This book brings a new perspective to psychological hedonism as a fundamental theory of human behavior based on ideas grounded in affective neuroscience and evolutionary biology. The resulting Darwinian hedonism viewpoint is then applied to the growing epidemic of unhealthy behaviour; including poor diet, physical inactivity, and substance use.

David M. Williams is Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, Rhode Island.

1. Introduction; Part I. Unhealthy behavior: 2. The epidemic of unhealthy behavior; 3. Understanding the causes of behavior; 4. A causal chain of behavior; 5. Contents of the mind; 6. What are the causes of unhealthy behavior?; Part II. Psychological Hedonism: 7. Psychological hedonism and its problems; 8. Reformulating psychological hedonism; 9. Pleasure, displeasure, and affective valence; 10. Hedonic response; 11. Sources of hedonic response; 12. Reward, incentive salience, and hedonic motivation; 13. Incentive conditioning: from hedonic response to hedonic motivation; 14. Hedonic versus reflective motivation; 15. From hedonic motivation to unhealthy behavior; 16. The theory of hedonic motivation; Part III. Darwinian Hedonism: 17. Darwinian hedonism; 18. Neo-Darwinism; 19. The evolutionary function of psychological hedonism; 20. The phylogenetic development of psychological hedonism; Part IV. Darwinian Hedonism and Unhealthy Behavior: 21. Motivational mismatch; 22. Darwinian hedonism and unhealthy behavior; 23. Darwinian hedonism and hedonic desire for calorie-dense foods; 24. Darwinian hedonism and hedonic dread of physical activity; 25. Darwinian hedonism and hedonic desire for smoking, drinking, and drug use; 26. Health behavior interventions; 27. Darwinian hedonism and health-behavior policy; 28. Darwinian hedonism and political will; 29. Conclusions and future directions; Appendix A: hedonic motivation and other motivation concepts; Appendix B: anticipating criticisms of Darwinian hedonism.