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Diego Guevara Beltran

@psycheddiego.bsky.social
416 followers 698 following 100 posts

Social psych + evo anthropology: Cooperation, interdependence, emotion. Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona. psycheddiego.mystrikingly.com

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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
We’re hiring an Assistant Professor in Social/Personality Psychology at the University of Arizona! We welcome candidates from any area who would add breadth to our program. Apply by November 1. More details here: arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree... @spspnews.bsky.social @psychscience.bsky.social
arizona.csod.com
Assistant Professor, Social & Personality Psychology (T/TE)
Maintain an active research program with extramural funding.Teach courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels and contribute to mentoring student...
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Paddy Tkaczynski @paddytkaczynski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
🚨🐵Primate Job: @plasticprimates.bsky.social have teamed up with @monkeyforest.bsky.social and we have a postdoctoral researcher position opening to explore Barbary macaque population and conservation genomics. Details are here (tinyurl.com/mr275rrm) but feel to reach out to me with any questions!
Barbary macaques eating mistletoe and hawthorns
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Only 1 day left to apply for the 25th Evolutionary Psychology Preconference at #SPSP2027 @spspnews.bsky.social 🌐Feb 9: Full-day Virtual Preconference Send us your Datablitz & Poster proposals by Oct 8! ep2027.mystrikingly.com
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Only 1 week left to apply for the 25th Evolutionary Psychology Preconference at #SPSP2027 @SPSPnews 🌐Feb 9: Full-day Virtual Preconference Send us your Datablitz & Poster proposals by Oct 8! ep2027.mystrikingly.com
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I'll be reviewing PhD applicants for the Social and Personality area at the University of Arizona. Applicants from any background with a strong interest in cooperation, prosociality, emotion, and/or sociality/well-being should apply. A background in Evolutionary Psych and Spanish fluency is a plus!
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Less than 2 weeks to apply for the 25th Evolutionary Psychology Preconference at #SPSP2027 @spspnews.bsky.social 🌐Feb 9: Full-day Virtual Preconference Send us your Datablitz & Poster proposals by Oct 8! ep2027.mystrikingly.com
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Join us for the 25th Evolutionary Psychology Preconference at #SPSP2027 @spspnews.bsky.social 🌐Feb 9: Full-day Virtual Preconference 🚨Submissions close Oct 8! Send us your Datablitz & Poster proposals. The program features outstanding speakers you'll not want to miss! 🧵 ep2027.mystrikingly.com
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Ahra Ko 고아라 @ahrako.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Join us for the 25th Evolutionary Psychology Preconference at #SPSP2027 & showcase your research ✨ 🌐 Feb 9: Full-day Virtual Preconference featuring top international speakers 🚨 Submissions close Oct 8! Send us your Datablitz & Poster proposals. 💌 ep2027.mystrikingly.com
ep2027.mystrikingly.com
2027 Philadelphia on Strikingly
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The 25th Evolutionary Psychology Preconference at #SPSP2027 is now accepting Datablitz & Poster submissions (deadline Oct 8)! ep2027.mystrikingly.com @spspnews.bsky.social
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Questions? Reach out to @ahrako.bsky.social or @psycheddiego.bsky.social !
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
- Nina Rodriguez: The Silent Treatment is a Bargaining Behavior - Yunsuh (Nike) Wee: Laws about Bodily Damage Originate From Shared Intuitions About the Value of Body Parts Across 27 Societies
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
- Nicolas Baumard: A Theory of Cuteness as Developmental Investment - @scottclaessens.bsky.social: The Evolution of Inequality in Human Societies - Willem Frankenhuis: Adaptation to Harsh and Unpredictable Environments 🧵
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
- @sapinker.bsky.social: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life - Khandis Blake: Household Scaling Theory: On Gender, Kinship, and the Architecture of Group Relations - Sarah Brosnan: The Impact of Relationships on Inequity and Cooperation🧵
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Join us for the 25th Evolutionary Psychology Preconference at #SPSP2027 and showcase your research! 🌐Feb 9: Full-day Virtual Preconference 🚨Submissions close Oct 8! Send us your Datablitz & Poster proposals. The program features outstanding speakers you'll not want to miss! 🧵 ep2027.mystrikingly.com
ep2027.mystrikingly.com
2027 Philadelphia on Strikingly
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Erin Siracusa @erinsiracusa.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Animals are known to prefer kin as social partners. But non-kin bonds are surprisingly common too. So, who forms them, how stable are they & what drives them? In our new @animbehsociety.bsky.social paper we tackle these overlooked questions in free-living rhesus macaques: tinyurl.com/mwsbkjve (1/5)
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 04/09/2026
More than 100 pregnant women in Ecuador adopted a diet based on studies of nutrition in human evolution. Compared with controls, their babies had increased growth in subcortical brain regions linked to motor control, cognition, and signal transmission. In PNAS: ow.ly/MCtY50ZJsOr
Dietary diversity among control and Mikhuna group participants at the close of intervention, at 35 weeks’ gestation. (A) Percentage of participants reporting any consumption of individual foods within 10 food groups in a 24-hour period. (B) Percentage of participants reporting consumption of at least one food within food groups.
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Alissa Rivero @alissarivero.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
My first paper (with Jared Vasil and Mike Tomasello) is officially published! 🎉 Question: When can children coordinate decisions with each other in groups? Answer: Age 3! Read it here: academic.oup.com/chidev/advan... 🧵 (1/6)
academic.oup.com
Two- and three-year-olds coordinate decisions in dyads and triads
Abstract. Even young toddlers coordinate actions with a partner. But coordinating choices or decisions is more challenging, particularly in multi-party gro
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 29/08/2026
Discover one of the top-performing PNAS Nexus articles on Altmetric over the past three months! “Temperature and aggression revisited: Evidence from 1 million amateur football matches” by Riaz et al. had an Altmetric score of 76, driven by strong media attention: ow.ly/hJc150ZFWvB
Graphs showing the relationship between maximum match temperature and relative counts of total, yellow, and red cards in soccer matches.
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Haneul Jang @haneuljang.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
New preprint! 💙 Together with @amandinevisine.bsky.social, we observed that BaYaka hunter-gatherer women and girls flexibly alternate between childcare and subsistence responsibilities during foraging trips, a pattern we call “relay cooperation” osf.io/preprints/so...
 Schematic illustration of the relay cooperation mechanism
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Haneul Jang @haneuljang.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
New paper 💙 Together with Ayana Tanaka, Shun Hongo, and Akira Takada, we compared early childhood caregiving among !Xun in Namibia and Baka in Cameroon, showing how maternal care and care from others come together across the two hunter-gatherer populations. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Reframing Mother–Child Closeness and Cooperative Caregiving: A Comparative Study of Two Hunter‐Gatherer Populations
Objectives Caregiving during early childhood emerges from a dynamic interplay between maternal and allomaternal contributions. This study aimed to challenge polarized portrayals of hunter-gatherer c...
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Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) @improvingpsych.org · 26/08/2026
Congratulations to the project “openESM,” which received🏆2026 SIPS commendation! openESM is a database of harmonized openly available experience sampling datasets. 🔗Project website: buff.ly/3Q5EwYt 🔗A preprint describing the project: buff.ly/iXcT6ZL
openesmdata.org
openESM: Open Experience Sampling Method Database
<!DOCTYPE html> openESM: Open Experience Sampling Method Database A database of open experience sampling datasets openESM is a database of harmonized openly available experience sampling datasets.…
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
It's often assumed kin networks break down with marketisation & urbanisation, but there's surprisingly little evidence on this. @anushe.bsky.social tested whether childcare was more often provided by kin in a less-market-integrated village compared with a more-market-integrated town in Tanzania 1/
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
A colleague’s affiliation in a current paper: National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico, Mexico
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Jessica D Ayers @jessicadayers.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Do we really pick between the quantity and quality of our friends? Check out @psycheddiego.bsky.social and my new piece in the @us.theconversation.com theconversation.com/a-lot-of-cas...
theconversation.com
A lot of casual friends, or only a few you’re really close with? New research questions that trade-off
Friendships are integral to human health and well being, yet researchers know very little about how people make friends. A new study investigated what people prioritize for new friendships.
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Julien Lie-Panis @jliep.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Why do societies rely on rigid moral rules? Don't lie. Keep your promises. Don't steal. We all recognize there are good reasons to make exceptions. So why are moral rules so often categorical? Our new paper proposes an answer. 🧵
Screenshot of article title page, "Why human societies adopt rigid moral rules"
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Evolutionary Psychology (the podcast) @epthepod.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Last week, we talked to @kris-smith.bsky.social about cooperation in the field. youtu.be/ADvkjnwxasA podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e... www.podbean.com/eas/pb-i6c8y...
youtu.be
Cooperation in the field with Kris Smith
YouTube video by Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast)
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R. Chow @rchow.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
(Undergrad here) Wait, journals actually ask authors to suggest peer reviewers??? Is this the researcher version of students having a class presentation and giving their classmates questions to ask them during Q&A so they can prepare answers in advance LOL
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Ralf Kurvers @ralfkurvers.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
New preprint led by @lucasmolleman.bsky.social investigates social information use across the human lifespan. Testing >40,000 participants aged 6-80 in museums in Berlin and Japan. psyarxiv.com/hec96
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Megan Frederickson @mfrederickson.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Another new preprint from my lab, led by Erin McHugh in collaboration with Megan Bontrager. Mutualism has long been thought to expand a species' niche, an idea supported by case studies. We found support (mostly) for this idea across 2600+ legumes from around the globe: doi.org/10.64898/202...
doi.org
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Evolutionary Psychology (the podcast) @epthepod.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Do you stay home or go out when you're sick? This week, we talk to @joshackman.bsky.social about the psychology of pathogens. youtu.be/Jq3K_Ck0EQY podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e... www.podbean.com/eas/pb-29ph7...
youtu.be
Pathogens with Josh Ackerman
YouTube video by Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast)
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
An outstanding question: does helping really cultivate empathy or is it the other way around?). We will examine this with dyadic daily diaries, and ecological momentary assessments (w @dsbarra.bsky.social Jessica Andrews-Hanna & @gregdepow.bsky.social)
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Unexpectedly, we also find a positive indirect effect of wealth on concern via moderate helping (S2-S3). So, excess resources may enable moderate helpers to cultivate empathy as well, perhaps as means of building prestige (generosity is among strongest predictors of prestige)
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
When people face challenges difficult to manage independently, cultivating empathy may prove advantageous if it enables them to build safety nets. Said differently, people cultivate empathy when reliance on others is adaptive, but not if self-reliance is the less costly strategy
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Study 3 (preregistered; 6 months, 2 waves; US representative, Prolific) again replicates the indirect effect at low helping levels (moderate helpers showing the greatest increases in empathic concern), controlling for perspective taking, relative wealth, and self-deception.
Model predicting trait empathy (Study 3). Panel (A) sequential indirect effects show that (1) among people helping more overall (region right of the dashed line in panel (D)), lower wealth was associated with increasing perspective taking via more challenges and helping; (2) Among people helping less overall (region left of the dashed line in Panel (E)), lower wealth was associated with increasing empathic concern through more challenges and helping (i.e., up to a moderate amount). Panel (B) Wealthier people experienced fewer challenges. Panel (C) Experiencing challenges was associated with more helping. Panel (D) helping had a positive effect on perspective taking change at follow-up, but only among people reporting more helping overall (region right of the dashed line). Panel (E) helping had a positive effect on empathic concern change at follow-up, but only among people reporting less helping overall (region left of the dashed line).
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
We do not find further changes in trait concern from year 1 to 2, but converging results show that moderate helpers reported higher state-level empathic concern during their most recent helping experience, and when helping an usual (or more than an usual) amount across the 2-yrs
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Study 2 (2 years, 18 waves; US representative, Prolific) replicates the indirect effect, but only among people reporting lower levels of helping, such that moderate helpers show the highest increases in empathic concern from baseline to year 1 (controlling for self-deception)
Panel (A) a sequential indirect effect shows that, among people who helped less overall (region left of the blue dashed line in Panel (D)), lower wealth was associated with positive changes in empathic concern at year 1 through experiencing more challenges and more helping (i.e., up to a moderate amount). We do not find a sequential indirect effect of wealth on empathic concern among people reporting more helping overall (region right of the red dashed line in Panel (D)). Panel (B) Wealthier people experienced fewer challenges. Panel (C) Experiencing more challenges was associated with helping (month-to-month average). Panel (D) helping predicted positive changes in empathic concern for people who helped less overall (region left of the blue dashed line), and negative changes in empathic concern for people who helped more (region right of the red dashed line), but this negative effect did not hold excluding outliers.
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
We test this assumption across three studies. Study 1 (US - Mturk) provides correlational evidence for an indirect effect of lower wealth on higher trait empathic concern via experiencing more challenges and helping others more often
SEM predicting empathic concern (Study 1). Panel (A) a sequential indirect effect shows that lower wealth was associated with higher empathic concern through experiencing more challenges and helping more often in the previous year. Panel (B) Wealthier people experienced fewer challenges. Panel (C) Experiencing challenges was associated with helping more often. Panel (D) Helping was associated
with higher empathic concern.
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Psychologists have long argued that lower wealth is linked with higher empathy, claiming that reliance on mutual support (over self-reliance) fosters an other-oriented psychology. Yet, whether challenges and helping people actually cultivate empathy remains an untested assumption
Conceptual model. Wealth buffers the frequency of challenges and allows people to absorb the costs of challenges when they arise. Experiencing challenges motivates individuals to invest in social safety nets by helping others in times of need. Over time, helping
people in need affords opportunities to deploy, and hence strengthen, a disposition toward feeling empathic concern.
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Why is lower wealth often associated with greater empathy? New work at SPPS w @jessicadayers.bsky.social Yul Kwon Peter Todd @athenaaktipis.bsky.social shows lower wealth cultivates empathy via challenges and helping - but only among moderate helpers🧵https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506261449280
doi.org
Helping People in Times of Need Cultivates Empathy Over Time - Diego Guevara Beltran, Jessica D. Ayers, Jung Yul Kwon, Peter M. Todd, Athena Aktipis, 2026
Why is lower social class often associated with greater empathy? We test whether less wealthy people experience more challenges, thereby motivating them to help...
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Human Relations Area Files at Yale University @hraf755.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Announcing new diacritical improvements in eHRAF hraf.yale.edu/font-selecti...
hraf.yale.edu
Font Selection and Linguistic Display Improvements in eHRAF | Human Relations Area Files
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Society for Personality and Social Psychology @spspnews.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Thinking about pursuing a career in personality and social psychology? Jessica D. Ayers recommends having fun, finding a topic you're passionate about, and striving to find work-life balance. Learn more in our latest SPSP Member Spotlight: ow.ly/MKzi50Z4T5v
Portrait of Jessica Ayers, highlighted as an SPSP member from Boise State University in a Member Spotlight feature.
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Society for Personality and Social Psychology @spspnews.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Why is lower wealth often linked to greater empathy? New research suggests it comes down to experiencing more challenges, helping others more, and building empathy over time. Read more in #SPPS: ow.ly/jXZb50Z4KZE
Three hikers silhouetted against a cloudy sky helping each other climb a steep mountain ridge with rugged peaks in the background.
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Bernardo Seixas @bernardoseixas.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
What makes religious fasting prosocial? Hunger usually makes people more selfish, impulsive, and aggressive — so why does fasting seem to do the opposite? That was the question at the heart of my talk at the 37th meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in Rabat, Morocco last week.
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Josh Ackerman @joshackman.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Maybe it depends on how concerned about germs you are (www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...)? 😀 Wish we knew about your measure when we did our studies! Cool stuff.
sciencedirect.com
Infectious disease concerns predict narrow friendship networks
Friendship significantly influences our happiness and health, and in ancestral contexts, the support offered by friends would likely have delivered fi…
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Jessica D Ayers @jessicadayers.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Do you want a lot of friend, or only a few that your really close with? In our new paper, we ( @psycheddiego.bsky.social D. Mercado & @athenaaktipis.bsky.social) present the concept, structure, and validation of friendship making orientation kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me
ScienceDirect.com | Science, health and medical journals, full text articles and books.
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Trends in Cognitive Sciences @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Online Now: How developing prosocial motivations shape children’s altruism
dlvr.it
How developing prosocial motivations shape children’s altruism
Developmental perspectives are crucial to harnessing the human potential for altruism. We synthesise and highlight recent research on the motivations underlying children’s (costly) prosocial behaviour. The order in which children develop intrinsic, extrinsic, and strategic motivations to benefit others has implications for efforts to positively impact young people’s lives.
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Jeremy Koster @jeremykoster.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
There is a fully-funded PhD position at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to pursue dissertation research among the Mayangna of Nicaragua, expanding a longitudinal study of subsistence strategies and behavioral ecology. Please share the posting! www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
😂😂😂
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Combined, we suggest that relational interdependence allows people to respond sensitively to a partner’s rewarding and aversive events despite interference that may come from self-directed challenging (i.e., incongruent) information, in turn facilitating relationship functioning
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Diego Guevara Beltran @psycheddiego.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
What's more, women's for their partner's positive feedback was associated with their own + their partner's positive relationship outcomes : )
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