Knowing your neighbourhood: local ecology and personal experience predict neighbourhood perceptions in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

ABSTRACT: Evolutionary theory predicts that humans should adjust their life-history strategies in response to local ecological threats and opportunities in order to maximize their reproductive success. Cues representing threats to individuals' lives and health in modern, Western societies may come in the form of local ages at death, morbidity rate and crime rate in their local area, whereas the adult sex ratio represents a measure of the competition for reproductive partners. These characteristics are believed to have a strong influence over a wide range of behaviours, but whether they are accurately perceived has not been robustly tested. Here, we investigate whether perceptions of four neighbourhood characteristics are accurate across eight neighbourhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We find that

SUBMITTER: Gilbert J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5210677 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature