A reconceptualization of stigma is presented that changes the emphasis from the devaluation of an individual's identity to the process by which individuals who satisfy certain criteria come to be excluded from various kinds of social interactions. The authors propose that phenomena currently placed under the general rubric of stigma involve a set of distinct psychological systems designed by natural selection to solve specific problems associated with sociality. In particular, the authors suggest that human beings possess cognitive adaptations designed to cause them to avoid poor social exchange partners, join cooperative groups (for purposes of between-group competition and exploitation), and avoid contact with those who are differentially likely to carry communicable pathogens. The evolutionary view contributes to the current conceptualization of stigma by providing an account of the ultimate function of Stigmatization and helping to explain its consensual nature.

commitment, conscientiousness, costly signaling theory, equilibrium selection, emotion, empathy, ethics, evolutionary psychology, fitness indicators, genetic correlations, good genes, good parents, good partners, human courtship, kin selection, kindness, individual differences, intelligence, mate choice, mental health, moral virtues, mutation load, mutual choice, person perception, personality, reciprocal altruism, sexual fidelity, sexual selection, social cognition, virtue ethics “Human good turns out to be the activity of the soul exhibiting excellence.” Aristotle (350 BC) Moral evolution theories have emphasized kinship, reciprocity, group selection, and equilibrium selection. Yet, moral virtues are also sexually attractive. Darwin suggested that sexual attractiveness may explain many aspects of human morality. This paper updates his argument by integrating recent research on mate choice, person perception, individual differences, costly signaling, and virtue ethics. Many human virtues may have evolved in both sexes through mutual mate choice to advertise good genetic quality, parenting abilities, and/or partner traits. Such virtues may include kindness, fidelity, magnanimity, and heroism, as well as quasi-moral traits like conscientiousness, agreeableness, mental health, and intelligence. This theory leads to many testable predictions about the phenotypic features, genetic bases, and social-cognitive responses to human moral virtues. A

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Cox proposes that the economic analyses of resource transfers within families can be considerably enhanced by using evolutionary biological theory to generate expectations specific to relevant demographic categorizations of family members. Whereas wholly abstract economic theorizing can lead to surprising, productive insights about actors characterized merely as “person 1 ” and “person 2, ” 1 evolutionary biology offers the possibility of furthering understanding by making specific use of information that “person 1 ” and “person 2 ” are “mother ” and “father, ” “son ” and “daughter”, “biological child ” and “stepchild, ” or even “paternal grandmother ” and “maternal grandmother. ” Evolutionary biological theory and economic theory have historically drawn from one another in the development of theoretical tools, as the enterprises share considerable abstract affinities due to their common preoccupation with the logic of optimization (see, e.g., Gintis 2000). Moreover, family life is one of the areas in which the potential contributions of an evolutionary perspective has seemed strongest, working from the premise that the affective bonds of kin are rooted in genetically-based propensities that evolved by kin selection. In this light, one might wonder why utilization of substantive propositions from evolutionary biology in studying the economics of family life has

Simulated humans in computer interfaces are increasingly taking on roles that were once reserved for real humans. The presentation of simulated humans is affected by their appearance, motion quality, and interactivity. These presentational factors can influence the decisions of those who interact with them. This is of concern to interface designers and users alike, because these decisions often have moral and ethical consequences. However, the impact of presentational factors on decisions in ethical dilemmas has not been explored. This study is intended as a first effort toward filling this gap. In a between-groups experiment, a female character presented participants with an ethical dilemma. The character’s human photorealism and motion quality were varied to generate four stimulus conditions: real human versus computer-generated character � fluid versus jerky movement. The results indicate that the stimulus condition had no significant effect on female participants, while male participants were significantly more likely to rule against the character when her visual appearance was computer generated and her movements were jerky. 1

Abstract: Literary scholars and psychologists have long remarked striking similarities in the depiction of male heroes in the world's folk tale traditions. The best-known attempt to document and explain these similarities is Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1936). Campbell's work differs in detail from other prominent attempts to define universal features of heroes, however its grand thesis is much the same: while the details of heroes “faces ” may change as the investigator crosses geographical, ethnic, cultural and chronological borders, certain details of the hero's life and challenges are everywhere the same. However, in contrast to the many determined efforts to generalize about heroes, scholars have expended little effort generalizing about cross-cultural features of heroines. The present article, based on a quantitative content analysis of folk tales from 48 culture areas around the world, represents the first systematic attempt to identify and explain cross-cultural trends in the characterization of heroines. This study was designed to improve substantially on previous attempts to define literary universals by drawing upon theory and methods used by human scientists to fruitfully explore and explain human universals.