Development of a scale for the measurement of evolutionarily important situation characteristics

Behavior in everyday situations depends on the activation of an individual’s specific
goals and motives. Research suggests that basic goals such as protecting oneself, forming
coalitions, and avoiding disease have emerged as the result of evolutionary processes Kenrick,
Li, & Butner, 2003. However, no scale exists to measure the characteristics of situations that
might promote or prevent the achievement of these goals. Participants described a situation they
encountered the previous day and rated that situation using 64 items designed to tap seven
adaptive problems identified by Kenrick and colleagues 2003. Using both exploratory and
confirmatory factor analyses a 28-item measure of situational characteristics that promote or
prevent the achievement of evolutionarily important goals was created. The results suggest that
this 28-item measure has both adequate bandwidth and fidelity. Future research should
investigate the discriminant and convergent validity of this newly created measure.