LINKS OF INTEREST

Li Lab

Schmitt Lab

Buss Lab

NMSU Aikido Club

Discover Chimpanzees

COURSES

PSY 321: Personality

Intro to Psych

ONLINE STUDIES

SOME MEDIA MENTIONS

The Forum (p. 3)

Tierney Labs

PGSO

Psychology Today (p. 4)

New Scientist

ABC News

In Shape Magazine

Cosmo

Education:

B.A., Political Science and Communication Sciences, 2000, UConn

Advisor: Dr. Ross Buck

M.A., Communication Sciences: Nonverbal Focus, Minor focus: Psychology, 2003, UConn
Advisor: Dr. Ross Buck

Thesis: A cultivation analysis of physical attractiveness 

 

Ph.D. (ABD), Experimental Social Psychology, Minor focuses: Biological Anthroplolgy and Statistics, Expected 2009, NMSU

Advisor: Dr. Laura Madson

Dissertation: Disentangling the sex of the participant from financial security in mate preferences

 

Research Interests:

Adaptive individual differences: Traditionally, personality psychology has remained theoretically neutral, holding that personality traits are merely descriptive adjectives. However, personality traits have been repeatedly shown to relate to adaptive outcomes in both an evolutionary and a coping/adjustment sense. Therefore, some have argued that personality traits may be adaptive individual differences. We must be weary however, that we do not take a hypothetical construct -- a personality trait -- to be real itself. What we call personality traits are more likely reflections of underlying, evolved social strategies. These personality traits are, to some degree, imperfect measures of underlying social strategies that have promoted fitness in ancetral environments. My research in this area focuses mainly on the Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy, & Machiavellianism). I have demonstrated that the three can be treated as reflective of a single, agentic social strategy. Using this social strategy approach, I have shown that these people are not too altruistic or prosocial, particularly intersted in short-term mating, often paying the costs of losing mates to their short-term mating agenda, and these people live a life filled with risk. It is also clear that it is men, not women, who really adopt this social strategy. This social strategy appears to be orthogonal to a more prosocial strategy. It is likely that individuals have at their disposal both prosocial and antisocial social strategies. The use of each strategy is related to both genetic factors and environmental triggers.

 

Conditional mating strategies: Mick Jagger may have said it best: "you can't always get what you want." When individuals are confronted with the reality of an inability to date the most intelligent or the most attractive person they tend to make compromises in their mate preferences. These compromises come with costs, such as if an individual decides to lower the strength in their preference for physical attractiveness, they are confronted with the fact that those they are dating are not as attractive as they really want. However, little research addresses what strategies individuals take to trade the costs and benefits of these compromises in newly forming relationships. One strategy that I am currently studying, I call "casting a wider net." Casting a wider net allows individuals to increase the size of their mating pool while maintaining high standards. It appears that women are generally more willing to adopt this strategy than men. A similar behavior can be found in Antarctic fur seals and Chacma baboons, and may be related to a larger biological concept known as natal dispersion.

 

Relationships as negotiations: Ever wonder why all relationships are different both when comparing your own and when comparing yours to other people's relationships? It is my contention that each relationship is unique because each relationship is the result of the negoations that each couple goes through in defining the parameters of their relationship. However, researchers have predominantly focused their across-relationship analyses on one-night stands and monogamously married or dating dyads. This gives the impression that these are (1) the only relationships available to people and (2) that relationships are clearly defined. There are other relationship types (e.g., "friends with benefits" and swingers) that exist in the dating ecology that may yield reformulations of this polarized perspective, a greater understanding of what really comprises a relationship, and what individual differences are associated with certain types of relationship choices. One could call these other relationships "hybrids" because they have features of both long-term and short-term relationship patterns in a more equal quantity than those relationship types under typical investigation. While more descriptive work is needed, these relatively untouched areas of sexual and romantic relationship research are open for not only exploration but are likely to yield interesting findings in dating dynamics, partner preferences, and the battle of the sexes.

 

Additional Interests. Comparative Psychology, Primatology, Evolutionary Biology, Human Evolution, Religiousness.

Publications:

In press

 

Jonason, P. K., Krcmar, M., & Sohn, S., (in press). Male body image: The role of exposure, social comparison, and body mass index in body satisfaction. Social Behavior and Personality.

 

Jonason, P. K., Li N. P., & Teicher, E. A. (in press). Who is James Bond?: The Dark Triad as an agentic social style.

2009

 

Jonason, P. K. (2009). The value of physical attractiveness: Modeling biological and social variables. Journal of Social Psychology, 149, 229-240.

 

Jonason, P. K., Cetrulo, J. F., Madrid, J. M., & Morrison, C. (2009). Gift-giving for courtship or mate-retention?: Insights from animal models. Evolutionary Psychology, 7, 89-103.

Jonason, P. K., & Fisher, T. D. (2009). The power of prestige: Why young men report having more sex partners than young women. Sex Roles, 60, 151-159.

Jonason, P. K., Li, N. P., & Cason, M. J. (2009). The "booty call": A compromise between men and women’s ideal mating strategies. The Journal of Sex Research, 46, 1-11.

 

Jonason, P. K., & Marks, M. J. (2009). Common vs. uncommon sexual acts: Evidence for the sexual double standard. Sex Roles, 60, 357-365.

 

Jonason, P. K.. Li, N. P., Webster, G. W., & Schmitt, D. P. (2009). The Dark Triad: Facilitating short-term mating in men. European Journal of Personality, 23, 5-18. New scientist article ABC News

 

Li, N. P., Griskevicius, V., Durante, K. M., Jonason, P. K., Pasisz, D. J., & Aumer, K. (2009). An evolutionary perspective on humor: Sexual selection or interest indication? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 923-936.

 

2008

 

Jonason, P. K., Webster, G. D., & Lindsey. A. E. (2008). Solutions to the problem of diminished social interaction. Evolutionary Psychology, 6, 637-651.

 

2007

 

Jonason, P. K. (2007). A mediation hypothesis to account for the sex difference in reported number of sexual partners: An intrasexual competition approach. International Journal of Sexual Health, 19, 41-49.

 

Jonason, P. K. (2007). Further tests of validity for the one-dimensional scale of Hong’s Psychological Reactance Scale. Psychological Reports, 101, 871-874.

 

Jonason, P. K. (2007). An evolutionary perspective on sex differences in exercise behaviors and motivations. Journal of Social Psychology, 147, 5-14.

Jonason, P. K., Izzo, P. L., & Webster, G. D. (2007). Helping others to find long-term and short-term mates: Tests of inclusive fitness, reciprocal altruism, and parental investment theories. Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 716-732.

 

2006

 

Jonason, P. K. & Knowles, H. M. (2006). A unidimensional measure of Hong's Psychological Reactance Scale. Psychological Reports, 98, 569-579.

Invited resubmissions:

Jonason, P. K., Bryan, A., Teicher, E. A., & Marks, M. J. (invited resubmission). Measuring the sexual double standard: Psychometric properties and validity tests. Sex Roles.

 

Webster, G. D., Jonason, P. K., & Schember, T. O. (invited resubmission). Hot topics and popular papers in Evolutionary Psychology: Analyses of title words and citation counts in Evolution and Human Behavior, 1979 – 2008.

Submitted for publication:

Jonason, P. K. (under review). A time to cast away items, a time to gather items together: A new, efficient, five-item measure of religiousness.

 

Jonason, P. K., Bryan, A., & Herrera, J. (under review). Trimming the fat reveals a one factor structure for Hong’s Psychological Reactance Scale.

 

Jonason, P. K., Cetrulo, J. F., & Ortiz, J. (under review). Treating personality traits as reflections of social strategies.

 

Jonason, P. K., Koening, B., & Tost, J. (under review). The Dark Triad: Facilitating a risky life for men.

 

Jonason, P. K., Li, N. P., & Buss, D. M. (under review). The Dark Triad as a short-term mating strategy: Implications for mate poaching and mate retention tactics.

 

Jonason, P. K., Teicher, E. A., Schmitt, D. P. (under review). The TIPI’s validity confirmed: Associations with mating and self-esteem.

 

Lawson, R., Jonason, P. K., & Strosser, G. (under review). Personal and cultural negative attitudes: The case of American Atheists.

 

Webster, G. D., Smith, C. V., Schember, T. O., & Jonason, P. K. (under review). Strangers in the night exchanging glances: Craigslist’s missed connections support Error Management Theory

Courses Taught:

Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, Interpersonal Communication, Inferential Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, Research Methods & Statistical Analysis, Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Media, Public Speaking, Introduction to Communication Sciences, Media & Society, Persuasion & Debate