Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Sexual Psychology and Behavior

"Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Sexual Psychology and Behavior is one of the first volumes in this series. It contains 20 informative and thought-provoking chapters on human sexual cognition and behavior. Most of the chapters (17 of 20) are organized into two sections: Male Sexual Adaptations and Female Sexual Adaptations.
The chapters are appreciably diverse, covering topics such as mate preferences (e.g., for facial characteristics and body types), physical manifestations of evolutionarily relevant information (e.g., body shape as an indicator of female fertility), sexual behavior (e.g., forced copulation), mating cognition (e.g., perception of sexual interest), and intrasexual competition (e.g., restricted eating among women). Sensibly, some important themes recur across various chapters, such as ovulatory cycle effects (which appear in chapters on men’s sensitivity to female ovulation, male mate retention, female rape avoidance, female preferences for male characteristics, female disgust sensitivity, to name a few)...In conclusion, the editors of this book did an excellent job soliciting chapters on a variety of topics within human sexual psychology and behavior from an evolutionary perspective. The chapters are generally well written, and most of them present richly detailed literature reviews or helpful introductions to competing theories on a single topic. This book will appeal to researchers and connoisseurs of evolutionary psychology who will benefit from the mix of chapters containing tidy summaries and helpful comparisons of competing theories."
Christina M. Brown, PsycCRITIQUES
August 11, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 32, Article 7