Table 1.

Examples of behaviors and decisions associated with more or less utility in six broad social domains, and some decision biases associated with each domain.

Social domain and associated social goal	Outcomes yielding relative utility	Outcomes yielding relative disutility	Typical decision biases
Affiliation Form and maintain cooperative alliances	Proximity to alliance partners Sharing resources equally among alliance partners	Social exclusion Reciprocity violations	Propensity to affiliate and conform when feeling fearful Sensitive cheating detection for reciprocity violations.
Status Gain and maintain social status	Dominating competitors (relatively more for men) Basking in reflective glory of group members' achievements	Deference to more powerful others Public losses of relative status	Risky status-yielding activities more attractive for young unmated men and less attractive for women.
Self-Protection Protect oneself and valued others from threats	Higher ratio of ingroup to outgroup members when threats salient. Barriers to outgroup members (e.g., walls, locks)	Being in a numerical minority when threat salient Presence of threatening outgroup members who are male and/or large.	Rapid detection of anger in male (versus female) faces Enhanced memory of angry outgroup male faces.
Mate Search Attract desirable mates	For males judging females: Cues to youth, health and fertility For females judging males: Cues to investment as long-term mates, social dominance and physical symmetry in short-term mates.	Poor health, aging cues, assymmetry. Conformity and deference to other males among potential male mates.	Males take more risks and resist conformity when mating opportunities are salient. Females are more publicly (but not privately) generous under mating motivation.
Mate Retention Retain and foster long-term mating bonds	Communal sharing with relationship partner, rather than equality-based sharing Investment in partner's offspring	Cues to emotional infidelity (relatively more salient to females judging males) Cues to sexual infidelity (relatively more salient to males judging females	Attention by women to other physically attractive women. Attention by men to other socially dominant men
Kin Care Invest in offspring and genetic relatives	Benefits to offspring, and to other relatives (discounted by degree of relatedness)	Threats to kin versus non-genetically related alliance partners Perceived favoritism of one's parent towards one's siblings	Grandparental investment highest by grandmother in daughter's offspring (tracking paternity certainty).