Conservatism and religiousness participate in fast life history dynamics via elevated reproductive motivation

Abstract Social attitudes like religiousness and conservatism have been rarely examined in a life history framework. However, there are two competing hypotheses regarding the role of religiousness in human life history: in evolutionary psychological research it is thought to indicate slow life history while the behavioral ecological framework highlights its role in faster life history via elevated reproduction output and lower age of first reproduction. We tested these hypotheses for conservatism and religiousness by analyzing their relations with the variables that measure childhood environmental characteristics, mating effort, and reproductive motivation. The research was conducted via an online study on a sample of young adults in Serbia (N = 528). Bivariate correlations showed that religiousness and conservatism are positively related to reproductive motivation and a beneficial childhood environment, with negative correlations with mating effort. Furthermore, the Network Analysis showed that these two social attitudes are related only to enhanced reproductive motivation when analyzed in a multivariate fashion: conservatism was positively related with reasons favoring parenthood and desired number of children while religiousness was positively related to reasons for parenthood, and negatively for reasons against parenthood and pregnancy planning. Both attitudes had above average centrality indices in the life history network. The results are interpreted in a framework of life history theory and behavioral ecology of social attitudes in general.