Theo Samore

I am currently a Postdoctoral Researcher working with Dr. John Shaver on the Evolutionary Demography of Religion project. This is a large-scale study investigating the relationships between religiosity, cooperative childcare, parental investment, and child outcomes in five countries -- Bangladesh, India, Malawi, The Gambia, and the United States. The study comprises of in-depth, ethnographically derived survey data, in addition to physiological measures of child health and growth. 

I received my Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2022. I also received my MA in Biological Anthropology from UCLA, and a BA in Biological Anthropology from Boston University. Before my current position at Baylor University, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher on the same project at the University of Otago. I am an interdisciplinary evolutionary social scientist whose research sits at the intersection of evolutionary anthropology, human behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology. 

From these evolutionary perspectives, I investigate why people vary in the extent to which they embrace religious and other traditional practices, particularly as a function of perceptions of threat in the world, as well as the downstream cooperative benefits that may accrue from engaging in collective behaviors. My research also explores how the relationship between traditionalism and threat sensitivity interacts with cultural contexts, including political institutions and their downstream effects on political orientation. 

As a postdoctoral researcher, I have been conducting research on the putative benefits and tradeoffs of parental and alloparental investment. I recently led a paper examining the relationship between participation in religious rituals and the receipt of alloparental support in rural Bangladesh, finding that more religious parents do receive more aid, but in ways that are consistent with the costly signalling theory of religion. I am also interested in the relationships between parental and alloparental care on the one hand, and child health and growth outcomes on the other, as well as general resource allocation tradeoffs that influence decisions about parenting and alloparenting.

Research Interests

• Individual variation in religiosity and traditionalism, as well as the costs and benefits of religious and traditional practices
• How people respond to threats such as diseases
• Evolutionary dynamics of parental and alloparental care, including the relationship between parental and alloparental investment, and child growth and health outcomes

Selected Publications

Samore, T., Sosis, R., Shaver, J. .... Shenk, M.  (in press). Religious Parents Receive More Alloparental Support in Rural Bangladesh. Evolutionary Human Sciences.

Samore, T., Fessleer, D.M.T., Sparks, A.M. ... Wang, X.T. (2023). Greater Traditionalism Predicts COVID-19 Precautionary Behaviors Across 27 Societies. Scientific Reports.

Samore, T., Fessleer, D.M.T., Sparks, A.M., Holbrook, C. (2021).  Of pathogens and party lines: Social conservatism positively associates with COVID-19 precautions among US Democrats but not Republicans. PloS one.