Summary of the following chapters:
1. Introduction to evolutionary psychology
2. Mechanisms of evolutionary change
3. Sexual selection
4. Evolution of human mate choice
5. Cognitive development and the innate issue
6. Social development
7. Evolutionary psychology of social behaviour - kin re...
H1. Introduction to evolutionary psychology
Principal assumption evolutionary psychology
● Human mind: organ designed by natural selection to guide individual in making decisions that
aid survival and reproduction
● Human mind: designed to learn, so evolutionary psychology doesn't suggest everything is innate
Fundamental assumptions evolutionary psychology
● Human mind: product of evolution
● Gain better understanding of mind by examining evolutionary pressures that shaped it
What can an understanding of evolution bring to psychology?
● Not all body parts are as easy to understand → peacock's tail: it’s huge, makes it difficult to
escape and requires energy to sustain it
Ultimate + proximate questions
● Ultimate: why particular behaviour exists at all
● Proximate: how a behaviour develops, whether it’s acquired or innate
Current Darwinian Theory
● Beneficiaries of behaviour are, in many cases, our genes
Richard Dawkins; replicator-vehicle distinction
● We’re survival machines, robot vehicles programmed to preserve selfish molecules known as
genes
● Only applies to evolved behaviour; any non-involved behaviour, like purely learned behaviour,
may not benefit genes at all
Aristotles; 384-322 BC
● Killed evolutionary thinking → proposed each species occupies a particular space in hierarchical
structure “great chain of being” or “scale nature”
● Hierarchie: god, angels, nobility, normal men, women, animals, plants, inanimate objects. Moving
up/down not permitted → natural order of things
Immanuel Kant; 1798
● Direct contradiction of aristotles; one organism can change over time, maybe acquire
characteristics of other organisms (not just physical changes)
Erasmus Darwin; 1731-1802 (Darwin’s grandfather)
● All living things could have emerged from common ancestor
● Competition might be driving force behind evolution
● Failed to produce plausible mechanism for evolutionary change
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck; 1744-1829
● 1st law: changes in environment can lead to changes in animals’ behaviour → might lead to
organ being used more or less
● 2nd law: such changes are heritable
Lamarck’s theory; Inheritance of acquired characteristics
● Incorrect; environment can affect organs, such changes can’t be passed onto offspring
● Charles Darwin still mentioned Lamarck as great influence in development of his theory of
evolution: natural selection
Natural selection depends on two components
● Heritable variation; people in population differ from each other in ways that are passed onto
offspring
,● Differential reproductive success; as result of these differences, some leave more surviving
offspring than others
● Can see this in asexcual species; individual reproduces by producing identical copy of itself
Variation for asexual species
● Only from copying errors (mutations)
Sexually reproducing species
● Combine genes of 2 individuals; offspring’s always different from either
Gregor Mendel; Breeding hybrid pea plants
● Greatest insight; inheritance is particulate
● (Darwin: traits of an individual are blended traits of father/mother) → Incorrect. Mendel:
○ Crossed white with red pea plant: offspring always red or white, never pink
● Why some traits do blend; traits controlled by single genes: inheritance is particulate
Materialism
● See mind as ultimately reducible to activity of the brain
Why materialism is important to evolutionary psychology
● If the mind is just brain activity, then the brain is subject to pressures of natural selection → mind
+ behaviour are product of evolution by natural selection
Francis Galton; 1822-1911 (Darwin’s cousin)
● Influenced by theory of natural selection
● Character + intelligence are inherited traits
● Developed some of 1st intelligence tests to explore this
● Anticipated method of experimental psychology by emphasising need to use data from large
samples of individuals
● Proposed traits useful in ancestral times, might be less useful now
Francis Galton’s way of improving society;
● Selective breeding
● Positive eugenics: individuals whose traits benefit society → encouraged to produce many
offspring
● Negative eugenics: those with traits less desirable → discouraged to produce offspring
William James; 1842-1910
● Made distinction between short- and long term memory
● Interest in consciousness
● Outlined instincts as fear, love, curiosity → driving forces human nature
● Human behaviour characterised by more instincts than other animals’
Concept of instincts was dropped in 20th century (William James)
● Because too imprecise to be scientifically meaningful
Tooby + Cosmides
● Called traditional non-evolutionary science approach: Standard Social Science Model SSSM
SSSM; assumptions about human behaviour
● Humans are born as blank slates (personality form cultural environment)
● Human behaviour is malleable (no biological constraints)
● Culture is autonomous (exists independently of people)
● Human behaviour determined by learning, socialisation, indoctrination
● Learning processes are general (can be applied to variety of phenomena)
Establishment SSSM
● Reaction to some extreme claims of biological determinists early 20th century
Non-westerners failing western-style intelligence tests
● On lower rung on evolutionary ladder
,● Eugenicists used results to recommend forced sterilisation etc.
● Misunderstandings of Darwin’s ideas
Humans did not descend from chimpanzees
● Both descended from common ancestor
● Chimps have their own particular adaptations that we don’t have
Franz Boas; Founder cultural relativism
● Many differences between people are due to differences in culture
● Want to understand people → must understand their culture
Biophobia
● Fear of biological explanations of human behaviour
Explanations biophobia
● Once scientific paradigm is established, it’s difficult for researchers to consider alternative
explanations that lie outside the paradigm (seen as old ways of thinking)
● Eugenic atrocities WWII made people fearful of censure
Evolutionary thinking in 4 disciplines
● Ethology
● Behavioural ecology
● Sociobiology
● Evolutionary psychology (Santa Barbara School)
Ethology
● Comes from Greek; character or habit
● Observation animal behaviour in natural setting
● Combine evolutionary/functional explanations with causal explanations
● 20th century: emphasised interactions genes-environment
● Lorenz, Tinbergen, Von Frisch
Behavioural Ecology
● Grew out of ecology. Differs: use economic cost-benefit models to predict how animals should
behave in given environment → models used to make predictions and compare against actual
animal behaviour
● Emphasises animal’s abilities to make economic decisions
● For human behaviour: how cultures vary due to ecological pressures
● Williams, Smith, Krebs, DeVore, Symons
Sociobiology
● Grew out of ethology in 1960’s/1970’s, overlaps with behavioural ecology
● Evolution of social behaviour
● Uses functional explanations of pro/antisocial behaviour → how current behavioural responses
occur because of usefulness to ancestors
● Human social organisation developed through natural selection
● Interested in nonhuman species
● Wilson, Hamilton, Trivers, Thornhill
Evolutionary psychology
● Takes sociobiology principles + cognitive mechanistic view of mind: modularity
● Uses experimental studies (or survey data) to test predictions from evolutionary theory
● Focus of explanation: psychological mechanisms (unlike other 3 disciplines)
● Tooby, Cosmides, Buss, Pinker
Sigmund Freud
● Cultural relativism: great emphasis on role of parents + family in shaping personality
● Interested in ultimate questions: why people behave a certain way
● Some of his ideas in line with recent Darwinian psychology → The ‘id’ as a set of inborn desires
(incl. Sexual imperative) has many parallels with evolutionary theory
, E.O. Wilson 1975: “sociobiology the new synthesis”
● Foundation modern evolutionary approach to the study of behaviour
● If behaviour affected reproductive success in a predictable way + if particular behaviours were
influenced by genes → natural selection helped shape human behaviour
Evolutionary psychology
● Is sociobiology rebranded so it’s more politically accepted
Evolutionary psychology; Tooby + Cosmides 1992
● Difference sociobiology: adopts cognitive level of explanation
● Explain human behaviour by underlying computations in the mind
Sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, political correctness
● Sociobiology seen as dangerous thinking, like eugenics
● 1986: twenty social scientists made Seville Statement of Violence: to contradict link between
biology + violent behaviour
Seville Statement of Violence; Scientifically incorrect
● We inherited tendency to make war from animal ancestors
● War/violent behaviour is genetically programmed
● In human evolution, there’s a selection for aggressive behaviour more than other kinds
● Humans have a violent brain
● War’s caused by instinct or any single motion
Tooby + Cosmides 1997; 5 principles of evolutionary psychology
● Brain’s a physical system: it’s circuits generate behaviour appropriate to environmental
circumstances (cognitive psychology)
● Neural circuits designed by natural selection to solve problems during our evolutionary history
(sociobiology)
● Conscious experience can mislead us to think our circuits are simpler than they really are
(cognitive psychology)
● Different neural circuits specialised for solving different adaptive problems (modularity)
● Our modern skulls have stone-age mind (modularity)
David Buller; Differences between
● Evo. Psy. as field of research → understanding relationship between evolution + behaviour
● Evo. Psy. as research paradigm → makes assumptions about modularity + EEA (Santa Barbara
School)
Franz Joseph Gall; Modular Psychological Theory
● Mind made up of specific mental organs/faculties → each responsible for aspect of behaviour (37
different faculties)
● Bumps on cranium: read person’s characteristics by feeling the size (phrenology)
Jerry Fodor; Modularity of the mind
● Mind made up of mental modules → each responsible for certain aspects of human behaviour
● Modules are innate, changed little over lifetime
One criticism of Buller on modularity
● Little neurological evidence for mental modules in neocortex: part of brain most closely
associated with behaviour
EEA: Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness
Smith’s cause for concern about EEA
● Not helpful in understanding behaviour
● What characterises human behaviour → ability to deal with novelty through problem solving,
language, cultural learning: all evolved
● Differences from Santa Barbara School: extent to which stone-aged mind (if it exists at all)
constrains current + future behaviour
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