Research on interpersonal relationships, especially romantic ones, has increased markedly in the last three decades (see Berscheid & Reis 1998) across a variety of fields, including social psychology, anthropology, ethology, sociology, developmental psychology, and personology (Berscheid 1994). Unfortunately, these diverse perspectives have not coalesced into larger, more integrative theories of how and why relationships function the way they do.Evolutionary principles can integrate the findings on interpersonal relationships, especially concerning mating and parental behavior. In the evolutionary approach one tries to understand human psychological design -the nature, organization, and operation of domain-specific psychological mechanisms -by identifying plausible constraints from selection pressures during evolutionary history (see Buss 1995). Human behavior is highly flexible and environmentally responsive but "[psychological] designs that produce 'plasticity' can be retained by selection only if they have features that guide behavior into the infinitesimally small regions of relatively successful performance

Individual differences in willingness to engage in uncommitted sexual relations were investigated in 6 studies. In Study 1, a 5-item Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI) was developed. Studies 2, 3, and 4 provided convergent validity evidence for the SOI, revealing that persons who have an unrestricted sociosexual orientation tend to (a) engage in sex at an earlier point in their relationships, (b) engage in sex with more than 1 partner at a time, and (c) be involved in relationships characterized by less investment, commitment, love, and dependency. Study 5 provided discriminant validity for the SOI, revealing that it does not covary appreciably with a good marker of sex drive. Study 6 demonstrated that the SOI correlates negligibly with measures of sexual satisfaction, anxiety, and guilt. The possible stability of, origins of, and motivational bases underlying individual differences in sociosexuality are discussed.

An extensive network of empirical relations has been identified in research on the psychological construct of self-monitoring. Nevertheless, in recent years some concerns have been expressed about the instrument used for the assessment of self-monitoring propensities, the Self-Monitoring Scale. Both the extent to which the measure taps an interpretable and meaningful causal variable and the extent to which the self-monitoring construct provides an appropriate theoretical understanding of this causal variable have been questioned. An examination of reanalyses of studies of self-monitoring, analyses of the internal structure of the Self-Monitoring Scale, and further relevant data suggest that the measure does tap a meaningful and interpretable causal variable with pervasive influences on social behavior, a variable reflected as a general self-monitoring factor. We discuss the evaluation and furthering of the interpretation of this latent causal variable, offer criteria for evaluating alternative measures of self-monitoring, and present a new, 18-item Self-Monitoring Scale.According to theoretical analyses of self-monitoring, people differ in the extent to which they can and do observe and control their expressive behavior and self-presentation (e.g., Snyder, 1979). Individuals high in self-monitoring are thought to regulate their expressive self-presentation for the sake of desired public appearances, and thus be highly responsive to social and interpersonal cues of situationally appropriate performances.Individuals low in self-monitoring are thought to lack either the ability or the motivation to so regulate their expressive self-presentations. Their expressive behaviors, instead, are thought to functionally reflect their own enduring and momentary inner states, including their attitudes, traits, and feelings.A number of hypotheses-concerning, among others, the determinants of specificity and consistency in social behavior, the origins of linkages between attitudes and action, the dynamics of social interaction, and the nature and consequences of conceptions of self-have followed from these basic initial propositions. Research involving a measure of self-monitoring propensities (the Self-Monitoring Scale; for information on its reliability and validity, see Snyder, 1974) has provided empirical support for these and many more hypotheses about the cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal consequences of self-monitoring (e.g

In principle, units of personality may be of two varieties: dimensional variables, which involve continuously distributed differences in degree, and class variables, which involve discretely distributed differences in kind. There exists, however, a prevailing and rarely questioned assumption that the units of personality are continuous dimensions and an accompanying prejudice against class variables. We examine this prejudice, the arguments that generated it, and those that uphold it. We conclude that these arguments are applicable to class variables as they often have been explicated, in phenetic terms; by contrast, genetically explicated class variables are not vulnerable to these arguments. We propose criteria for conjecturing and present methods for corroborating the existence of class variables in personality. Specifically, we test a class model of a construct whose conceptual status makes it reasonable to evaluate whether or not the differences between individuals represented by this construct constitute discrete classes. Finally, we examine the implications for conceptualizing and investigating the nature and origins of personality.

Cues of phenotypic condition should be among those used by women in their choice of mates. One marker of better phenotypic condition is thought to be symmetrical bilateral body and facial features. However, it is not clear whether women use symmetry as the primary cue in assessing the phenotypic quality of potential mates or whether symmetry is correlated with other facial markers affecting physical attractiveness. Using photographs of men's faces, for which facial symmetry had been measured, we found a relationship between women's attractiveness ratings of these faces and symmetry, but the subjects could not rate facial symmetry accurately. Moreover, the relationship between facial attractiveness and symmetry was still observed, even when symmetry cues were removed by presenting only the left or right half of faces. These results suggest that attractive features other than symmetry can be used to assess phenotypic condition. We identified one such cue, facial masculinity (cheek-bone prominence and a relatively longer lower face), which was related to both symmetry and full- and half-face attractiveness.

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The evolution of life is the result of a process whereby variant forms compete to harvest energy from the environment and convert it into replicates of those forms. Individuals "capture" energy from the environment-for example through foraging, hunting, or cultivating-and "allocate" it to reproduction and survival-enhancing activities. Selection favors individuals who efficiently capture energy and effectively allocate it to enhance fitness within their ecological niche.