What are humanity’s fundamental motives, our most important goals? New work points to an interesting consensus among young adults.
Life History Theory focuses on the tradeoffs we make allocating energy to survival, growth, and reproduction.motivation, borrows from evolutionary science to focus on the tradeoffs that individuals make in allocating energy to survival, growth, and reproduction.
and convert it for survival and reproduction. A hunter may obtain energy through consuming prey and, in turn, allocate it toward survival and reproductive activities. The challenge is that energy is limited, and its allocation therefore requires tradeoffs—forced decisions about how to spend it. Expend much energy now, and you’ll have less later. Focus on doing one task, and you’ll have nothing left for another. Evolution will favor those who allocate wisely toward fitness. In this sense, natural selection is expected to result in optimal strategies. These strategies are bound to differ by individual and environmental characteristics. Optimal energy allocation in children, for example, is bound to differ from that in adults. Newborns optimally allocate energy differently from adolescents; healthy people may differ from the sick, and stable environments may reward different strategies than unstable ones.by Joyce Benenson of Harvard and Henry Markovits of University of Quebec used this idea as a framework for examining the current desired goals of young adults. The study looked at how young adults weigh the importance of various life goals that have been shown to impact survival and/or reproduction. Working within an evolutionary framework, the authors focused on life goals that have been shown to affect survival and reproduction odds in mammals . The authors selected 16 such goals, dividing them into three categories: reproduction , individual goals related to survival and/or reproduction , and alliances enhancing survival and/or reproduction were presented online with the list of 16 goals. Each participant was asked to weigh the importance of every goal in his or her ideal life. Weights had to add up to 100, requiring tradeoffs . Results revealed strong agreement across participants regarding their most highly preferred goals. In fact, only four goals were weighted above chance: Finding a beloved romantic partner, being physically and emotionally healthy, and earning money or resources. In comparison, lower-weighted goals included having children, being physically attractive, being physically strong, being skilled at work, and having good relationships with others besides a romantic partner. Interestingly, having many sexual partners was the least important goal across the sample . As would be expected, the authors found some sex differences in goal preference. Specifically, men weighted higher the goals of having a talent outside work, being physically strong, having a physically attractive romantic partner, and having many sexual partners. This finding aligns with the evolutionary argument that having multiple fertile romantic and sexual partners increases the odds ofSex differences, however, did not emerge regarding the importance of earning money or resources, being physically attractive, the perceived benefits of having nearby kin or friends, or good relationships with community members. One interesting finding was the low priority placed on having children. This seems to contradict the evolutionary assumption about the primacy of the reproductive motive. The authors speculate that this finding may show “that the desire to have children is not an evolved motivation. Instead, evolution may have relied on the desires to form romantic/sexual bonds to produce children.” An environment, such as ours, where childbearing is decoupled from romantic/sexual bonds, allows for favoring the latter over the former. In sum, it appears that—when asked to choose—young people value love, health, and wealth most highly. All of these goals are adaptive, yet they form an incomplete strategy toward well-being. Currentconnectedness, both of which were rated low by participants in this study. This may have implications for young people's overall well-being. To put a spin on the Rolling Stones' lyric, even if you can get what you want, you may still not have everything you need to be happy.Find a Life Coaching TherapistSelf Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist? Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
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