An evolutionary life history approach to understanding greed

Evolutionary life history theory offers a unifying theoretical framework, emphasizing that human behaviors have been selected because they are adaptive responses to environmental challenges. There is little extant empirical research on the evolutionary origin of greed. The purpose of this study, which was based on the evolutionary life history approach, was to examine the relationships between childhood environmental unpredictability, attachment, and greed. A sample of 364 university students completed measures of greed, attachment, and childhood environment. Structural equation modeling revealed that, as predicted, childhood environmental unpredictability was positively associated with greed. Furthermore, attachment was confirmed as a mediator of the association between childhood environmental unpredictability and greed. These results define the evolutionary origin of greed.