A general theory of personality based on social selection

and life-history theory

January 04, 2021

When it comes to personality psychology the Big 5 (or Five-Factor Model/FFM) are still
considered the gold standard and many other personality tests, like the Myers-Briggs (MBTI)
are considered pseudoscience. The FFM is even more useful and has more predictive power
when a sixth dimension is added: honesty humility (HEXACO model).

However, adding new personality dimensions is little use when it comes to understanding
human nature, as not even five factors are human universals. Two of the factors that are
often associated with mental disorders (neuroticism and openness to experience), never
even show up in non-Western societies, which are called “WEIRD” (Western, educated,
industrialized, rich and democratic) by Joseph Henrich in The WEIRDest People in the
World (2020). Henrich points out the Big 5 are indeed WEIRD 5, as they are by no means
human universals. Some societies yield only three or four factors. Subsistence-level
economies often only have two factors. The Tsimane'  practise subsistence farming and
Henrich writes about them:
So, did the Tsimane' reveal the WEIRD-5? No, not even close. The Tsimane' data reveal
only two dimensions of personality. No matter how you slice and dice the data, there’s just
nothing like the WEIRD-5. Moreover, based on the clusters of characteristics associated with
each of the Tsimane'’s two personality dimensions, neither matches up nicely with any of the
WEIRD-5 dimensions [...] these dimensions capture the two primary routes to social success
among the Tsimane', which can be described roughly as “interpersonal prosociality” and
“industriousness.” The idea is that if you are Tsimane', you can either focus on working
harder on the aforementioned productive activities and skills like hunting and weaving, or you
can devote your time and mental efforts to building a richer network of social relationships.
Henrich doesn’t mention it, but the two personality profiles that emerge from these farmers
are more provisioning (male majority) and a more caregiving one (female majority) from an
evolutionary point of view. The same can be expected from other subsistence economies: for
foragers you will get a “hunter” profile and a “gatherer” profile. What these two factors thus
capture is the ancient evolutionary difference between male and female traits. In the Big 5
this trait is represented by the factor “agreeableness” and T/F (testosterone/estrogen) in
MBTI. Men are on average much lower in agreeableness than women. Women often
complain about men and their lack of empathy, however, it is their very female ancestors
who sexually selected the traits men have.  So, the term “agreeableness” for this personality
dimension is somewhat unfairly biased against men.
According to our ancestral mode of subsistence, we can therefore derive six (3x2) different
personality profiles:
Going even further back in time when there was no division of labour we find the general
factor (GF) of personality: “socially and sexually desirable traits”, or being socially
appreciated, which made sure the individual would be socially accepted and a desirable
mate. The GF was therefore socially and sexually selected traits. The increasing division of
labour happened due to mate preferences: a skilled provider (also technical problem solver)
for females and a skilled social problem solver (also caregiving profile) for males. Depending
on the different subsistence level economies different personality traits become desirable:
competence (hunting is a skill that takes life-long learning) for foragers, productivity and
industriousness for farmers (farmers had to work many more hours.  
Assuming that ancient farmers had much harder lives than foragers, they would also have a
tendency to have a higher reproductive rate than (one child every 2-3 years) than hunter-
gatherers (one child every 3-4 years).  When it comes to mate choice a farmer-female would
choose a male who achieves high food productivity and by doing so selected all the traits
that were required: industriousness, conscientiousness, delayed gratification, long-term
planning capabilities. Yes, these traits sound very much like the Big 5 trait
“conscientiousness”. These traits most likely did not exist in humans before the advent of
agriculture. Conscientiousness also goes hand in hand with many other traits that were
necessary for early farmers: conformism, love of tradition, love of strict rules (law and order).
Pastoralists had most likely the hardest and shortest lives of all. According to life-history
strategy, they should be the risk-takers and somewhat sociosexual. Indeed, it is pastoralist
tribes that tended to wreak havoc among their farmer neighbours in history: the Yamnaya
(Indoeuropeans), Huns, Mongols, Vikings, etc. We, thus, arrive at the following traits:
Shortest lifespan medium (farmer) Long lifespan (HG)
(pastoralist)

Most risk-taking/least fearful Least risk-taking/most careful

Earliest onset of puberty Latest onset of puberty

Highest reproductive rate Lowest reproductive rate

Least paternal investment Most paternal investment

Most sociosexual Most pair-bonded

 Higher sexual dimorphism Lower sexual dimorphism

Most in-group social Most out-group social

Each of these personality profiles would have had evolutionarily selected optima (fine-tuning)
when it comes to traits such as extraversion (which includes risk-taking), which probably left
much less room for variation than in modern societies, which are basically a mix of all three
personality types. However, due to evolved mate preferences, we can expect that these traits
are not completely mixed in the gene pool. Assortative mating is a well-known phenomenon
in psychology, and I am certain it works along the lines of these ancestral personality types.
The anthropologist Helen Fisher has found four personality profiles that tend to date and
mate. They align well with the four MBTI temperaments and my proposed evolutionary types:

Fisher also states that these types look for different traits in their mates. Builders (farmer
types) want a helpmate, explorer (pastoralist types) want a playmate and
directors/negotiators want soulmates. This characterisation fits well with there different
evolutionary types. 

This model would account for the assortative mating among people with ASD and other
forms of neurodiversity. These people are most frequently hunter types, who prefer (female)
hunter or gatherer types as mates. Autism frequently runs on both sides in the family and
autism rates can be extremely high in places that attract hunter-types, such as university
centres (MIT has high autism rates among their staff’s children) and Silicon Valley. It is a
well, known fact, that autistic children have on average much older fathers. This can partially
be explained by life-history traits (later puberty), but also due to higher social awkwardness.
Hunter and gatherer ironically often find each other because they are the “leftovers” who are
still unpartnered when herder and farmer types have long found their partners.

In connection with autism, it is also interesting to note that the provisioning/prosocial split (i.e.
evolution of gender roles) may have been responsible for what is known as the "great leap
forward", or human inventiveness. Basically, almost all inventors are of the hunter-type
(Edison, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, etc.). This evolution may have happened over
thousands of years, culminating in what is known as the Upper Paleolithic Revolution about
40.000 years ago. This is might mark the split between the General Factor of Personality and
the provisioning/prosocial personality profiles, whereas the further split into
forager/farmer/herder types is marked by the Neolithic Revolution.