Nicole Hess
- Associate Professor, Career Track, Evolutionary Anthropology
- The evolution of coalitional competition in humans
- Email: nicolehess@wsu.edu
Biographical sketch ▾
Biographical sketch
Trained as a biological anthropologist, Dr. Hess received a BA from UCLA in 1997, an MA from UCSB in 1999, and a PhD from UCSB in 2006. She completed a predoctoral fellowship with the Max Planck Institute for Human Development's LIFE program in 2005, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship with the Institute for Theoretical Biology at Humboldt University in Berlin in 2007. Dr. Hess is currently a Scholarly Associate Professor in the Anthropology Dept. at WSU Vancouver.
Research statement ▾
Research statement
Dr. Hess studies coalitional competition in evolutionary perspective. She conducted anthropological fieldwork in the Central African Republic and college Greek communities, and has conducted numerous experiments testing hypotheses derived from "Informational Warfare" theory, which proposes that coalitions may be useful in reputational competition (via, e.g., gossip) due to their improved abilities to collect, analyze, and disseminate relevant information. More broadly, she is interested in the evolution of cooperation in small groups.
Projects ▾
Projects
Field sites ▾
Field sites
Courses ▾
Courses
- Anth 101 General Anthropology
- Anth 381 Primate Behavioral Ecology
- Anth 395 Topics in Anthropology
- Anth 468 Sex, Evolution, and Human Nature
Publications ▾
Publications
| Hess NH and Hagen EH 2023. The impact of gossip, reputation, and context on resource transfers among Aka hunter-gatherers, Ngandu horticulturalists, and MTurkers. Evolution and Human Behavior. | |
| Hess NH 2022. Friendship, Mating, and Reputation in U.S. College Sororities: Exploring Female Intrasexual Competition and Cooperation. Archives of Sexual Behavior. | |
| LNK | Ayers JD, Krems JA, Hess NH, Aktipis A 2022. Mother-in-Law Daughter-in-Law Conflict: an Evolutionary Perspective and Report of Empirical Data from the USA. Evolutionary Psychological Science. |
| Hess NH and Hagen EH 2021. Competitive gossip: The impact of resource value, resource contestedness, and coalitions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. | |
| Hess NH and Hagen EH 2019. Gossip, Reputation, and Friendship in Within-group Competition. In: Oxford Handbook of Gossip and Reputation. Oxford University Press. | |
| Hess NH 2019. From the Orinoco to sorority row: Searching for a field site as an evolutionary anthropologist. In The Secret Lives of Anthropologists: Lessons from the Field. Routledge. | |
| Hess NH 2017. Informational warfare: Coalitional gossiping as a strategy for within-group aggression. Oxford library of psychology. The Oxford handbook of women and competition. | |
| Hess NH, Helfrecht C, Hagen EH, Sell A and Hewlett BS 2010. Interpersonal aggression among Aka hunter-gatherers of the Central African Republic: Assessing the effects of sex, strength, and anger. Human Nature, 21, 330-354. | |
| -- | Hagen EH, Hammerstein P, and Hess NH 2009. Theoretical aspects of communication and language. In S. Nolfi and M. Mirolli, editors, Evolution of Communication and Language in Embodied and Situated Agents. Springer Verlag. |
| Helfrecht C, Hess NH, Hagen E, Sell A and Hewlett B 2009. Anger and aggression among Aka hunter-gatherers. The evolution of human aggression. Utah. | |
| Hess NH and Hagen EH 2009. Informational warfare: Coalitional gossiping as a strategy for within-group aggression. | |
| Hess NH and Hagen EH 2006. Psychological adaptations for assessing gossip believability. Human Nature, 17, 337-354. | |
| Hess NH and Hagen EH 2006. Sex differences in indirect aggression: Psychological evidence from young adults. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 231-245. | |
| Hess NH and Hagen EH 2001. Review of Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food: Taming Our Primal Instincts (J. Burnham and J. Phelan). Politics and the Life Sciences, 20, 244. | |
| Hagen EH and Hess NH 2000. Sweet savage love: FA, BO, and SES in the EEA. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 604-605. |