The Evolutionary Psychology Research Group was founded in 1999 by Tamás Bereczkei with the aim of organizing and conducting psychological research grounded in Darwinian evolutionary theory. The group’s work is not limited to one or two narrowly defined topics; instead, it spans a wide range of psychological domains, drawing on diverse theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. Our research addresses phenomena such as mate choice and relationship dynamics, sexual behavior and motivation, social decision-making and cooperation, evolutionary interpretations of individual differences and personality traits, as well as emotion regulation and processes related to health psychology. Our primary goal is to integrate evolutionary perspectives with the study of proximal psychological mechanisms in order to uncover the adaptive structures underlying human behavior and mental functioning. The results of our studies are regularly published in international peer-reviewed journals.

The current head of the research group is Norbert Meskó. Members of the group include faculty, researchers, PhD students, and undergraduate and master’s students from the Institute of Psychology and the Institute of Behavioural Sciences at the University of Pécs. The group operates in a project-based structure: within a shared theoretical framework, several interconnected research programs run in parallel, organized into flexible working teams that facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration and methodological innovation.

In recent years, the research group has demonstrated particularly high scientific productivity and international visibility. We have contributed to several large-scale, cross-cultural studies involving data from dozens of countries, examining cultural patterns in romantic relationships, mate preferences, body image, well-being, and health-related behaviors. Alongside these international collaborations, numerous domestic empirical studies, questionnaire adaptations and validations, experimental investigations, neuroscientific measurements, as well as meta-analytic and scoping review projects have been conducted within the group. A defining feature of our work is the integration of multiple areas of psychology, including evolutionary, cognitive, personality, social, clinical, and health psychology.
We maintain active collaborations with several research groups in Hungary and abroad, and our members regularly participate in international conferences and joint publication projects. An important mission of the group is the involvement and training of young researchers: the research group is closely connected to undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral education in psychology, providing students with opportunities for early and meaningful engagement in scientific research.