ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for a more evolutionarily and psychologically informed model of Homo economicus, since economics is possibly the most relevant discipline to guide the development of incentive structures which alleviates the current conservation crisis. It focuses primarily on sex differences and age, and discusses how a selectionist perspective on life history suggests that preferences and decision-making are also likely to have evolved to vary systematically with age. The social science with an obvious role to play in remediating the current global crisis is economics. Experimental studies of nonhuman animal foraging decisions have established the ecological validity of a risk-preference model based on variance of expected payoffs. The rationale for anticipating sex differences in the way people value and exploit the environment, as well as differences in willingness to risk damaging one's health, is an argument that has been applied to other aspects of risk taking and to sexually differentiated adaptations for intrasexual competition.
