Measuring the Evolutionarily Important Goals of Situations

Abstract

According to the Fundamental Motives Framework, basic goals such as protecting oneself, forming coalitions, and avoiding disease have emerged as a result of evolutionary processes to enhance reproductive fitness. This article introduces the Situational Affordances for Adaptive Problems (SAAP), a measure of situation characteristics that promotes or prevents the achievement of these evolutionarily important goals. In Study 1, participants rated a recent situation they encountered using a preliminary version of the SAAP. Using factor analysis, the measure was reduced to 28 items. In Study 2, the factor structure was confirmed. Studies 3 and 4 evaluated the psychometric properties of the measure including its predictive validity. Future studies can use the SAAP to investigate differences in the everyday experience of these fundamental motives.