Abstract Selecting formidable male coalitions to navigate intergroup threats and resource acquisition evolved to enhance survival through group living, given men's enhanced ability to extract and protect resources through physical aggression. Though advantageous in certain contexts, formidable men can nonetheless inflict intragroup costs, suggesting preferences for this trait varies with resource availability in local ecologies. This study tasked participants (477 women, 140 men; MAge = 19.98, SD = 4.22) with building coalitions from arrays of physically strong and weak men to acquire resources in hopeful and desperate ecologies before assessing endorsement of several aspects of conservatism. Women high in social dominance orientation built more formidable coalitions in resource-abundant ecologies. Men's coalitional interests were unaffected by these factors. We frame results through evolved sex differences in coalition-building based on men and women's different formidability valuation thresholds while considering ancestral logic behind political ideology related to resource acquisition.