[attemptone]

We were also primed to seek comfort and stability. Because that ensured survival.

Like OOP said, that was a surface level thought. Finding evidence in evolutionary psychology seems like a big leap from that.

[bawolff]

I don't really think that's a good counterexample

News of bad event could directly impinge survival. News of a good thing happening to someone far away does not really improve comfort and stability.

[attemptone]

News of a bad thing happening to someone far away does not really impact survival as well.

The point was not about providing a good counter-example. I wanted to show that when one hand-waves away a behavoiur to an abstract selection criteria, one can easily come up with criteria that contradicts that notion.