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Aurelio José Figueredo (born December 27, 1955) is an American evolutionary psychologist. He is a professor of psychology, Family Studies and Human Development at the
University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...
, where he is also the director of the Ethology and Evolutionary Psychology Laboratory. He is also a member of the interdisciplinary Center for Insect Science at the University of Arizona. His major areas of research interest are the evolutionary psychology and behavioral development of life history strategy, cognition, sex, and violence in human and nonhuman animals, and the quantitative ethology and social development of insects, birds, and primates. He is known for his research on
personality Personality is any person's collection of interrelated behavioral, cognitive, and emotional patterns that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life. These interrelated patterns are relatively stable, but can change over long time per ...
, such as a 1997 study in which he and James E. King developed the Chimpanzee Personality Questionnaire to measure the
Big Five personality traits In personality psychology and psychometrics, the Big 5 or five-factor model (FFM) is a widely-used Scientific theory, scientific model for describing how personality Trait theory, traits differ across people using five distinct Factor analysis, ...
in
chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...
s. In 2017, Figueredo was recognized as a Fellow of the
Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...
, of which he is a Charter Member, and in 2010 he received the
George A. Miller Award George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Giorg ...
for coauthoring the "Outstanding Recent Article on General Psychology" from the
American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...
. Figueredo served for five years as the chair of the board of directors of the
Western Comparative Psychological Association Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...
in 1992, was a member of the board of directors of the
Evaluation Group for Analysis of Data In common usage, evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention ...
also in 1992, and a member of the scientific advisory committee of the
Jane Goodall Institute The Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) is a global non-profit wildlife and environment conservation organization headquartered in Washington, DC. It was founded in 1977 by English primatologist Jane Goodall and Genevieve di San Faustino (1919-2011). Th ...
ChimpanZoo Project in 1994. Figueredo was Book Review Editor of the journal ''
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences ''Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. It was established in 2007 as the ''Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology'', and obtained its ...
'' as of 2017. He has also served as an associate editor for the ''
Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology ''Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. It was established in 2007 as the ''Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology'', and obtained its ...
'' and for ''
Evolutionary Psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...
'', as well as editor-in-chief of the '' Human Ethology Bulletin''. Figueredo has also reviewed papers for ''
Mankind Quarterly ''Mankind Quarterly'' is a pseudoscientific journal that covers physical and cultural anthropology, including human evolution, intelligence, ethnography, linguistics, mythology, archaeology, and biology. It has been described as a "cornersto ...
'', and has served on the editorial advisory board of the journal as of 2015. ''Mankind Quarterly'' has advocated for
scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that the Human, human species is divided into biologically distinct taxa called "race (human categorization), races", and that empirical evi ...
. Figueredo has disavowed eugenics and racial inferiority. As of 2018, Figueredo was identified by the
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
as the only U.S. scientific researcher receiving funding from the
Pioneer Fund The Pioneer Fund is an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences". The organization has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature. The Southern Pover ...
, a non-profit institute which promotes scientific racism and
eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...
. A Pioneer Fund grant was given to the University of Arizona, and was used by Figueredo to attend the 2016 London Conference on Intelligence, where presentations on eugenics were given. A formal response to the controversy regarding the conference was co-signed by fifteen academic attendees, including Figueredo, and was published in ''Intelligence'' in 2018. The response stated that only a small proportion of the talks presented there were on eugenics or race differences. In 2009 Figueredo coauthored a paper for the journal '' Twin Research and Human Genetics'' with J. Philippe Rushton, the Pioneer Fund's president at the time, on the heritability of individual differences in life history. The paper was related to Rushton's differential K theory. Describing Figueredo's frequent citation of Rushton's work, ''
Inside Higher Education ''Inside Higher Ed'' is an American online publication of news, opinion, resources, events and jobs in the higher education sphere. In 2022, Quad Partners, a private equity firm, sold it to Times Higher Education, itself owned by Inflexion Priva ...
'' said that the Rushton's theory "was widely criticized as racist and based on shaky science".


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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Figueredo, Aurelio José 1955 births Living people 21st-century American psychologists Cuban emigrants to the United States Evolutionary psychologists Personality psychologists People involved in race and intelligence controversies University of Arizona faculty University of California, Riverside alumni 20th-century American psychologists