Research
Interests: Frank
T. McAndrew,
Ph.D.
Altruism,
Heroism, & Prosocial Behavior
Over
the past fifteen years or so I have been doing research on altruism,
specifically
on the topic of "competitive altruism" in which people do nice things
for others as a way of increasing their own status in the long
run. One tangent of this research has been my studies on
heroism. My working hypothesis is that physically heroic behavior
is a form of costly signaling that has been selected for in
males. Some publications and presentations resulting from my
research on altruism and heroic behavior can be found below.
McAndrew, F., T. (2021).
Costly
Signaling Theory. In T. Shackelford & V.
Weekes-Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia
of Evolutionary Psychological
Science, (pp. 1525-1532), New York: SpringerMeteor.
McAndrew, F. T. (2018, July 26). Are
heroism, philanthropy, and
religion about showing off? In Out of the
Ooze: Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind.
Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2016).
Heroic rescue in humans. In T.
Shackelford & V. Weekes-Shackelford
(Eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. New
York: SpringerMeteor.
McAndrew, F. T. (2015,
September). Is
Heroism a "Guy Thing?" In Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
Goranson, A., & McAndrew, F. T. (2015, February). Helper or Helping? The Role of Subtle
Linguistic Manipulations in Prosocial Behavior. Poster
presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social
Psychology (SPSP), Long Beach, California.
McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2012). Is Self-Sacrificial
Competitive Altruism Primarily a Male Activity? Evolutionary Psychology, 10, 50-65.
McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2012). The Selfish Hero:
Study of the Individual Benefits of Self-Sacrificial Prosocial
Behavior. Psychological
Reports, 111, 27-43.
McAndrew, F. T. (2011, October). The Selfish hero?. Invited
talk in the Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri – Columbia.
McAndrew, F. T. (2011, September). The Selfish Hero? An invited
address at the University of Limerick,
Ireland.
McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2011, June). The Gender and
personality Dynamics of Self-Sacrificial "Heroic" Behavior in Mixed-Sex
Groups. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
Montpellier, France.
McAndrew, F. T., & Perilloux, C. (2010, June). Who becomes a
Hero and what happens to them? A Study of Self-Sacrificial
Behavior in Small Female Groups. Paper presented at the Annual
meeting of the Human Behavior and
Evolution Society, Eugene, OR.
McAndrew, F. T. (2009, May). The Selfish Hero? A Study of the
Individual Benefits of Self-Sacrificial Behavior in Small Groups.
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
Fullerton, CA.
McAndrew, F. T. (2003). Evolution
and the problem of altruism: Current
and historical perspectives. In S. Shohov (Ed.), Advances in Psychology Research,
Volume 27 (pp. 277-288) Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers
McAndrew, F. T. (2002). New
evolutionary perspectives on altruism:
Multilevel selection and costly signaling theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science,
11, 79-82.