Abstract

FIGUEREDO, Aurelio José et al. The interplay of behavioral dispositions and cognitive abilities: sociosexual orientation, emotional intelligence, executive functions and life history strategy. Temas psicol. [online]. 2012, vol.20, n.1, pp. 87-100. ISSN 1413-389X.

Life History (LH) theory predicts that psychosocial traits will be selected to cluster into functionally coherent and coordinated suites of coadapted behavioral tactics. Among these coadapted tactics are behavioral dispositions, or "sociosexual orientations", towards either short-term mating (STM) and long-term mating (LTM), which are associated with fast and slow LH strategies, respectively. We predicted that certain specific mental abilities, executive functions (EF) and emotional intelligence (EI) should be higher in slow LH strategies, and should differentially predict STM and LTM, and partially mediate the relations between LH strategy and these different sociosexual orientations. 527 female undergraduates completed questionnaires measuring their LH strategies, EI, EF, and sociosexual orientations towards STM or LTM. The data were found to be consistent with our theoretically specified structural model. The results suggest that EF partially mediates both the relation between slow LH strategy and STM and the relation between slow LH and EI, and only indirectly influences LTM through its effects on STM and EI. In addition, EI partially mediates the relation between slow LH strategy and LTM. Implications for how LH strategy coordinates behavioral dispositions and the mental abilities required to implement them are discussed.

Keywords : Life history strategy; Long-term mating strategy; Sociosexual orientation; Executive functions; Emotional intelligence.

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