which the subjects rated the desirability of products following exposure to emotional stimuli. It was found that feeling proud stimulated interest in status and display-oriented products, whereas feeling contented caused a greater interest in home goods.

Maslow's pyramid of human needs, proposed in 1943, has been one of the most cognitively contagious ideas in the behavioral sciences. Anticipating later evolutionary views of human motivation and cognition, Maslow viewed human motives as based in innate and universal predispositions. We revisit the idea of a motivational hierarchy in light of theoretical developments at the interface of evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology. After considering motives at three different levels of analysis, we argue that the basic foundational structure of the pyramid is worth preserving, but that it should be buttressed with a few architectural extensions. By adding a contemporary design feature, connections between fundamental motives and immediate situational threats and opportunities should be highlighted. By incorporating a classical element, these connections can be strengthened by anchoring the hierarchy of human motives more firmly in the bedrock of modern evolutionary theory. We propose a renovated hierarchy of fundamental motives that serves as both an integrative framework and a generative foundation for future empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is ample evidence of the power of social influence on pro-environmental behaviors. Beliefs about the conservation behavior of others (descriptive normative beliefs) have a strong positive correlation with one's own conservation actions. However, this relationship has not been investigated much further in terms of possible moderators or involved mechanisms of information processing. The present study examines two potential moderators and draws links to underlying processing mechanisms. We hypothesized that personal involvement with conservation issues and beliefs about other's approval of conservation (injunctive normative beliefs) would moderate the relationship between descriptive normative beliefs and conservation behavior. The sample consisted of 1604 California residents that were recruited through random digit telephone dialing. Results showed that both injunctive normative beliefs and personal involvement moderated the relationship between descriptive normative beliefs and conservation behavior. High personal involvement weakened the relationship, whereas high injunctive normative beliefs strengthened it. We conclude from these findings that descriptive normative beliefs influence conservation behavior through a rather nonconscious, peripheral route of information processing, while personal involvement motivates a more elaborate, central route of information processing. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do people purchase proenvironmental "green" products? We argue that buying such products can be construed as altruistic, since green products often cost more and are of lower quality than their conventional counterparts, but green goods benefit the environment for everyone. Because biologists have observed that altruism might function as a "costly signal" associated with status, we examined in 3 experiments how status motives influenced desire for green products. Activating status motives led people to choose green products over more luxurious nongreen products. Supporting the notion that altruism signals one's willingness and ability to incur costs for others' benefit, status motives increased desire for green products when shopping in public (but not private) and when green products cost more (but not less) than nongreen products. Findings suggest that status competition can be used to promote proenvironmental behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Because women''s preferences for male masculinity reflect tradeoffs between the benefits of greater genetic health and the costs of lower paternal investment, variables that affect the importance of these costs and benefits also affect masculinity preferences. Concern about disease and pathogens may be one such variable. Here we show that disgust sensitivity in the pathogen domain is positively correlated with facial masculinity preferences, but disgust sensitivity in the moral and sexual domains is not. Our findings present novel evidence that systematic variation in women''s preferences for masculine men reflects factors that influence how women resolve the tradeoff between the benefits and costs associated with choosing a masculine partner. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Social psychology theory can be applied to such mundane purposes as encouraging guests to reuse their washroom towels. In contrast to the appeals now in use to persuade guests to reuse their towels, research found that applying the norm of reciprocation and the descriptive norm for proenvironmental action improved guests' participation in one hotel's towel-reuse program. The implication is that such research can also be applied to other areas of hotel operation to benefit businesses, consumers, and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The primary purpose of our target article was to stimulate further interest in and research on consumer decision-making in close relationships. In this response, we discuss some of the major comments provided by each set of commentators by highlighting their main points, clarifying some misconceptions, and explaining why our dyadic framework is a logical starting-point for research on how relationships affect consumer decisions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Parenting has been a central activity throughout human history, yet little research has examined the parental care motivation system on preferences and decision-making. Because successful parenting involves caring for both a child's immediate and long-term needs, we consider whether parenting motivation leads people to focus more on the present or on the future. A series of five experiments reveals that parenting motivation activates gender-specific stereotypes of parental roles, leading men to be more future-focused and women to be more present-focused. These shifts in temporal focus produce gender differences in temporal preferences, as manifested in intertemporal decisions (preferences for smaller, immediate rewards vs. larger, future ones) and attitudes toward a marketplace entity with inherent temporal tradeoffs (i.e. rent-to-own businesses). Reversing gender role stereotypes also reverses these gender differences, suggesting downstream effects of parenting motivation may be due, at least in part, to stereotypes about familial division of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does repeated or chronic childhood adversity shape social and cognitive abilities? According to the prevailing deficit model, children from high-stress backgrounds are at risk for impairments in learning and behavior, and the intervention goal is to prevent, reduce, or repair the damage. Missing from this deficit approach is an attempt to leverage the unique strengths and abilities that develop in response to high-stress environments. Evolutionary-developmental models emphasize the coherent, functional changes that occur in response to stress over the life course. Research in birds, rodents, and humans suggests that developmental exposures to stress can improve forms of attention, perception, learning, memory, and problem solving that are ecologically relevant in harsh-unpredictable environments (as per the specialization hypothesis). Many of these skills and abilities, moreover, are primarily manifest in currently stressful contexts where they would provide the greatest fitness-relevant advantages (as per the sensitization hypothesis). This perspective supports an alternative adaptation-based approach to resilience that converges on a central question: "What are the attention, learning, memory, problem-solving, and decision-making strategies that are enhanced through exposures to childhood adversity?" At an applied level, this approach focuses on how we can work with, rather than against, these strengths to promote success in education, employment, and civic life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research indicates that being reared in stressful environments is associated with earlier onset of menarche in girls. In this research, we examined (a) whether these effects are driven by exposure to certain dimensions of stress (harshness or unpredictability) during the first 5 years of life and (b) whether the negative effects of stress on the timing of menarche are buffered by secure infant-mother attachment. Results revealed that (a) exposure to greater harshness (but not unpredictability) during the first 5 years of life predicted earlier menarche and (b) secure infantmother attachment buffered girls from this effect of harsh environments. By connecting attachment research to its evolutionary foundations, these results illuminate how environmental stressors and relationships early in life jointly affect pubertal timing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life history theory suggests that individual differences in parenting are partially rooted in environmental conditions experienced early in life. Whereas certain conditions should promote increased investment in parenting, unpredictable and/or harsh environments should promote decreased investment in parenting, especially in men. We tested this hypothesis in 3 studies. In Study la, we conducted analyses on 112 parents taking part in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA), all of whom have been continuously studied starting before they were born. Parenting orientations were assessed at age 32 via an interview. Findings showed that experiencing more unpredictability at ages 0 -4 (i.e., frequent changes in parental employment status, cohabitation status, and residence) prospectively forecasted more negative parenting orientations among men, but not women. This effect was serially mediated by lower early maternal supportive presence measured at ages 0 -4 and insecure attachment assessed at ages 19 and 26. In Study lb, we replicated these findings on 96 parents from the MLSRA using behavioral observations of their parental supportive presence. In Study 2, we replicated the effect of early-life unpredictability on men's parenting orientations with a sample of 435 parents. This effect was mediated by adult attachment anxiety and avoidance. Across all studies, greater early-life harshness (low socioeconomic status [SES]) did not predict adult parenting outcomes. These findings suggest that greater early-life unpredictability may be conveyed to children through less supportive parenting, which results in insecure attachment representations in adulthood. Among men, this process culminates in less positive adult parenting orientations and less supportive parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research shows that men respond to women differently depending on where women are in their ovulatory cycle. But what leads men to treat ovulating women differently? We propose that the ovulatory cycle alters women’s flirting behavior. We tested this hypothesis in an experiment in which women interacted with different types of men at different points in their cycle. Results revealed that women in the ovulatory phase reported more interest in men who had purported markers of genetic fitness as short-term mates, but not as long-term mates. Furthermore, behavioral ratings of the interactions indicated that women displayed more flirting behaviors when they were at high than at low fertility. Importantly, fertile women flirted more only when interacting with men who had genetic-fitness markers, not with other men. In summary, fertility not only alters women’s behavior but does so in a context-dependent way that follows adaptive logic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The commentaries raise questions about modularity, and about the evidence required to establish evolutionary influences on behavior. We briefly discuss evidence leading evolutionary psychologists to assume that human choices reflect evolutionary influences, and to assume some degree of modularity in human information processing. An evolutionary perspective is based on a multidisciplinary nomological network of evidence, and results of particular experiments are only one part of that network. The precise nature of, and number of, information processing systems, is an empirical question. Consumer psychologists need not retrain as biologists to profit from using insights and findings from evolutionary biology to generate new hypotheses, and to contribute novel insights and findings to the emerging nomological network of modern evolutionary science. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Each month, many women experience an ovulatory cycle that regulates fertility. Although research has found that this cycle influences women’s mating preferences, we proposed that it might also change women’s political and religious views. Building on theory suggesting that political and religious orientation are linked to reproductive goals, we tested how fertility influenced women’s politics, religiosity, and voting in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. In two studies with large and diverse samples, ovulation had drastically different effects on single women and women in committed relationships. Ovulation led single women to become more liberal, less religious, and more likely to vote for Barack Obama. In contrast, ovulation led women in committed relationships to become more conservative, more religious, and more likely to vote for Mitt Romney. In addition, ovulation-induced changes in political orientation mediated women’s voting behavior. Overall, the ovulatory cycle not only influences women’s politics but also appears to do so differently for single women than for women in relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Diversification of resources is a strategy found everywhere from the level of microorganisms to that of giant Wall Street investment firms. We examine the functional nature of diversification using life-history theory—a framework for understanding how organisms navigate resource-allocation trade-offs. This framework suggests that diversification may be adaptive or maladaptive depending on one’s life-history strategy and that these differences should be observed under conditions of threat. In three studies, we found that cues of mortality threat interact with one index of life-history strategy, childhood socioeconomic status (SES), to affect diversification. Among those from low-SES backgrounds, mortality threat increased preferences for diversification. However, among those from high-SES backgrounds, mortality threat had the opposite effect, inclining people to put all their eggs in one basket. The same interaction pattern emerged with a potential biomarker of life-history strategy, oxidative stress. These findings highlight when, and for whom, different diversification strategies can be advantageous. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fundamental motives have direct implications for evolutionary fitness and orchestrate attention, memory, and social inference in functionally specific ways. Motivational states linked to self-protection and mating offer illustrative examples. When self-protective motives are aroused, people show enhanced attention to, and memory for, angry male strangers; they also perceive out-group members as especially dangerous. In contrast, when mating motives are aroused, men show enhanced attention to and memory for attractive members of the opposite sex; mating motives also lead men (but not women) to perceive sexual arousal in attractive members of the opposite sex. There are further functionally specific consequences for social behavior. For example, self-protective motives increase conformity among both men and women, whereas mating motives lead men (but not women) to engage in anticonformist behavior. Other motivational systems trigger different adaptive patterns of cognitive and behavioral responses. This body of research illustrates the highly specific consequences of fitness-relevant motivational states for cognition and behavior, and highlights the value of studying human motivation and cognition within an evolutionary framework. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two field experiments examined the effectiveness of signs requesting hotel guests' participation in an environmental conservation program. Appeals employing descriptive norms (e.g., "the majority of guests reuse their towels") proved superior to a traditional appeal widely used by hotels that focused solely on environmental protection. Moreover, normative appeals were most effective when describing group behavior that occurred in the setting that most closely matched individuals' immediate situational circumstances (e.g., "the majority of guests in this room reuse their towels"), which we refer to as provincial norms. Theoretical and practical implications for managing proenvironmental efforts are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on a research conducted by C. R. Harris and L. Mickes on the impact of fertility on single and nonsingle women. According to the study, women in high fertility phase are less religious as compared with women in less-fertility phase. Two graphs on the relationship status of women with religiosity and politics are presented.

Four thoughtful commentaries identify important issues and insights pertaining to the pyramid of needs presented by Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, and Schaller (2010, this issue). Here, we offer additional thoughts on some of these issues and insights, with an emphasis on the logical implications that result from an evolutionary analysis of fundamental human needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial constraints are economic limitations on behavior. Given that millions of people experience chronic or episodic financial constraints, we sought to review research that provides insight into how they affect consumer behavior. We propose an integrative framework that draws insights from multiple literatures that have examined financial constraints from different perspectives. The framework distinguishes between four perspectives, which are rooted in literatures on resource scarcity, choice restriction, social comparison, and environmental uncertainty and highlights different temporal stages of responding to financial constraints, distinguishing between reacting, coping, and adapting. Beyond the obvious negative effects of financial constraints, our framework emphasizes consumer resilience, highlighting that consumers often successfully cope with and devise adaptive strategies to deal with financial constraints. By broadening the behavioral and temporal scope of financial constraints considered within consumer psychology, this framework helps us to understand the often strong and sometimes counterintuitive effects of financial constraints on consumer behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of social norms on behavior has been a longstanding storyline within social psychology. Our 2007 Psychological Science publication presented a new rendition of this classic telling. The reported field experiment showed that social norms could be leveraged to promote residential energy conservation, but importantly, the descriptive norm was shown to increase consumption for low-consuming households. This potential destructive effect of social norms was eliminated with the addition of an injunctive message of social approval for using less energy. The article is among the 30 most-cited articles across all APS publications, which we attribute to our methodology, which measured real behavior in a large-scale field experiment and to several circumstances associated with the timing of the work. The article coincided with the explosion of social media, the emergence of behavioral economics, and a heightened level of concern about climate change. These contemporaneous activities set the stage for our work and for its high degree of citation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do parents favor some children over others? The overwhelming majority of parents state that they treat their children equally, but parents rarely track their spending on each child. We investigate in four studies whether mothers and fathers favor specific children depending on the biological sex of the child. Evidence from the field, laboratory, and community (online panel) showed that parents exhibit systematic biases when forced to choose between spending on sons and daughters. Mothers consistently favored daughters, whereas fathers consistently favored sons. For example, parents were more likely to choose a real prize and give a real U.S. Treasury bond to the child of the same sex as themselves. These parenting biases were found in two different cultures and appear to be driven by parents identifying more strongly with children of the same sex as the parent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life-history theory predicts that exposure to conditions typical of low socioeconomic status (SES) during childhood will calibrate development in ways that promote survival in harsh and unpredictable ecologies. Guided by this insight, the current research tested the hypothesis that low childhood SES will predict eating in the absence of energy need. Across three studies, we measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) participants' energy need and gave them the opportunity to eat provided snacks. Participants also reported their SES during childhood and their current SES. Results revealed that people who grew up in high-SES environments regulated their food intake on the basis of their immediate energy need; they ate more when their need was high than when their need was low. This relationship was not observed among people who grew up in low-SES environments. These individuals consumed comparably high amounts of food when their current energy need was high and when it was low. Childhood SES may have a lasting impact on food regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a long tradition of effectiveness in laboratory tests, normative messages have had mixed success in changing behavior in field contexts, with some studies showing boomerang effects. To test a theoretical account of this inconsistency, we conducted a field experiment in which normative messages were used to promote household energy conservation. As predicted, a descriptive normative message detailing average neighborhood usage produced either desirable energy savings or the undesirable boomerang effect, depending on whether households were already consuming at a low or high rate. Also as predicted, adding an injunctive message (conveying social approval or disapproval) eliminated the boomerang effect. The results offer an explanation for the mixed success of persuasive appeals based on social norms and suggest how such appeals should be properly crafted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People often find it more difficult to distinguish ethnic out-group members compared with ethnic in-group members. A functional approach to social cognition suggests that this bias may be eliminated when out-group members display threatening facial expressions. In the present study, 192 White participants viewed Black and White faces displaying either neutral or angry expressions and later attempted to identify previously seen faces. Recognition accuracy for neutral faces showed the out-group homogeneity bias, but this bias was entirely eliminated for angry Black faces. Indeed, when participants' cognitive processing capacity was constrained, recognition accuracy was greater for angry Black faces than for angry White faces, demonstrating an out-group heterogeneity bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can growing up in a stressful childhood environment enhance certain cognitive functions? Drawing participants from higher-income and lower-income backgrounds, we tested how adults who grew up in harsh or unpredictable environments fared on 2 types of executive function tasks: inhibition and shifting. People who experienced unpredictable childhoods performed worse at inhibition (overriding dominant responses), but performed better at shifting (efficiently switching between different tasks). This finding is consistent with the notion that shifting, but not inhibition, is especially useful in unpredictable environments. Importantly, differences in executive function between people who experienced unpredictable versus predictable childhoods emerged only when they were tested in uncertain contexts. This catalyst suggests that some individual differences related to early life experience are manifested under conditions of uncertainty in adulthood. Viewed as a whole, these findings indicate that adverse childhood environments do not universally impair mental functioning, but can actually enhance specific types of cognitive performance in the face of uncertainty., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

Just as modern economies undergo periods of boom and bust, human ancestors experienced cycles of abundance and famine. Is the adaptive response when resources become scarce to save for the future or to spend money on immediate gains? Drawing on life-history theory, we propose that people's responses to resource scarcity depend on the harshness of their early-life environment, as reflected by childhood socioeconomic status (SES). In the three experiments reported here, we tested how people from different childhood environments responded to resource scarcity. We found that people who grew up in lower-SES environments were more impulsive, took more risks, and approached temptations more quickly. Conversely, people who grew up in higher-SES environments were less impulsive, took fewer risks, and approached temptations more slowly. Responses similarly diverged according to people's oxidative-stress levels-a urinary biomarker of cumulative stress exposure. Overall, whereas tendencies associated with early-life environments were dormant in benign conditions, they emerged under conditions of economic uncertainty.

How do arousal-inducing contexts, such as frightening or romantic television programs, influence the effectiveness of basic persuasion heuristics? Different predictions are made by three theoretical models: A general arousal model predicts that arousal should increase effectiveness of heuristics; an affective valence model predicts that effectiveness should depend on whether the context elicits positive or negative affect; an evolutionary model predicts that persuasiveness should depend on both the specific emotion that is elicited and the content of the particular heuristic. Three experiments examined how fear-inducing versus romantic contexts influenced the effectiveness of two widely used heuristics-social proof (e.g., "most popular") and scarcity (e.g., "limited edition"). Results supported predictions from an evolutionary model, showing that fear can lead scarcity appeals to be counter-persuasive, and that romantic desire can lead social proof appeals to be counter-persuasive. The findings highlight how an evolutionary theoretical approach can lead to novel theoretical and practical marketing insights.