Douglas T. Kenrick Sex Murder And The Meaning Of Life A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution Cognition And Complexity Are Revolutionizing Our View Of Human Nature Basic Books (2011)

Table of Contents Praise Also by Douglas T. Kenrick Title Page Introduction Chapter 1 - STANDING IN THE GUTTER The Importance of Being Earnest Chapter 2 - WHY PLAYBOY IS BAD FOR YOUR MENTAL MECHANISMS Fleeting Glances and Forgettable Faces Contrast Effects: The Trouble with the Playboy Wallpapering Scheme Comparing Ourselves to Starlets and Moguls Candy for the Mind: Watch Your Portion Size Chapter 3 - HOMICIDAL FANTASIES Everyday Murderous Thoughts Aggressing to Impress Experimenting with Status-Linked Violence Levels of Analysis: Why There Is More Than One Why When Women Get Direct Why Do Men Fantasize About Killing Strangers? Chapter 4 - OUTGROUP HATRED IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE A Failure to Discriminate Functional Projection When Foreign Equals Disgusting Race and Politics The Fallacy of Biology’s “Right Wing” If You Want to Fight Serpents, You Have to Kick Over Rocks Shifting Our Gaze Out of the Gutter Chapter 5 - THE MIND AS A COLORING BOOK Middle-Aged Gent Seeking College Cheerleader Reexamining the Evidence Searching for Dirty Old Men Across Times and Cultures A Startling Exception That Proves the Case Blank Slates, Jukeboxes, and Coloring Books Chapter 6 - SUBSELVES Simple Minds and Domain-General Theories Multiple Minds What Does All This Imply for Me, Myself, and I? Homosexuality and the Modular Mind Is Friendship Akin to Kinship? So How Many Subselves Live Inside Your Head? Subselves on Vacation Chapter 7 - RECONSTRUCTING MASLOW’S PYRAMID Sex and the Meaning of Life The Evolutionary Functions of Fundamental Motives Life History Theory and the Developmental Hierarchy Evolutionism, Humanism, and Positive Psychology Proximate Motives: The Ebb and Flow of Our Latent Subselves Chapter 8 - HOW THE MIND WARPS What We Remember Depends on Who We Are at the Moment Cognitive Science Meets Evolutionary Psychology The Evolved Computer Inside Your Head Remembrances of Things Not Past; or, Regrets, I’ve Had a Few A Conceptual GPS Reading: Where Are We Now? Chapter 9 - PEACOCKS, PORSCHES, AND PABLO PICASSO Bigger and Costlier Things Peacocks and Sexual Selection Dominance and Sexual Attraction in Humans Flashing the Cash Creative Genius: How Is Picasso Like a Peacock? He’s a Rebel, but in a Good Way The Many Faces of Showing Off What About Female Displays? Peacocks, Porsches, and the Meaning of Life Climbing the Pyramid Chapter 10 - SEX AND RELIGION The Psychology of Belief and Disbelief Reproductive Religiosity How Flexible Is the Link Between Religiosity and Reproduction? Zen and the Art of Atheism Chapter 11 - DEEP RATIONALITY AND EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMICS IRAs Drained by DNA Economic Selfishness, Psychological Irrationality, and Deep Rationality Econs, Humans, and Morons How to Make the Prisoner’s Dilemma Disappear Life as a Bank Account Shifting Priorities Loss Aversion by Morons Versus Loss Aversion by Evols Rationality, Irrationality, and Deep Rationality Revisited Chapter 12 - BAD CROWDS, CHAOTIC ATTRACTORS, AND HUMANS AS ANTS The Forty-sixth Street Boys The Wrong Crowd, Again Chaotic Attractors and the Revenge of the Nerds Self-Organization: Order out of Randomness Where Do the Decision Biases Come From? Emergent Social Geometries It’s Emergence and Self-Organization from the Bottom to the Top Conclusion Notes References Index Copyright Page PRAISE FOR Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life “Douglas Kenrick is a brilliant thinker, gripping speaker, and a writer whose style is so engaging, probing, and full of irreverence and wit that it is unmatched by anyone I know in academia. On top of his profound mastery of the study of evolution and behavior, he has a fascinating and quirky life story that adds c