Douglas Kenrick

Douglas T. Kenrick is Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. His research and writing integrate three scientific syntheses of the last few decades: evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and dynamical systems theory. He is author of over 170 scientific articles, books, and book chapters, the majority applying evolutionary ideas to human cognition and behavior.

He was born in Queens, New York on June 3, 1948. His father and brother both spent several years in Sing Sing, but he broke the family tradition and went to graduate school to study psychology. He studied social psychology under Robert B. Cialdini and received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 1976. He has edited several books on evolutionary psychology, contributed chapters to the Handbook of Social Psychology and the Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, and been an author of two multi-edition textbooks (Psychology, with John Seamon; and Social Psychology: Goals in Interaction, with Steven Neuberg and Robert B. Cialdini). He writes a blog for Psychology Today magazine, titled Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life. He has a forthcoming book of the same title.

Douglas Kenrick has conducted research on topics including altruism, conformity, homicidal fantasies, human mate selection, personality, and racial stereotyping. Much of this research has examined sex differences in social behavior and cognition, and has tested hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory. The following are several illustrative examples:

1. In some of his early research, conducted with Sara Gutierres, Kenrick demonstrated that exposure to highly attractive people, like those shown in magazines, on television, and in movies, leads people judge average-looking peers as less attractive, and even to lower their commitment to their current partners. Men exposed to beautiful women, for example, rate themselves as less committed to their partners; women do likewise after being exposed to highly successful men.

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