Coevolved Cognitive Mechanisms in Mate Search Making Decisions in a Decision-shaped World

I magine that you are driving to a movie theater to watch a film. You look for a place to park as you approach the cinema, and show time is coming up. You feel some time pressure not to miss all the previews, and you are motivated to try to minimize your total travel time, including driving and then walking from wherever you park. What is the best strategy to follow in this case? Should you park in the first space you come to? Or should you immediately drive all the way to the theater, then turn around and take the first space you find as you head away again? But what if everyone else driving to the movies does the same thing? How should you choose a parking space in the face of everyone else’s choices so as not to have to skip buying Raisinettes before the film starts? The search for a parking space did not present much of a concern to our ancestors in the course of human evolution, but this modern trial illustrates a common aspect of the situations that challenged our evolving minds: The problem here and in many other social domains is how to make decisions in