Altruistic help or taking advantage of the situation? Social representations of surrogate motherhood

Concerning Europe, the lay public, mainly in Central regions, still lacks information about what surrogacy is and how the process works in practice. It is one of the most controversial methods of assisted reproduction precisely because it goes against traditional social norms and ideas about the conception of life. The main aim of our study was to map the social representations of lay people that are formed in internet discussions. We focused on discussion forums over a time span of the last 10 years, from 2013 to 2022. We were also interested in whether perceived risks or benefits formed the core of social representations. Through a reflexive thematic analysis, we identified two distinct constructions of social representations of surrogacy, finding that value settings in terms of liberalism and conservatism appear to have the greatest influence on the anchoring and objectification of surrogacy.

The evolved psychological mechanisms of fertility motivation: hunting for causation in a sea of correlation

Cultural, ecological, familial and physiological factors consistently influence fertility behaviours, however, the proximate psychological mechanisms underlying fertility decisions in humans are poorly understood. Understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying human fertility may illuminate the final processes by which some of these known predictors have their influence. To date, research into the psychological mechanisms underlying fertility has been fragmented. Aspects of reproductive psychology have been examined by researchers in a range of fields, but the findings have not been systematically integrated in one review. We provide such a review, examining current theories and research on psychological mechanisms of fertility. We examine the methods and populations used in the research, as well as the disciplines and theoretical perspectives from which the work has come. Much of the work that has been done to date is methodologically limited to examining correlations between ecological, social and economic factors and fertility. We propose, and support with examples, the use of experimental methods to differentiate causal factors from correlates. We also discuss weaknesses in the experimental research, including limited work with non-WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) populations.