Norman P Li
Biographic Data
| ID | 221058 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Norman P Li |
| GIVEN NAMES | Norman P |
| FAMILY NAME | Li |
| SIGNATURE | LI N P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Singapore Management University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4059-1613 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 55 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 381 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 55 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The (Simp)le Truth About Excessive and Obsessive Romantic Behaviors in Men
OBJECTIVE: "Simps" are individuals (primarily men) who engage in costly or extravagant gestures toward a romantic interest without receiving reciprocation. As its first empirical validation, the current study newly operationalizes simping behaviors as well as the motivating factors predicting simping. METHOD: Act nomination and act frequency designs (Total N = 415) were used to identify the defining behaviors of simps. Correlational (N = 200) and…
Accordance and conflict between religious and scientific precautions against Covid-19 in 27 societies
Meaning-making systems underlie perceptions of the efficacy of threat-mitigating behaviors. Religion and science both offer threat mitigation, yet these meaning-making systems are often considered incompatible. Do such epistemological conflicts swamp the desire to employ diverse precautions against threats? Or do individuals—particularly individuals who are highly reactive to threats—hedge their bets by using multiple threat-mitigating practices …
Cash, crowds, and cooperation: The effects of population density and resource scarcity on cooperation in the dictator game
Imprinting-like effects of early adolescent music
This research examines the hypothesis that music experienced during puberty in early adolescence imprints on individuals to promote the pursuit of friendships and mating. We conducted an online survey with samples from the United States and China (Study 1) and a within-subject experiment (Study 2). Results suggest that most songs and poems identified as “favorites” were learned during early adolescence. Furthermore, compared with recently acquire…
Interactive Effects of Intrasexual Competitiveness, Same-Sex Competition, and Physical Attractiveness on Temporal Discounting
The long and short of mistress relationships: Sex‐differentiated mate preferences reflect a compromise of mating ideals
Objective Evolved mate preferences have taken center stage in evolutionary psychology research, yet this literature has been fairly muted on mate preferences for extrapair partners. Here, we examined the mate preferences for mistress relationships (the traits that men prioritize in a mistress and mistresses prioritize in their male partners) and compared these preferences to those of short‐ and long‐term relationships. Method In two studies ( N S…
When social status gets in the way of reproduction in modern settings: An evolutionary mismatch perspective
Low fertility is a growing concern in modern societies. While economic and structural explanations of reproductive hindrances have been informative to some extent, they do not address the fundamental motives that underlie reproductive decisions and are inadequate to explain why East Asian countries, in particular, have such low fertility rates. The current paper advances a novel account of low fertility in modern contexts by describing how modern…
Family still matters: Human social motivation across 42 countries during a global pandemic
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. . . especially if I’m less intelligent: How sunlight and intelligence affect happiness in modern society
The savanna theory of happiness proposes that, due to evolutionary constraints on the human brain, situations and circumstances that would have increased our ancestors' happiness may still increase our happiness today, and those that would have decreased their happiness then may still decrease ours today. It further proposes that, because general intelligence evolved to solve evolutionarily novel problems, this tendency may be stronger among less…
Gluckman, Peter, and Mark Hanson. 2017. Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation
Article Gluckman, Peter, and Mark Hanson. 2017. Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation was published on April 1, 2022 in the journal Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture (volume 6, issue 1)
When intelligence hurts and ignorance is bliss: Global pandemic as an evolutionarily novel threat to happiness
INTRODUCTION: The savanna theory of happiness posits that it is not only the current consequences of a given situation that affect happiness but also its ancestral consequences, and that the effect of ancestral consequences on happiness is stronger among less intelligent individuals. But what about situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment and thus have no ancestral consequences? Global pandemic is one such situation that has no …
Looks and status are still essential: Testing the mate preference priority model with the profile‐based experimental paradigm
OBJECTIVE: Although the mate preference priority model (MPPM) has advanced our understanding of mate preferences, tests of the MPPM have relied on methods using text labels and thus lack ecological validity. We address this gap by testing the MPPM using J. M. Townsend's profile-based experimental paradigm, which utilizes profiles comprising photos of pre-rated models to manipulate physical attractiveness as well as costumes and descriptions to ma…
Elucidating evolutionary principles with the traditional Mosuo: Adaptive benefits and origins of matriliny and “walking marriages”
The Mosuo, arguably the last surviving matrilineal society in China, offers interesting insights into kinship practices that support reproduction. In particular, the modes of courtship and reproduction of the traditional Mosuo revolve around a practice known as walking marriages, which involves no contract or obligations, where the men do not use social status or resources to court women, women do not expect commitment from men, and multiple sexu…
Disgust sensitivity relates to attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women across 31 nations
Previous work has reported a relation between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice toward various social groups, including gay men and lesbian women. It is currently unknown whether this association is present across cultures, or specific to North America. Analyses of survey data from adult heterosexuals ( N = 11,200) from 31 countries showed a small relation between pathogen disgust sensitivity (an individual-difference measure of pathog…
Development and psychometric evaluation of the Anticipated Food Scarcity Scale (AFSS)
Mass media extensively inform societies about events threatening the global food supply (e.g., pandemics or Brexit). Consumers exposed to such communication may perceive food resources as becoming scarcer. In line with an evolutionary account, these perceptions can shift decision-making in domains such as food preferences or prosociality. However, existing literature has solely focused on actual and past food insecurity experiences threatening mo…
Douglas Kenrick
Confidence is sexy and it can be trained: Examining male social confidence in initial, opposite‐sex interactions
OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether men's social confidence in an initial, opposite-sex chatting context can be improved through a video tutorial and the extent to which being perceived as socially confident results in being seen as more romantically desirable and worthy of future contact. METHOD: Women chatted with men who had received or not received a tutorial on how to handle speed-dating chats (Study 1: N = 129; Study 2: N = 60) or with male …
Mate preference priorities in the East and West: A cross‐cultural test of the mate preference priority model
OBJECTIVE: Mate choice involves trading-off several preferences. Research on this process tends to examine mate preference prioritization in homogenous samples using a small number of traits and thus provide little insight into whether prioritization patterns reflect a universal human nature. This study examined whether prioritization patterns, and their accompanying sex differences, are consistent across Eastern and Western cultures. METHOD: In …
Not so much rational but rationalizing: Humans evolved as coherence-seeking, fiction-making animals
The evidence for biased perceptions and judgments in humans coupled with evidence for ecological rationality in nonhuman animals suggest that the claim that humans are the rational animal may be overstated. We instead propose that discussions of human psychology may benefit from viewing ourselves not so much as rational animals but rather as the rationalizing animal. The current article provides evidence that rationalization is unique to humans a…
Depletion manipulations decrease openness to dissent via increased anger
We investigated a potential outcome of ego depletion manipulations and an important factor behind cooperative failure: a lack of openness to others' dissenting opinions. Across five studies in a variety of task settings, we examined the effect of depletion manipulations on openness to dissent and investigated two negative emotions as potential mediators of this process: fatigue and anger. The results demonstrated a negative effect of depletion ma…
Sociosexuality and Sexual Conflict in Mating Strategies
Production of Eggs and Sperm
Obligatory Parental Investment
Sexual Conflict in Mating Strategies
Quantity Versus Quality of Offspring
The necessities and luxuries of mate preferences: Testing the tradeoffs
Social exchange and evolutionary models of mate selection incorporate economic assumptions but have not considered a key distinction between necessities and luxuries. This distinction can clarify an apparent paradox: Status and attractiveness, though emphasized by many researchers, are not typically rated highly by research participants. Three studies supported the hypothesis that women and men first ensure sufficient levels of necessities in pot…
Sex similarities and differences in preferences for short-term mates: What, whether, and why
Are there sex differences in criteria for sexual relationships? The answer depends on what question a researcher asks. Data suggest that, whereas the sexes differ in whether they will enter short-term sexual relationships, they are more similar in what they prioritize in partners for such relationships. However, additional data and context of other findings and theory suggest different underlying reasons. In Studies 1 and 2, men and women were gi…
What do people desire in others? A sociofunctional perspective on the importance of different valued characteristics
Humans, as discriminately social creatures, make frequent judgments about others' suitability for interdependent social relations. Which characteristics of others guide these judgments and, thus, shape patterns of human affiliation? Extant research is only minimally useful for answering this question. On the basis of a sociofunctional analysis of human sociality, the authors hypothesized that people highly value trustworthiness and (to a lesser e…
The “Booty Call”: A Compromise Between Men's and Women's Ideal Mating Strategies
Traditionally, research on romantic and sexual relationships has focused on one-night stands and monogamous pairs. However, as the result of men and women pursuing their ideal relationship types, various compromise relationships may emerge. One such compromise is explored here: the "booty call." The results of an act-nomination and frequency study of college students provided an initial definition and exploration of this type of relationship. Boo…
Mate preferences do predict attraction and choices in the early stages of mate selection
Although mate preference research has firmly established that men value physical attractiveness more than women do and women value social status more than men do, recent speed-dating studies have indicated mixed evidence (at best) for whether people's sex-differentiated mate preferences predict actual mate choices. According to an evolutionary, mate preference priority model (Li, Bailey, Kenrick, & Linsenmeier, 2002; Li & Kenrick, 2006; Li, Valen…
The Antihero in Popular Culture: Life History Theory and the Dark Triad Personality Traits
The Dark Triad of personality is composed of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Despite the common belief that these traits are undesirable, the media is awash with characters that embody the Dark Triad. Characters like Gregory House, M.D., Batman (a.k.a. the Dark Knight), and James Bond all embody these traits and are some of the most popular media franchises today. As entertaining as these characters are, they provide us with a wind…
Positioning the Booty-Call Relationship on the Spectrum of Relationships: Sexual but More Emotional Than One-Night Stands
Most research on human sexuality has focused on long-term pairbonds and one-night stands. However, growing evidence suggests there are relationships that do not fit cleanly into either of those categories. One of these relationships is a "booty-call relationship." The purpose of this study was to describe the sexual and emotional nature of booty-call relationships by (a) examining the types of emotional and sexual acts involved in booty-call rela…
Ovulation, Female Competition, and Product Choice: Hormonal Influences on Consumer Behavior
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 e…
The Incompatibility of Materialism and the Desire for Children: Psychological Insights into the Fertility Discrepancy Among Modern Countries
Happiness in modern society: Why intelligence and ethnic composition matter
Disgust sensitivity relates to attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women across 31 nations
Previous work has reported a relation between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice toward various social groups, including gay men and lesbian women. It is currently unknown whether this association is present across cultures, or specific to North America. Analyses of survey data from adult heterosexuals ( N = 11,200) from 31 countries showed a small relation between pathogen disgust sensitivity (an individual-difference measure of pathog…
Not so much rational but rationalizing: Humans evolved as coherence-seeking, fiction-making animals
The evidence for biased perceptions and judgments in humans coupled with evidence for ecological rationality in nonhuman animals suggest that the claim that humans are the rational animal may be overstated. We instead propose that discussions of human psychology may benefit from viewing ourselves not so much as rational animals but rather as the rationalizing animal. The current article provides evidence that rationalization is unique to humans a…
Relating trait self-control and forgiveness within prosocials and proselfs: Compensatory versus synergistic models
The present research tested 2 competing models specifying how 2 traits (concern with the well-being of others and self-control) interact to predict forgiveness. According to the compensatory model, forgiveness requires being high on either trait; according to the synergistic model, forgiveness requires being high on both traits. Two preliminary studies demonstrated the main effect of trait (Study 1a) and primed (Study 1b) self-control on forgiven…
Ovulation leads women to perceive sexy cads as good dads
Why do some women pursue relationships with men who are attractive, dominant, and charming but who do not want to be in relationships--the prototypical sexy cad? Previous research shows that women have an increased desire for such men when they are ovulating, but it is unclear why ovulating women would think it is wise to pursue men who may be unfaithful and could desert them. Using both college-age and community-based samples, in 3 studies we sh…
Let's get serious: Communicating commitment in romantic relationships
Are men or women more likely to confess love first in romantic relationships? And how do men and women feel when their partners say "I love you"? An evolutionary-economics perspective contends that women and men incur different potential costs and gain different potential benefits from confessing love. Across 6 studies testing current and former romantic relationships, we found that although people think that women are the first to confess love a…
Development and psychometric evaluation of the Anticipated Food Scarcity Scale (AFSS)
Mass media extensively inform societies about events threatening the global food supply (e.g., pandemics or Brexit). Consumers exposed to such communication may perceive food resources as becoming scarcer. In line with an evolutionary account, these perceptions can shift decision-making in domains such as food preferences or prosociality. However, existing literature has solely focused on actual and past food insecurity experiences threatening mo…
Depletion manipulations decrease openness to dissent via increased anger
We investigated a potential outcome of ego depletion manipulations and an important factor behind cooperative failure: a lack of openness to others' dissenting opinions. Across five studies in a variety of task settings, we examined the effect of depletion manipulations on openness to dissent and investigated two negative emotions as potential mediators of this process: fatigue and anger. The results demonstrated a negative effect of depletion ma…
The Darwin is in the details
The Darwin is in the details
The necessities and luxuries of mate preferences: Testing the tradeoffs
Social exchange and evolutionary models of mate selection incorporate economic assumptions but have not considered a key distinction between necessities and luxuries. This distinction can clarify an apparent paradox: Status and attractiveness, though emphasized by many researchers, are not typically rated highly by research participants. Three studies supported the hypothesis that women and men first ensure sufficient levels of necessities in pot…
Dynamical evolutionary psychology: Individual decision rules and emergent social norms.
A new theory integrating evolutionary and dynamical approaches is proposed. Following evolutionary models, psychological mechanisms are conceived as conditional decision rules designed to address fundamental problems confronted by human ancestors, with qualitatively different decision rules serving different problem domains and individual differences in decision rules as a function of adaptive and random variation. Following dynamical models, dec…
Sex similarities and differences in preferences for short-term mates: What, whether, and why
Are there sex differences in criteria for sexual relationships? The answer depends on what question a researcher asks. Data suggest that, whereas the sexes differ in whether they will enter short-term sexual relationships, they are more similar in what they prioritize in partners for such relationships. However, additional data and context of other findings and theory suggest different underlying reasons. In Studies 1 and 2, men and women were gi…
What do people desire in others? A sociofunctional perspective on the importance of different valued characteristics
Humans, as discriminately social creatures, make frequent judgments about others' suitability for interdependent social relations. Which characteristics of others guide these judgments and, thus, shape patterns of human affiliation? Extant research is only minimally useful for answering this question. On the basis of a sociofunctional analysis of human sociality, the authors hypothesized that people highly value trustworthiness and (to a lesser e…
The dark triad: Facilitating a short‐term mating strategy in men
This survey (N = 224) found that characteristics collectively known as the Dark Triad (i.e. narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism) were correlated with various dimensions of short‐term mating but not long‐term mating. The link between the Dark Triad and short‐term mating was stronger for men than for women. The Dark Triad partially mediated the sex difference in short‐term mating behaviour. Findings are consistent with a view that the Dark…
The “Booty Call”: A Compromise Between Men's and Women's Ideal Mating Strategies
Traditionally, research on romantic and sexual relationships has focused on one-night stands and monogamous pairs. However, as the result of men and women pursuing their ideal relationship types, various compromise relationships may emerge. One such compromise is explored here: the "booty call." The results of an act-nomination and frequency study of college students provided an initial definition and exploration of this type of relationship. Boo…
Intrasexual competition and eating restriction in heterosexual and homosexual individuals☆
The Attractive Female Body Weight and Female Body Dissatisfaction in 26 Countries Across 10 World Regions: Results of the International Body Project I
This study reports results from the first International Body Project (IBP-I), which surveyed 7,434 individuals in 10 major world regions about body weight ideals and body dissatisfaction. Participants completed the female Contour Drawing Figure Rating Scale (CDFRS) and self-reported their exposure to Western and local media. Results indicated there were significant cross-regional differences in the ideal female figure and body dissatisfaction, bu…
Positioning the Booty-Call Relationship on the Spectrum of Relationships: Sexual but More Emotional Than One-Night Stands
Most research on human sexuality has focused on long-term pairbonds and one-night stands. However, growing evidence suggests there are relationships that do not fit cleanly into either of those categories. One of these relationships is a "booty-call relationship." The purpose of this study was to describe the sexual and emotional nature of booty-call relationships by (a) examining the types of emotional and sexual acts involved in booty-call rela…
Sex differences in cooperation: A meta-analytic review of social dilemmas
Although it is commonly believed that women are kinder and more cooperative than men, there is conflicting evidence for this assertion. Current theories of sex differences in social behavior suggest that it may be useful to examine in what situations men and women are likely to differ in cooperation. Here, we derive predictions from both sociocultural and evolutionary perspectives on context-specific sex differences in cooperation, and we conduct…
Relating trait self-control and forgiveness within prosocials and proselfs: Compensatory versus synergistic models
The present research tested 2 competing models specifying how 2 traits (concern with the well-being of others and self-control) interact to predict forgiveness. According to the compensatory model, forgiveness requires being high on either trait; according to the synergistic model, forgiveness requires being high on both traits. Two preliminary studies demonstrated the main effect of trait (Study 1a) and primed (Study 1b) self-control on forgiven…
Let's get serious: Communicating commitment in romantic relationships
Are men or women more likely to confess love first in romantic relationships? And how do men and women feel when their partners say "I love you"? An evolutionary-economics perspective contends that women and men incur different potential costs and gain different potential benefits from confessing love. Across 6 studies testing current and former romantic relationships, we found that although people think that women are the first to confess love a…
Ovulation, Female Competition, and Product Choice: Hormonal Influences on Consumer Behavior
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 e…
The Incompatibility of Materialism and the Desire for Children: Psychological Insights into the Fertility Discrepancy Among Modern Countries
Ovulation leads women to perceive sexy cads as good dads
Why do some women pursue relationships with men who are attractive, dominant, and charming but who do not want to be in relationships--the prototypical sexy cad? Previous research shows that women have an increased desire for such men when they are ovulating, but it is unclear why ovulating women would think it is wise to pursue men who may be unfaithful and could desert them. Using both college-age and community-based samples, in 3 studies we sh…
The Antihero in Popular Culture: Life History Theory and the Dark Triad Personality Traits
The Dark Triad of personality is composed of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Despite the common belief that these traits are undesirable, the media is awash with characters that embody the Dark Triad. Characters like Gregory House, M.D., Batman (a.k.a. the Dark Knight), and James Bond all embody these traits and are some of the most popular media franchises today. As entertaining as these characters are, they provide us with a wind…
Mate preferences do predict attraction and choices in the early stages of mate selection
Although mate preference research has firmly established that men value physical attractiveness more than women do and women value social status more than men do, recent speed-dating studies have indicated mixed evidence (at best) for whether people's sex-differentiated mate preferences predict actual mate choices. According to an evolutionary, mate preference priority model (Li, Bailey, Kenrick, & Linsenmeier, 2002; Li & Kenrick, 2006; Li, Valen…
Do parents favor their adoptive or biological children? Predictions from kin selection and compensatory models
Happiness in modern society: Why intelligence and ethnic composition matter
Violation of Long-Term Mate Preferences
Sex Differences Versus Gender Symmetry
Violation of Short-Term Mating Preferences
Differential Parental Investment
Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (42 works) · Psychology (42 works) · Social Psychology (32 works) · Biology (19 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (16 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Developmental psychology (14 works) · Mating (13 works) · Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification (11 works)