Evolutionary constraints make prejudice against out-group men context-dependent and costly to sustain

Evidence

Although we have asserted that women should be motivated to avoid out-group men in order to protect reproductive choice, it is important to note that such behavior does not come without costs. In practice, active avoidance of out-group men requires heightened cognitive attention to threatening cues and the exertion of energy as one attempts to avoid potential threats. This increase in cognitive effort and expended energy comes at the cost of failing to direct that effort toward other tasks also crucial to survival and reproduction. Taking such costs into consideration, it is likely that an avoidance mechanism selected to protect female choice would be calibrated to influence behavior during times when reproductive choice is at greatest risk, that is, during ovulation, or when copulation is most likely to result in conception. It may also be the case that an avoidance mechanism would be sensitive to variations among women in the extent to which they appraise themselves as being vulnerable to sexual coercion. In this way, avoidance and fear of outgroup men is greatest among women who perceive themselves as being particularly vulnerable to such threats, and during times when the risk is greatest, thereby minimizing the energy expended in the service of protecting a woman’s reproductive choice. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1260

Categorization

• QUESTION: This cost-accounting move — prejudice as an energy-expensive adaptation that must be calibrated to peak risk windows — is a useful lens: does this predict that prejudice against out-group men fluctuates with ovulation even among non-white women, or across women who do not fear coercion?
• ADDENDUM: Complicates and enriches the reader’s ‘Islamophobia/antisemitism as cognitive mechanism’ thread by grounding out-group fear in an evolved reproductive-choice adaptation with a measured physiological driver rather than pure social learning.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1260