Andrew W. Delton
Associate Professor
Center for Behavioral Political Economy
Department of Political Science
College of Business
Stony Brook University
2010 PhD, Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Primary Field: Evolutionary Psychology
Minors: Quantitative Methods, Cognitive Science, Human Development
2006 MA, Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara
2003 BS, Psychology, Arizona State University
I study evolution, psychology, and politics. One goal of my research is to uncover the psychology that allows humans to live as a cooperative and moral species. This includes research on generosity, social dilemmas, personality, and emotions like anger, compassion, shame, and gratitude. I view human psychology as a series of information-processing systems, each one designed to solve a common problem faced throughout human evolution. Another goal of my research is to use this knowledge to understand politics, including voting, partisanship, and public goods. Current work includes a forthcoming book on the politics of climate change. I am also interested in how our evolved psychology gives rise to political thought, focusing on liberalism, rights, and toleration. I use many methods to study these topics, particularly experimental economic games.
Forthcoming Book
Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. Climate Games: Experiments on How People Prevent Disaster. University of Michigan Press.
Publications
Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. (in press). Who do you trust? Institutions that constrain leaders help people prevent disaster. Journal of Politics. [PDF, Supplement]
Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. (in press). Is a rational politics of disaster possible? Making useful decisions for others in an experimental disaster game. Political Behavior. [PDF, Supplement]
Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. (in press). Anticipating moral hazard undermines climate mitigation in an experimental geoengineering game. Ecological Economics. [PDF, Supplement]
Delton, A. W., Jaeggi, A. V., Lim, J., Sznycer, D., Gurven, M., Robertson, T. E., Sugiyama, L., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (in press). Cognitive foundations for helping and harming others: Making welfare tradeoffs in industrialized and small-scale societies. Evolution and Human Behavior. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Kane, J. V., Petersen, M. B., Robertson, T. E., & Cosmides, L. (2022). Partisans use emotions as social pressure: Feeling anger and gratitude at exiters and recruits in political groups. Party Politics, 28, 845-853. [PDF, Supplement]
Del Ponte, A., Delton, A. W., & DeScioli, P. (2021). Altruism and spite in politics: How the mind makes welfare tradeoffs about political parties. Political Behavior, 43, 1289-1310. [PDF, Supplement]
DeScioli, P., Cho, B., Bokemper, S., & Delton, A. W. (2020). Selfish and cooperative voting: Can the majority restrain themselves? Political Behavior, 42, 261-283. [PDF, Supplement]
Delton, A. W. (2020). Book review of Why We Disagree About Human Nature (2018), edited by E. Hannon and T. Lewens. Quarterly Review of Biology, 95, 66. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., DeScioli, P., & Ryan, T. J. (2020). Moral obstinacy in political negotiations. Political Psychology, 41, 3-20. [PDF, Supplement]
Ryan, T. J., Delton, A. W., & DeScioli, P. (January 28, 2019). The shutdown took so long to end because it became a moral issue. Read at The Conversation or in Salon. [Op-Ed]
*Sznycer, D., *Delton, A. W., Robertson, T. E., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2019). The ecological rationality of helping others in need: Potential helpers integrate cues of recipients' need and willingness to sacrifice. Evolution and Human Behavior, 40, 34-45. [PDF, Supplement]
*Shared first-authorship between Sznycer and Delton
*Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. (2018). High risk-high reward investments to mitigate climate change. Nature Climate Change, 8, 890-894. [PDF, Supplement, Web, NCC News & Views, our Nature blog post]
*Alphabetical authorship; Andrews is corresponding author
Andrews, T. M. & Delton, A. W. (2018). Beyond market behavior: Evolved cognition and folk political economic beliefs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, e160. [Comment on Boyer & Petersen, "Folk-economic beliefs: An evolutionary cognitive model.] [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Petersen, M. B., & Robertson, T. E. (2018). Partisan goals, emotions, and political mobilization: The role of motivated reasoning in pressuring others to vote. Journal of Politics, 80, 890-992. [PDF, Supplement]
Delton, A. W., Petersen, M. B., DeScioli, P., & Robertson, T. E. (2018). Need, compassion, and support for social welfare. Political Psychology, 39, 907-924. [PDF, Supplement]
DeScioli, P., Shaw, A., and Delton, A. W. (2018). Share the wealth: Redistribution can increase economic efficiency. Political Behavior, 40, 279-300. [PDF]
Robertson, T. E., Sznycer, D., Delton, A. W., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2018). The true trigger of shame: Social devaluation is sufficient, wrongdoing is unnecessary. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39, 566-573. [PDF, Supplement]
Delton, A. W. & Krasnow, M. M. (2017). The psychology of deterrence explains why group membership matters for third-party punishment. Evolution and Human Behavior, 38, 734-743. [PDF, Supplement]
*Del Ponte, A., Delton, A. W., Kline, R., & Seltzer, N. A. (2017). Passing it along: Experiments on creating the negative externalities of climate change. Journal of Politics, 79, 1444-1488. [PDF, Supplement]
*Alphabetical authorship; Delton and Kline are corresponding authors
*Krasnow, M. M., *Delton, A. W., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2016). Looking under the hood of third-party punishment reveals design for personal benefit. Psychological Science, 27, 405-418. [PDF, Supplement]
*Shared first-authorship between Krasnow and Delton.
*Krasnow, M. M. & *Delton, A. W. (2016). Are humans too generous and too punitive? Using psychological principles to further debates about human social evolution. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 799. [PDF]
*Shared first-authorship between Krasnow and Delton.
Krasnow, M. M. & Delton, A. W. (2016). The sketch is blank: No evidence for an explanatory role for cultural group selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, 43-44. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Robertson, T. E. (2016). How the mind makes welfare tradeoffs: Evolution, computation, and emotion. Current Opinion in Psychology, 7, 12-16. [PDF]
*Krasnow, M. M., *Delton, A. W., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2015). Group cooperation without group selection: Modest punishment can recruit much cooperation. PLoS ONE, 10, e0124561. [PLoS, PDF]
*Shared first-authorship between Krasnow and Delton.
Delton, A. W. & Krasnow, M. M. (2015). Adaptationist approaches to moral psychology. In J. Decety and T. Wheatley (Eds.), The moral brain (pp. 19-34). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [PDF]
Kirkpatrick, M., Delton, A. W., Robertson, T. E., de Wit, H. (2015). Prosocial effects of MDMA: A measure of generosity. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 29, 661-668. [PDF]
Delton, A. W. & Krasnow, M. M. (2014). An independent replication that the evolution of direct reciprocity under uncertainty explains one-shot cooperation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 547-548. [PDF]
Robertson, T. E., Delton, A. W., Klein, S. B., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2014). Keeping the benefits of group cooperation: Domain-specific responses to distinct causes of social exclusion. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 472-480. [PDF, Supplement]
Delton, A. W. & Sell, A. (2014). The co-evolution of concepts and motivation. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23, 115-120. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Nemirow, J., Robertson, T. E., Cimino, A., & Cosmides, L. (2013). Merely opting out of a public good elicits moralization: An error management approach to cooperation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 621-638. [PDF]
*Krasnow, M. M., *Delton, A. W., Tooby, J., Cosmides, L., (2013). Meeting now suggests we will meet again: Implications for debates on the evolution of generosity. Nature Scientific Reports, 3, 1747, DOI:10.1038/srep1747. [PDF]
*Shared first-authorship between Krasnow and Delton.
Griskevicius, V., Ackerman, J. M., Cantu, S., Delton, A. W., Robertson, T. E., Simpson, J. A., Emery Thompson, M., & Tybur, J. M. (2013). When the economy falters, do people spend or save? Responses to resource scarcity depend on childhood environments. Psychological Science, 24, 197-205. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Cosmides, L., Guemo, M., Robertson, T. E., & Tooby, J. (2012). The psychosemantics of free riding: Dissecting the architecture of a moral concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 1252-1270. [PDF, Supplement]
Delton, A. W. & Robertson, T. E. (2012). The social cognition of social foraging: Partner selection by underlying valuation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33, 715-725. [PDF, Supplement]
*Sznycer, D., *Takemura, K., *Delton, A. W., Sato, K., Robertson, T. E., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2012). Cross-cultural differences and similarities in proneness to shame: An adaptationist and ecological approach. Evolutionary Psychology, 10, 352-370. [PDF]
*Shared first-authorship among Sznycer, Takemura, and Delton.
Krasnow, M. M. & Delton, A. W. (2012). Is there evidence for special design of a group-selected psychology? Comment on Steven Pinker's The false allure of group selection. Edge. Retrieved from http://edge.org/conversation/the-false-allure-of-group-selection#mkad [PDF]
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Ackerman, J. M., Delton, A. W., Robertson, T. E., & White, A. E. (2012). The financial consequences of too many men: Sex ratio effects on saving, borrowing, and spending. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 69-80. [PDF]
Klein, S. B., Robertson, T. E., Delton, A. W., Lax, M. L. (2012). Familiarity and personal experience as mediators of recall when planning for future contingencies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 38, 240-245. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Krasnow, M. M., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2011). The evolution of direct reciprocity under uncertainty can explain human generosity in one-shot encounters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108, 13335-13340. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Krasnow, M. M., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2011). Reply to McNally and Tanner: Generosity evolves when cooperative decisions must be made under uncertainty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,108, E972. [PDF]
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Delton, A. W., & Robertson, T. E. (2011). The influence of mortality and socioeconomic status on preferences for risk and delayed rewards: A life history theory approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 1015-1026. [PDF]
Griskevicius, V., Delton, A. W., & Robertson, T. E., Tybur, J. M. (2011). Environmental contingency in life-history strategies: Influence of mortality and socioeconomic status on reproductive timing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 241-254. [PDF]
Klein, S. B., Robertson, T. E., & Delton, A. W. (2011). The future-orientation of memory: Planning as a key component mediating the high levels of recall found with survival processing. Memory, 19, 121-139. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Krasnow, M. M., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2010). Evolution of fairness: Rereading the data. Science, 329 (5990), 389. [PDF]
Delton, A. W. & Cimino, A. (2010). Exploring the newcomer concept: Experimental tests of a cognitive model. Evolutionary Psychology, 8, 317-335. [PDF]
Cimino, A. & Delton, A. W. (2010). On the perception of newcomers: Toward an evolved psychology of intergenerational coalitions. Human Nature, 21, 186-202. [PDF]
Klein, S. B., Robertson, T. E., & Delton, A. W. (2010). Facing the future: Memory as an evolved system for planning future acts. Memory and Cognition, 38, 13-22. [PDF]
Kenrick, D. T., Delton, A. W., Robertson, T. E., Becker, D. V., & Neuberg, S. L. (2007). How the mind warps: A social evolutionary perspective on cognitive processing disjunctions. In J. P. Forgas, M. G. Haselton, & W. Von Hippel (Eds.), The evolution of the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and social cognition (pp. 49-68). New York: Psychology Press. [PDF]
Delton, A. W., Robertson, T. E., & Kenrick, D. T. (2006). The mating game isn't over: A reply to Buller's critique of the evolutionary psychology of mating. Evolutionary Psychology, 4, 262-273. [PDF]
Maner, J. K., Kenrick, D. T., Becker, D. V., Robertson, T. E., Hofer, B., Neuberg, S. L., Delton, A. W., Butner, J., & Schaller, M. (2005). Functional projection: How fundamental social motives can bias interpersonal perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 63-78. [PDF]
Maner, J. K., Kenrick, D. T., Becker, D. V., Delton, A. W., Hofer, B., Wilbur, C. J., & Neuberg, S. L. (2003). Sexually selective cognition: Beauty captures the mind of the beholder. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1107-1120. [PDF]