As editors of the politics section, we aim to provide a forum for all new research on politics, irrespective of topic or level of analysis, but unified by a common focus on applying the insights of evolution to the many puzzles of political behavior. >>Read More

From an evolutionary perspective, it’s not surprising that leaders can often please their followers by combatting freeloaders. Behavioral scientists refer to such low contributors as ‘free riders’, and recognize them as the central problem of group cooperation. >>Read More

Perceived menace makes people kinder to their kin but nastier to outsiders. Whether they use this strategy depends on family size. >>Read More

In the early 1930s, with political unrest in Europe and war on the horizon, Albert Einstein wrote to Sigmund Freud asking: “Why war?” Einstein sought an answer to a simple and fundamental question that has been on the minds of scholars and practitioners throughout history. Freud’s response was that war was the result of an impulse, a destructive instinct found in many humans. >>Read More

Genetic differences are significantly associated with the likelihood that people take on managerial responsibilities, according to new research from University College London. >>Read More

The all-important glue that holds our wonderful complex societies together is cooperation. Cooperation evolved as a result of competition among societies, which historically took the form of warfare. >>Read More

THE appendage at the end of a human being’s arm is a strange organ. It is the only one that has different names, depending on what it is being used for. >>Read More