Search Results
Title: Substance Use and Mating Success
Resulting in 1 citation.
| 1. |
Richardson, George B. Chen, Ching-Chen Dai, Chia-Liang Swoboda, Christopher M. Nedelec, Joseph L. Chen, Wei-Wen |
|
Substance Use and Mating Success Evolution and Human Behavior 38,1 (January 2017): 48-57. Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513816301246 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Elsevier Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Drug Use; Modeling, Structural Equation; Sexual Activity; Substance Use Psychoactive substance use has been typical of most traditional and modern societies and is maintained in the population despite the potential for abuse and related harms, raising the possibility that it (or its underlying causes) confers fitness benefits that offset its costs. Although it seems plausible that psychoactive substances have facilitated survival among ancestral and modern humans, it is not clear that this enhancement has translated into Darwinian fitness through mating and ultimately reproductive success. In the current study, we discuss potential mechanisms by which substance use might make unique contributions to mating success, attend to the possibility that the effects between substance use and mating success are instead confounded, and use structural equations and nationally representative data to determine whether these effects are more likely causal or spurious. Our findings indicate that once we know participants' scores on "third" variables at each round in early young adulthood, their substance use gives us little additional information about their current prospects for acquiring sexual partners and no additional information about of their future prospects. Thus, if adaptations for substance use evolved, their adaptive value does not seem to be found in mating success. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
Richardson, George B., Ching-Chen Chen, Chia-Liang Dai, Christopher M. Swoboda, Joseph L. Nedelec and Wei-Wen Chen. "Substance Use and Mating Success." Evolution and Human Behavior 38,1 (January 2017): 48-57.
|