{"id":{"repo_id":"washington","oai_identifier":"oai:digital.lib.washington.edu:1773/42209"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/washington/oai:digital.lib.washington.edu:1773/42209","repository":{"repo_id":"washington","name":"University of Washington","base_url":"https://digital.lib.washington.edu/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Sex and Fear: Mathematical models of mate choice, parental care, and maladaptive anxiety","abstract":"In many contexts, animals must infer salient information about another individual indirectly by observing some other characteristic of that individual. In Chapter 1 of this thesis, a model of costly signaling is developed to investigate how stochastic signal costs influence the overall cost of communication. Chapter 2 presents a model of mate choice where females must infer from his appearance whether a potential mate will choose to be a good parent to the future offspring. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with mathematical models of anxiety disorders. These disorders affect a huge number of people and can be tremendously disabling. But it is clear that the capacity for anxiety is an evolutionary adaptation. This presents a puzzle: why has natural selection not protected us from such a common malfunctioning of an adaptation? Chapter 3 develops a model that shows how the basic information constraints inherent in the problem of learning about an environment can unavoidably cause a subset of the population to be overly sensitive to signs of danger. Chapter 4 addresses the perplexing observation that as the society of developed countries has continually become safer, anxiety has increased rather than decreased. A model is presented that shoes how the mismatch between a modern environment and the environment to which we adapted can cause this seemingly paradoxical increase in levels of anxiety. This result is in some ways analogous to the well-known ``hygiene hypothesis\" of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.","abstract_html":"In many contexts, animals must infer salient information about another individual indirectly by observing some other characteristic of that individual. In Chapter 1 of this thesis, a model of costly signaling is developed to investigate how stochastic signal costs influence the overall cost of communication. Chapter 2 presents a model of mate choice where females must infer from his appearance whether a potential mate will choose to be a good parent to the future offspring. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with mathematical models of anxiety disorders. These disorders affect a huge number of people and can be tremendously disabling. But it is clear that the capacity for anxiety is an evolutionary adaptation. This presents a puzzle: why has natural selection not protected us from such a common malfunctioning of an adaptation? Chapter 3 develops a model that shows how the basic information constraints inherent in the problem of learning about an environment can unavoidably cause a subset of the population to be overly sensitive to signs of danger. Chapter 4 addresses the perplexing observation that as the society of developed countries has continually become safer, anxiety has increased rather than decreased. A model is presented that shoes how the mismatch between a modern environment and the environment to which we adapted can cause this seemingly paradoxical increase in levels of anxiety. This result is in some ways analogous to the well-known ``hygiene hypothesis" of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Meacham, Frazer"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Bergstrom, Carl T."],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018-07-31","date_published":"2018-07-31","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:58:16Z","subjects":["Behavior","Evolution","Mathematical modeling","Psychology","Theoretical biology","Biology","Mathematics","Evolution & development"],"languages":["en_US"],"rights":["none"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/1773/42209","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Bergstrom, Carl T."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Meacham, Frazer"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2018-07-31T21:09:44Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2018-07-31T21:09:44Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2018-07-31"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Behavior","Evolution","Mathematical modeling","Psychology","Theoretical biology","Biology","Mathematics","Evolution & development"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en_US"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["none"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["Meacham_washington_0250E_18971.pdf"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/1773/42209"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018"]},{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["In many contexts, animals must infer salient information about another individual indirectly by observing some other characteristic of that individual. In Chapter 1 of this thesis, a model of costly signaling is developed to investigate how stochastic signal costs influence the overall cost of communication. Chapter 2 presents a model of mate choice where females must infer from his appearance whether a potential mate will choose to be a good parent to the future offspring. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with mathematical models of anxiety disorders. These disorders affect a huge number of people and can be tremendously disabling. But it is clear that the capacity for anxiety is an evolutionary adaptation. This presents a puzzle: why has natural selection not protected us from such a common malfunctioning of an adaptation? Chapter 3 develops a model that shows how the basic information constraints inherent in the problem of learning about an environment can unavoidably cause a subset of the population to be overly sensitive to signs of danger. Chapter 4 addresses the perplexing observation that as the society of developed countries has continually become safer, anxiety has increased rather than decreased. A model is presented that shoes how the mismatch between a modern environment and the environment to which we adapted can cause this seemingly paradoxical increase in levels of anxiety. This result is in some ways analogous to the well-known ``hygiene hypothesis\" of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases."]},{"key":"dc:format.mimetype","label":"Dc Format Mimetype","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Sex and Fear: Mathematical models of mate choice, parental care, and maladaptive anxiety"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Bergstrom, Carl T."],"dc:creator":["Meacham, Frazer"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2018-07-31T21:09:44Z"],"dc:date.available":["2018-07-31T21:09:44Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2018-07-31"],"dc:description":["Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018"],"dc:description.abstract":["In many contexts, animals must infer salient information about another individual indirectly by observing some other characteristic of that individual. In Chapter 1 of this thesis, a model of costly signaling is developed to investigate how stochastic signal costs influence the overall cost of communication. Chapter 2 presents a model of mate choice where females must infer from his appearance whether a potential mate will choose to be a good parent to the future offspring. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with mathematical models of anxiety disorders. These disorders affect a huge number of people and can be tremendously disabling. But it is clear that the capacity for anxiety is an evolutionary adaptation. This presents a puzzle: why has natural selection not protected us from such a common malfunctioning of an adaptation? Chapter 3 develops a model that shows how the basic information constraints inherent in the problem of learning about an environment can unavoidably cause a subset of the population to be overly sensitive to signs of danger. Chapter 4 addresses the perplexing observation that as the society of developed countries has continually become safer, anxiety has increased rather than decreased. A model is presented that shoes how the mismatch between a modern environment and the environment to which we adapted can cause this seemingly paradoxical increase in levels of anxiety. This result is in some ways analogous to the well-known ``hygiene hypothesis\" of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases."],"dc:format.mimetype":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier.other":["Meacham_washington_0250E_18971.pdf"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/1773/42209"],"dc:language.iso":["en_US"],"dc:rights":["none"],"dc:subject":["Behavior","Evolution","Mathematical modeling","Psychology","Theoretical biology","Biology","Mathematics","Evolution & development"],"dc:title":["Sex and Fear: Mathematical models of mate choice, parental care, and maladaptive anxiety"],"dc:type":["Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:58:16Z"}