Dopaminergic Relativity and the Abundance Paradox- Why Prosperity Predicts Fertility and Motivational Decline

This preprint introduces Chois’ Theory of Evolutionary Homeostasis (CTEH), a cross-scale theoretical framework examining how reference-dependent reward valuation, adaptive recalibration, social learning, and environmental change may interact to shape motivation across individual and societal levels. CTEH proposes that reward value is not determined solely by the absolute quantity of resources or opportunities available, but by the reference state against which those conditions are evaluated. Repeated experience recalibrates this reference state, changing the motivational significance of otherwise similar environments over time. The framework extends this principle across eight tenets linking reward processing, behavioral substitution, social transmission, environmental relativity of adaptive strategies, disruption, recalibration, and nested feedback across neural, individual, cultural, institutional, and societal scales. Fertility decline is used as the primary empirical gateway because of the availability of cross-national demographic data, although the framework also generates hypotheses concerning effort allocation, work, relationships, education, technological environments, and broader patterns of social motivation. CTEH is presented as a testable theoretical framework rather than an established causal model, with particular emphasis on predictions involving adaptation history, changing reward environments, social transmission, and motivational responses following environmental disruption and stabilization. Version note: This record represents Version 3.0 of the manuscript. Earlier versions were made publicly available through PsyArXiv/OSF. This revision substantially clarifies the formulation of reward relativity, dopaminergic adaptation, environmental relativity of adaptive value, and the disruption–recalibration–renewal sequence.