TEST BANK-EVOLUTIONARY CHAPTER SUMMARY
CONTAINING QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS (GRADED A)
Evolutionary Psychology
CHAPTER 1: THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENTS LEADING TO EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter Summary
Evolution—change over time in organisms—was suspected to occur long before Darwin came on the scene.
Missing before him however, was a theory about a causal process that explained how organic change could
occur. His theory of natural selection was Darwin’s crowning contribution to evolutionary biology. It has
three essential ingredients: variation, inheritance, and selection. Natural selection occurs when some
inherited variations lead to greater reproductive success than other inherited variations. In short, natural
selection is defined as changes over time due to the differential reproductive success of inherited variations.
Natural selection provided a unifying theory for the biological sciences, and solved several important
mysteries. First, it provided a causal process by which change, the modification of organic structures, takes
place over time. Second, it proposed a theory to account for the origin of new species. Third, it united all
living forms into one grand tree of descent, and simultaneously revealed the place of humans in the grand
scheme of life.
In addition to natural selection, Darwin devised a second evolutionary theory: the theory of sexual selection.
Sexual selection deals with the evolution of characteristics due to the success in mating rather than success
in survival. Sexual selection operates through two processes: intrasexual competition and intersexual
selection. In intrasexual competition, victors in same-sex contests are more likely to reproduce owing to
increased sexual access to mates. In intersexual selection, individuals with qualities that are preferred by the
opposite sex are more likely to reproduce. Both processes of sexual selection result in evolution.
A major stumbling block for many biologists was that fact that Darwin lacked a workable theory of
inheritance. This theory was provided when the work of Gregor Mendel was recognized and synthesized
with Darwin’s theory of natural selection in a movement called the Modern Synthesis. According to this
theory, inheritance does not involve blending of the two parents, but rather is particulate. Genes—the
fundamental unit of inheritance—come in discrete packets that are not blended, but rather are passed on
intact from parent to child. The particulate theory of inheritance provided the missing ingredient to Darwin’s
theory of natural selection.
Following the Modern Synthesis, two European biologists, Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen, started a
new movement called ethology, which sought to place animal behavior within an evolutionary context by
focusing on both the origins and functions of behavior.
In 1964, the theory of natural selection itself was reformulated in a revolutionary pair of articles published
by William D. Hamilton. The process by which selection operates, according to Hamilton, involves not just
classical fitness (the direct production of offspring), but inclusive fitness, which includes the effects of an
individual’s actions on the reproductive success of genetic relatives, weighted by the appropriate degree of
genetic relatedness. The inclusive fitness reformulation provided a more precise theory of the process of
natural selection by promoting a “gene’s eye” view of evolutionary selection pressures.
In 1966, George Williams published the now classic Adaptation and Natural Selection. This book had three
effects. First, it led to the downfall of group selection. Second, it promoted the Hamiltonian revolution. And
third, it provided rigorous criteria for identifying adaptations. In the 1970s, Robert Trivers built upon the
work of Hamilton and Williams, offering three seminal theories that remain important today: reciprocal
altruism, parental investment, and parent-offspring conflict.
, Evolutionary Psychology
In 1975, Edward O. Wilson published Sociobiology: A New Synthesis, which attempted to synthesize all of
the key developments in evolutionary biology. Wilson’s book created a storm of controversy, mostly because
of its final chapter, which focused on humans, offering a series of hypotheses but little empirical data.
Much of the resistance to Wilson’s book, as well as to using evolutionary theory to explain human behavior,
may be traced to several core misunderstandings. Contrary to these misunderstandings, evolutionary theory
does not imply that human behavior is genetically determined, nor that human behavior is unchangeable. It
does not imply improbable feats of computation, such as calculating fractions of genetic relatedness. And it
does not imply optimal design.
While all these changes were taking place within evolutionary biology, the field of psychology followed a
different course—one that was essential to its eventual integration with evolutionary theory. Sigmund Freud
drew attention to the importance of survival and sexuality by proposing a theory of life-preserving and
sexual instincts, paralleling Darwin’s distinction between natural selection and sexual selection. In 1890,
William James published Principles of Psychology, which proposed that humans have a number of specific
instincts.
In the 1920s, however, U.S. psychology turned away from evolutionary ideas and embraced a version of
radical behaviorism: the idea that a few highly general principles of learning could account for the
complexity of human behavior.
In the 1960s, however, empirical findings suggested important violations of the general laws of learning.
Harry Harlow demonstrated that monkeys do not prefer wire-mesh “mothers,” even when they receive their
primary food reinforcement from those mothers. John Garcia showed that organisms could learn some things
readily and rapidly. Something was going on inside the heads of organisms that could not be accounted for
solely by the external contingencies of reinforcement.
The accumulation of these findings led to the cognitive revolution, reinstating the importance and
respectability of looking “inside the heads” of people. The cognitive revolution was based on the
information processing metaphor—descriptions of mechanisms inside the head that take in specific forms of
information as input, transform that information through decision rules, and generate behavior as output.
The idea that humans might come predisposed or specially equipped to process some kinds of information
and not others set the stage for the emergence of evolutionary psychology, which represents a true synthesis
of modern psychology and modern evolutionary biology.
Suggested Readings
Buss, D. M. (2009). The great struggles of life: Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary psychology.
American Psychologist, 64, 140–148.
Confer, J. C., Easton, J. E., Fleischman, D. S., Goetz, C., Lewis, D. M., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2010).
Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations. American
Psychologist, 65, 110–126.
Darwin, C. (1859). The origin of the species. London: Murray.
Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene (new edition). New York: Oxford University Press.
Klein, R. G. (2008). Out of Africa and the evolution of human behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology, 17,
267–281.
Williams, G. C. (1966). Adaptation and natural selection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Wilson, D. S. (2007). Evolution for everyone: How Darwin’s theory can change the way we think about our
lives. New York: Delacorte Press.
, Evolutionary Psychology
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which of the following questions is NOT a focus of evolutionary psychology? (c)
(a) Why is the mind designed the way that it is?
(b) How do the components of the mind interact with the environment?
(c) What is the relationship between the human mind and the Big Bang?
(d) What are the functions of the components of the human mind?
2. Evolution refers to __________. (a)
(a) changes over time in organic structure
(b) differences between species
(c) changes over time in the shape of the human skull
(d) differences between men and women
3. Change in life forms over time was postulated __________. (b)
(a) first by Darwin
(b) well before Darwin’s time
(c) well after Darwin’s time
(d) first by George Williams
4. Which of the following arguments did Lamarck present? (d)
(a) Species originate from microscopic algae.
(b) Species progress toward a lower form.
(c) acquisition of inherited characteristics
(d) inheritance of acquired characteristics
5. According to Cuvier’s theory of catastrophism, species are __________. (a)
(a) extinguished by sudden catastrophes and replaced by different species
(b) irradiated by sudden catastrophes, thereafter replacing other species
(c) extinguished by gradual elimination due to disease, leaving room for new species
(d) irradiated and extinguished, and replaced by the same species
6. Which of the following clues to change in organic structure over time were not known or noted prior to
Darwin? (d)
(a) cross-species structural similarities
(b) cross-species embryological similarities
(c) apparent function of traits
(d) mechanism to explain change in organic structure over time
7. Which of the following is NOT an example of genetic drift? (a)
(a) natural selection
(b) founder effect
(c) genetic bottleneck
(d) mutation
8. Which of the following is NOT one of the three essential processes identified by Darwin’s theory of
evolution by natural selection? (b)
(a) variation
(b) particulation
(c) selection
(d) inheritance
, Evolutionary Psychology
9. _________ provides the “raw materials” for evolution. (a)
(a) Variation
(b) Particulation
(c) Selection
(d) Inheritance
10. For evolution to work, successful variations must be _________, or passed down reliably from parent to
offspring. (d)
(a) variated
(b) particulated
(c) selected
(d) inherited
11. The process of _________ refers to the component of Darwin’s theory of evolution that states that
organisms with some heritable attributes leave more offspring because those attributes help with the tasks of
survival and reproduction. (c)
(a) variation
(b) particulation
(c) selection
(d) inheritance
12. In contrast to the theory of natural selection, which focused on adaptations that have arisen as a
consequence of successful survival, the theory of ______________ focused on adaptations that have arisen
as a consequence of successful mating. (a)
(a) sexual selection
(b) internal selection
(c) external selection
(d) social selection
13. The work of Gregor Mendel documented that __________. (c)
(a) evolution is unlikely to have occurred in pea plants
(b) evolution is unlikely to have occurred in pea genes
(c) inheritance is particulate, not blended
(d) inheritance is blended, not particulate
14. A _______ is the smallest discrete unit that is inherited by offspring intact, without being broken up or
blended. (d)
(a) genotype
(b) phenotype
(c) meme
(d) gene
15. Ethologists are interested in four key issues, which became known as the four “whys” of behavior
advanced by Niko Tinbergen, a founder of ethology. Which of the following is not one of the four “whys” of
behavior? (a)
(a) imprinted influences of behavior
(b) immediate influences of behavior
(c) developmental influences of behavior
(d) function of behavior
