Home Page of Satoru Kiire
A psychological researcher.
In particular, I’m working on evolution, personality, social, and investigative psychology.
Key words: mating strategy; physical attractiveness; Dark Triad; intimate partner violence (IPV); profiling.
Email: s.kiire0518 [at] gmail.com
I am interested in identifying of psychological mechanisms from evolutionary perspective as a researcher. In particular, I’m working on physical attractiveness, mating strategy, Dark Triad (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism), intimate partner violence (IPV), and offender profiling.
Physical attractiveness is the important factor in mating. Also, high physical attractiveness reflects high health and reproductive capability. However, definition of high physical attractiveness is varied. This is because difference of belonging environment makes priority levels of health and/or reproductive capability different. Based on such fact, I'd like to identify what is the perfect trait of physical attractiveness, and how the environment or situation affect physical attractiveness. Beside above, it is indicated that a person with high Dark Triad is attractive. Physical attractiveness is considered as a condition for "attractive person", thus a person with Dark Triad might be "physically" attractive, too. Furthermore, the consistent selfishness, which is one of the core trait of Dark Triad, might be adaptive in some conditions. Therefore, Dark Triad is also considered as the psychological mechanism from selection. In particular, they might have advantages in mating contexts. Through my series of studies, I interested in identifying of the relationship between physical attractiveness, Dark Triad, and mating strategy. Additionally, this study could be extended for describing various criminal behaviors such as intimate partner violence. Namely, victimization or perpetration of offence might be explained in evolutionary perspective as one of the trade-off of costs and benefits. Also, I'm willing to apply those studies to profiling.
Evolutionary perspective is the approach that patterns of our cognitive mechanisms and/or behaviors were formed from evolutionary adaptations. The approach is applied to identifying various psychological phenomena. My works consist with this approach.
Mating is one of the important theme for evolutionary psychology because it is necessary for reproduction and production of offspring. Furthermore, the most adaptive mating strategy is varied in each individual or condition. I am working on my research of mating strategy based on physical attractiveness and Dark Triad.
Physical attractiveness is more important than we thought-unfortunately. In love or marriage, we might consider how the partner is beautiful/handsome, or partner's income or job- involuntarily. Although there are various factors of decision making in the context of mating, it is indicated that physical attractiveness often accounts for a large portion. So, what kind of physical traits is attractive? And in what case, what kind of physical traits is judged as attractive?
Socially aversive personalities, which are psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism, are conceptualized as the Dark Triad. They are characterized by selfishness, lack of empathy, and interpersonal manipulation. Although these socially predator's traits are undesirable in our society of cooperative, it might be adaptive from evolutionary perspective.
Domestic violence (DV) is the interpersonal violence in marriage or cohabitation relationships. However, in fact, same phenomena are observed in non-marital relations such as university students or earlier age (i.e., dating violence). Actually, those are essentially the same. Thus, researches approach these violence behaviors all together as intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV might be tactics to prevent from breakup, and it could be one of the form of mate retention behavior.
Some profilers of TV dramas or movies portrayed as they understand offender's mind or personality from crime scenes. And they are always cool and brightness. However, actually, in the way of profiling focuses on behavioral output rather than reading mind or understanding personality. Namely, actual profilers correct informations in past crimes, code the informations, and make prediction formula to calculate probability of offender's behavior. In fact, profiling requires persistence and patience.