Behavior in everyday situations depends on the activation of an
individual's specific goals and motives. Research suggests that basic goals
such as protecting oneself, forming coalitions, and avoiding disease have
emerged as the result of evolutionary processes (Kenrick, Li, & Butner,
2003). However, no scale exists to measure the characteristics of
situations that might promote or prevent the achievement of these goals.
Participants described a situation they encountered the previous day and
rated that situation using 85 items designed to tap seven adaptive problems
identified by Kenrick and colleagues (2003). Using both exploratory and
confirmatory factor analyses a 28-item measure of situational
characteristics that promote or prevent the achievement of evolutionarily
important goals was created. The results suggest that this 28-item measure
has both adequate bandwidth and fidelity. Future research should
investigate the discriminant and convergent validity of this newly created
measure.