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According to Geary's evolutionary approach, humans are able to easily acquire primary knowledge and, with more efforts, secondary knowledge. The present study investigates how primary knowledge contents can facilitate the learning of formal logical rules i.e. secondary knowledge. Framing formal logical problems in evolutionary salient contexts should increase learners' efficiency, motivation and engagement in learning compared with framing logical problems in secondary knowledge. In two experiments, high school students (n=210) had to train with syllogisms of unknown content (to reduce the use of prior knowledge) and which could be related to primary knowledge (rules about invented food and animals) or secondary knowledge (fictitious mathematics and grammar rules) in order to best pass a final test. The training phase was compulsory or left to learners' choice. In a third experiment, participants (university students, n=227) were confronted with three phases: (i) a priming phase consisting of problems with primary or secondary knowledge contents, then (ii) a training phase consisting of secondary knowledge only and (iii) the final test. Results confirmed the positive influence of primary knowledge in a learning task: participants were more efficient, more motivated, more confident and experienced less cognitive load when confronted with primary knowledge compared to secondary knowledge. In particular, primary knowledge favored the involvement and persistence of learners in the training phase regardless of their personal characteristics unlike secondary knowledge. Finally, presenting primary knowledge first and then secondary knowledge was more efficient both in terms of performance and motivation. The evolutionary approach to knowledge would provide a framework for developing a way to present new content that is cost-efficient in keeping learners motivated, whatever their age or personal characteristics.

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In terms of sexual intercourse, the very last people we think about are our kin. Imagining inbreeding intercourse, whether it involves our closest kin or not, induces aversion in most people who invoke inbreeding depression problems or cultural considerations. Research has focused on the disgust felt when facing inbreeding intercourse between close kin but little is known about other responses. In this study, we considered the influence of fitness costs on aversive reactions by including disgust and emotional reaction as well as moral judgment and attitudes toward inbreeding: higher costs should induce a stronger aversive reaction. The fitness costs were manipulated by two factors: (i) the degree of the participants' involvement in the story (themselves, a sib or an unknown individual), and (ii) the degree of relatedness between the two inbreeding people (brother/sister, uncle-aunt/niece-nephew, cousin). To test this hypothesis, 140 women read and assessed different inbreeding stories varying in the fitness costs incurred. Findings showed that the higher the fitness costs were, the greater the aversive reaction was in an overall way. First, our results fitted with previous studies that tested the influence of fitness costs on disgust. Second, and more interestingly, findings went further by examining overall aversion, showing that fitness costs could influence emotions felt as well as attitudes and behaviors toward inbreeding people. The higher the fitness costs were, the less inbreeding people were perceived as moral and the more they were considered as a nuisance. However, results regarding avoidance were more nuanced.

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Human cognitive architecture has evolved throughout history, thus facilitating the processing of certain types of knowledge that emerged early on in evolution and that have an adaptive benefit (e.g., recognizing faces or food). Despite its complexity, primary knowledge is processed almost effortlessly, as opposed to secondary knowledge which developed later during the course of evolution and which requires extra cognitive resources and motivation for processing (e.g., "academic" knowledge, such as mathematics or grammar). Primary knowledge also constitutes the basis for secondary knowledge. Using primary knowledge to encourage individuals to invest in a task that is not motivating has therefore been used in recent studies as a promising avenue of research. This study presents 3 experiments in which university students had to complete statistics exercisesstatistics being renowned as a difficult discipline typically disliked by students. The task presented problem-solving exercises which were identical in structure but which differed in content, by referring to either primary or secondary types of knowledge. Primary knowledge content, particularly when presented first, enhanced performance and efficiency while maintaining motivation during problem solving. Participants appeared to be unaware of this positive effect. By contrast, secondary knowledge content had a negative effect on performance and seemed to reduce motivation when presented first. These findings suggest that the use of easy-to-process primary knowledge can enhance learningsimply by manipulating task content and presentation order.

University students are a vulnerable population, and many recent studies show that anxiety, depressive symptoms, and academic burnout have been on the increase since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings point to a need for interventions to reduce these difficulties. The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of 2 formats of an innovative program on students’ mental health (anxiety, depressive symptoms, and academic burnout), intolerance of uncertainty, learned helplessness, and learning. Our sample was composed of 105 university students, recruited on a voluntary basis. They were divided into 3 groups: online intervention group (n = 36), face-to-face intervention group (n = 32), and control group (n = 37). The following variables were measured through online questionnaires: anxiety and depressive symptoms, academic burnout, intolerance of uncertainty, learned helplessness, perceived social support, learning strategies, and beliefs. There were 2 assessments 10 weeks apart (ie, before and after the program in the case of the 2 intervention groups). We performed nonparametric analyses to run comparisons between the 2 assessment timepoints in each group. Results showed that participants in the 2 intervention groups had lower levels of learned helplessness and intolerance of uncertainty at the end of the program. Furthermore, participants in the face-to-face group reported higher levels of perceived social support, academic self-efficacy, and help-seeking strategies. The present study highlighted the benefits of our innovative program, especially its face-to-face format. Clinical Trial - ID: NCT04978194.