HUMAN EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY GROUP

David W Lawson

BSc (Hons) Biology (UCL), MSc Evolutionary Psychology (Liverpool)

David is a human behavioural ecologist with broad interests in the evolutionary behavioural sciences, focusing around life history theory & parental investment. His PhD, supervised by Professor Ruth Mace, explores patterns of fertility and sibling competition in a sample of over 14,000 contemporary British families over a 10 year period. All data are sourced from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSAPC) - an ongoing longitudinal database (http://www.alspac.bris.ac.uk).

David is also interested in evolutionary approaches to homosexual behaviour, sex-biased investment and evolutionary medicine. He has a particular interest in the theoretical and methodological divisions between human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology and approaches to cultural evolution.

David is on the steering committee for the European Human Behaviour & Evolution (EHBE) Conferences (www.ehbes.com). He is also Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology.

Email: d.lawson@ucl.ac.uk
Projects: parental investment

Publications:

Lawson, D.W. & Mace, R. (submitted). Optimising modern family size: trade-offs between fertility and economic hardship in contemporary British families.

Lawson, D.W. & Mace, R. (submitted). Trade-offs in modern parenting: a longitudinal study of sibling competition for parental care.

Lawson, D.W. & Mace, R. (in press). Sibling configuration and childhood growth in contemporary British families. International Journal of Epidemiology

Lawson, D.W., Jordan, F.M. & Magid, K. (2008). On sex and suicide bombing: an evaluation of Kanazawa’s ‘Evolutionary Psychological Imagination’. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 6, 73-84.

Lawson, D.W. (2007). Frustrated felines and excited ungulates: a review of
‘ Homosexual Behaviour in Animals – An Evolutionary Perspective’. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 5, 257-260.

Sear, R., Lawson, D.W. & Dickins, T. (2007). Synthesis in the human evolutionary behavioural sciences. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 5, 3-28.

Scott, B.E., Lawson, D.W. & Curtis, V. (2007). Hard to handle: understanding mother’s handwashing behaviour in Ghana. Health Policy & Planning 22, 216-224.