Adar Eisenbruch
Assistant Professor in Psychology
Humans evolved via natural selection. Just as our bodies consist of adaptations that evolved because they increased fitness among our ancestors, so do our minds. Evolutionary psychologists consider the problems that human ancestors had to solve, and then measure human cognition and behavior to see if they are well-designed to solve these problems.
More About Me
My students and I apply this approach to understanding human perception, motivation, and behavior. In one line of research, I study social perception and preferences. For example, I have found that people prefer to be friends with and are more generous towards others who would have been more valuable cooperative partners (e.g. more skilled hunter-gatherers) in the environments of our ancestors. In other research, I study how hormones calibrate competing motivations in ways that were likely fitness-enhancing for our ancestors.
Research Interests
- Evolutionary psychology
- Moral psychology
- Social perception
- Bargaining
- Punishment
- Cooperation
Representative Courses
- Introduction to Psychology
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Learning and Behavior
Publications
Crewther, B. T., Hecht, M., Grillot, R. L., Eisenbruch, A. B., Catena, T., Potts, N., ... & Roney, J. R. (2023). Day-to-day coordination of the stress and reproductive axes: a continuous-time analysis of within-person testosterone and cortisol relationships in athletic and healthy men. Physiology & Behavior, 263, 114104.
Eisenbruch, A.B., Lukaszewski, A. W, Simmons, Z. L., Arai, S. & Roney, J. R. (2018). Why the wide face?: Androgen receptor gene polymorphism does not predict men’s facial width-to-height ratio. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 4, 138-151.
Eisenbruch, A.B. & Roney, J. R. (2017). The skillful and the stingy: Partner choice decisions and fairness intuitions suggest human adaptation for a biological market of cooperators. Evolutionary Psychological Science 3(4), 364-378.
Eisenbruch, A.B., Lukaszewski, A.W., & Roney, J. R. (2017). It’s not all about mating: Attractiveness predicts partner value across multiple relationship domains. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40, 22-23.
Eisenbruch, A. B., Grillot, R. L., Maestripieri, D. & Roney, J. R. (2016). Evidence of partner choice heuristics in a one-shot bargaining game. Evolution and Human Behavior 37(6), 429-439.
Eisenbruch, A. B. & Roney, J. R. (2016). Conception risk and the ultimatum game: When fertility is high, women demand more. Personality and Individual Differences 98, 272-274.
Roney, J. R., Lukaszewski, A. W., Simmons, Z. L., Eisenbruch, A. B. & Grillot, R. L. (2015). A between-women account of cycle phase shifts is probably wrong: Comment on Havlicek et al. Behavioral Ecology 26(5), 1264-1265.
Eisenbruch, A. B., Simmons, Z. L., & Roney, J. R. (2015). Lady in red: Hormonal predictors of women’s clothing choices. Psychological Science 26(8), 1332-1338.