Cognitive Mechanisms in Human Life History: A Retrospective Longitudinal Approach

Life history theory has become a popular explanatory framework in psychology to explain individual differences in where one chooses to allocate limited resources toward fitness-enhancing goals. These models propose that humans evolved psychological plasticity in response to their environments in order to optimize allocation decisions. The present studies investigate the structure of potential psychological mechanisms that could affect this change, including their organization in memory and the periods of life to which humans are sensitive. Both subjective and objective estimates of resources, mortality, and mating competition in participants’ previous environments from specific temporal ranges were used to predict sociosexuality, risk-taking, and other life history factors in adulthood. Linear regressions revealed that no relationships exist between participant environments and their adult decision-making preferences, regardless of whether subjective or objective measures were used or which period of life contributed to the model. These results suggest that environmental perceptions are neither semantically nor episodically encoded in memory, and decision-making preferences are not sensitive to previous environmental experiences. This highlights the need for a greater exploration of cognition in the life history literature, using longitudinal methodologies, and a reconciliation with genetic evidence in life history variations.