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EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2012
Evolutionary psychology is a relatively new paradigm for
understanding human social behaviour which argues that attributes such as altruism,
romantic love, protection of children, pair-bonding, coyness in females, sexual
aggression, sexual attraction, or conscience, have a genetic basis.
Applying Darwinian principles to the understanding of human
behaviour, it is claimed, provides insights into things such as human kinship structures,
male-female relationships, family formation, sibling rivalry, and domestic violence.
Evolutionary psychology: Origins and criticisms - Richard
Siegert; Tony Ward
Source: Australian Psychologist, Volume 37, Number 1, March 2002, pp. 20-29(10)
Abstract: Evolutionary psychology has recently experienced a rapid and often controversial
growth in popularity and influence that has been evident in both the academic and the
popular press. The aim of this article is to explain what evolutionary psychology is, to
give a brief account of its history and evolution, and to give a balanced account of some
of the major issues or criticisms. This paper traces the early influences of Darwinian
thought on psychology in the 19th century and its subsequent decline in influence during
the 20th century. A resurgence of interest in the importance of evolutionary theory for
understanding human psychological processes is noted from around the early 1970s onward.
The controversial emergence of sociobiology in 1975 is described, and its evolution into
evolutionary psychology is traced. The question "What is evolutionary
psychology?" is then considered at some length, and some of the more frequent
criticisms of this new approach are discussed. Specifically, we consider three criticisms:
that evolutionary psychology is reductionist, that it rests on a false notion of
modularity in cognitive organisation, and that it is bad science in that it often involves
imaginative but unproven adaptationist accounts, known as "just so" stories.
Notwithstanding these criticisms, we suggest that evolutionary psychology has a major role
to play in psychological theory and research in the future. - ingentaconnect.com
Special Issue of NEL on "Human Ethology and Evolutionary
Psychology" was released in Dec. 2002. Brief review articles from key figures of
the field cover a wide range of topics from the scientific fields of Human Ethology and
Evolutionary Psychology. - nel.edu
Evolutionary Psychology: Toward a New View of Human Nature and Organizational
Society
Nigel Nicholson, London Business School, Sussex Place, Regent's Park, London NW1 4SA,
U.K. nnicholson@lbs.ac.uk © 1997 The Tavistock Institute
The paper argues that evolutionary psychology offers a radical and challenging new
perspective on human nature and organizational society. Its roots in a convergence of
insights and scientific discoveries from diverse natural and human sciences are described,
and how it seeks to avoid common fallacies of earlier biological reasoning about human
society. Recurrent themes in human nature and their manifestations are summarized,
including sex and personality differences, cognitive and affective biases, social
orientations, and preferred modes of social exchange. The paper concludes that we suffer
the consequences of poor fit between our inherited natures and many of the constructed
environments in organizational society, but that new emerging forms of organization may
present us with the opportunities for social relations closer to the ancestral paradigms
of our psychology. - hum.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/50/9/1053
Dancing in the Dark: Evolutionary Psychology and the Problem of Design
Stotz, Karola and Griffiths, Paul E. (2001) Dancing in the Dark: Evolutionary
Psychology and the Problem of Design.
Abstract: The current Evolutionary Psychology Movement (EPM) argues that the mind/brain
cannot be understood except by conceiving of it as the product of design by natural
selection. Cognitive science should proceed by reconstructing the adaptive pressures that
shaped the mind and then looking for mental structure predicted by this these
reconstructions. It is argued that this is not a practical solution, because our ability
to reconstruct the evolutionary pressures that shaped the mind is exactly proportional to
our preexisting understanding of mental structure. EPM's criticisms of contemporary
cognitive science are strikingly similar to the criticisms of behavioristic psychology
made by the founders of ethology, Lorenz and Tinbergen, fifty years ago. But the
ethologists drew the conclusion that psychology should investigate the mind's performance
on ecologically valid tasks. This is shown to be a more tractable proposal for injecting
an evolutionary perspective into cognitive science. In the second part of the paper it is
argued that the concept of 'design' central to EPM is not fully naturalistic, in the sense
that it envisages a process more like intelligent design than like a realistic model of
evolution by natural selection. An enriched model of evolutionary psychology is outlined,
modeled on recent 'evolutionary developmental biology' approaches to morphological
evolution, and which we call 'evolutionary developmental psychology' (EDP). Like
'evo-devo' more generally, EDP recognizes that selection builds systems that develop in an
environment, not phenotypes that are transmitted. The nature of evolutionary dynamics is a
function of the nature of development. It is argued that EDP allows a more productive
integration of the role of the environment in psychological development into evolutionary
psychology than has so far been achieved by EPM. -
philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000183/
Objections to evolutionary psychology: Reflections, implications and the leadership
exemplar - Nigel Nicholson, London Business School, nnicholson@london.edu
© 2005 The Tavistock Institute
A recent exchange of articles in Human Relations debated the validity, philosophical
coherence and applicability of the ideas of evolutionary psychology (EP), with specific
reference, inter alia, to previous writings where the author has sought to apply EP to the
field of organizational behaviour. This article aims to analyse key areas of controversy
about the logic and assumptions on both sides of the debate and to explore the
possibilities for common ground to be found between them. It is argued that this entails
an inter-actionist approach to the analysis of individual agency and action, and a
co-evolutionary perspective on the social context. Leadership is taken as an exemplar of
how this would be applied. - hum.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/58/3/393
Expanding Evolutionary Psychology: toward a Better Understanding of Violence and
Aggression
Iver Mysterud, Zoologisk avdeling, Biologisk institutt, Universitet i Oslo, Postboks
1050 Blindern, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway. Dag Viljen Poleszynski, Bjerkelundsvn. 8b, NO-1358
Jar, Norway
DOI: 10.1177/0539018403042001791 © 2003 Maison des Sciences de l'Homme , SAGE
The "mainstream" evolutionary psychology model is currently under criticism from
scientists of other persuasions wanting to expand the model or to make it more realistic
in various ways. We argue that focusing on the environment as if it consisted only of
social (or sociocultural) factors gives too limited a perspective if evolutionary
approaches are to understand the behavior of modern humans. Taking the case of violence,
we argue that numerous novel environmental factors of nutritional and physical-chemical
origin should be considered as relevant proximate factors. The common thesis presented
here is that several aspects of the biotic or abiotic environment are able to change brain
chemistry, thus predisposing individuals to violence and aggression in given contexts. In
the past, aggressive behavior has had a number of useful functions that were of particular
importance to our ancestors' survival and reproduction. However, some of the conditions in
our novel environment, which either lowered the threshold for aggression or released such
behavior in contexts which were adaptive in our evolutionary past, no longer apply. It is
high time evolutionary approaches to violence are expanded to include the possibilities
that violence may be triggered by nutritionally depleted foods, reactive hypoglycemia
caused by habitual intake of foods with a high glycemic index (GI), food
allergies/intolerances and exposure to new environmental toxins (heavy metals, synthetic
poisons). - ssi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/1/5
Piaget, Pedagogy, and Evolutionary Psychology
Jeremy E. C. Genovese, College of Education, Cleveland State University, 2121 Euclid
Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115, USA. Email: j.genovese@csuohio.edu.
Evolutionary Psychology - human-nature.com/ep – 2003. 1: 127-137
Abstract: Constructivist pedagogy draws on Piaget’s developmental theory. Because
Piaget depicted the emergence of formal reasoning skills in adolescence as part of the
normal developmental pattern, many constructivists have assumed that intrinsic motivation
is possible for all academic tasks. This paper argues that Piaget’s concept of a
formal operational stage has not been empirically verified and that the cognitive skills
associated with that stage are in fact “biologically secondary abilities” (Geary
and Bjorklund, 2000) culturally determined abilities that are difficult to acquire. Thus,
it is unreasonable to expect that intrinsic motivation will suffice for most students for
most higher level academic tasks.
In addition, a case is made that educational psychology must incorporate the insights of
evolutionary psychology. - epjournal.net/filestore/ep01127137.pdf
Sexual Selection and Human Behaviour
Ward Rommel, Department of Sociology, Section for Theoretical Sociology and Sociology
of Education and Culture, University of Leuven, E. Van Evenstraat 2b, 3000 Leuven,
Belgium.
Social Science Information, Vol. 41, No. 3, 439-465 (2002) DOI:
10.1177/0539018402041003005 © 2002 Maison des Sciences de l'Homme , SAGE Publications
This article reviews some recent evolutionary psychological theories about the interaction
between environmental factors and sexual strategies. Evolutionary psychology explains
sexual strategies in terms of innate information-processing mechanisms. The most important
theoretical instrument relating to this topic is the theory of sexual selection and
parental investment. Because of the unequal parental investment of the sexes, their sexual
strategies differ. This is an important source of conflict between the sexes. Humans
evolved in a complex social environment. As a consequence, human psychic mechanisms
produce a wide variety of sexual strategies. Two dimensions along which human sexual
strategies vary are considered here. First, people's mating strategies range from striving
for a lifelong pair bond to aiming at a single act of copulation with someone. Second,
strategies situated at the long-term end of the continuum can be polygynous, monogamous or
polyandrous. The choices made by a concrete individual are influenced by several factors
such as the personal life history, the general availability and predictability of
resources, the distribution of political and economic power between men and women, the
distribution of political and economic power between men themselves, the production mode
of a society and finally the content of cultural representations in a society. It is shown
that evolutionary psychology can be important for the explanation of contemporary
behavioural differences. Some methodological problems of evolutionary psychology are
reviewed and an evolutionary psychological perspective on the sex/gender distinction is
considered. - ssi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/41/3/439
Evolutionary psychology as public science and boundary work
Angela Cassidy, Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth Building,
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK a.m.cassidy@leeds.ac.uk and
angela.cassidy@gmail.com
Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 15, No. 2, 175-205 (2006) © 2006 SAGE Publications
This paper explores the phenomena of public scientific debates, where scientific
controversies are argued out in public fora such as the mass media, using the case of
popular evolutionary psychology in the UK of the 1990s. An earlier quantitative analysis
of the UK press coverage of the subject (Cassidy, 2005) suggested that academics
associated with evolutionary psychology had been unusually active in the media at that
time, particularly in association with the publication of popular science books on the
subject. Previous research by Turner, by Gieryn, and by Bucchi has established the
relationship between such appeals to the public domain and the establishment of scientific
legitimacy and academic disciplinary boundaries. Following this work, I argue here that
popular science has, in this case, provided a creative space for scientists, outside of
the constraints of ordinary academic discourse, allowing them to reach across scientific
boundaries in order to claim expertise in the study of human beings. -
pus.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/2/175
Popular evolutionary psychology in the UK: an unusual case of science in the
media?
Angela Cassidy, Leeds University Business School, a.m.cassidy@lubs.leeds.ac.uk
Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 14, No. 2, 115-141 (2005) © 2005 SAGE Publications
This paper presents findings from quantitative analyses of UK press and print media
coverage of evolutionary psychology during the 1990s. It argues that evolutionary
psychology presents an interesting case for studies of science in the media in several
different ways. First, press coverage of evolutionary psychology was found to be closely
linked with the publications of popular books on the subject. Secondly, when compared to
coverage of other subjects, a higher proportion of academics and authors wrote about
evolutionary psychology in the press, contributing to the development of a scientific
controversy in the public domain. Finally, it was found that evolutionary psychology
coverage appeared in different areas of the daily press, and was rarely written about by
specialist science journalists. The possible reasons for these features are then explored,
including the boom in popular science publishing during the 1990s, evolutionary
psychology’s status as a new subject of study and discussion, and the nature of the
subject itself as theoretically based and with a human, "everyday" subject
matter. - pus.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/2/115
Toward an evolutionary psychology of religiosity
ABSTRACT: How can the evolution of religiosity be explained? To answer this question,
we attempt to develop an understanding of the psychological domains underlying religious
behaviour. We see four evolved domains, the sum and interaction of which constitute
religiosity, namely: mysticism, ethics, myths and rituals. Even if the individual content,
accents and implementations differ in each specific religion, they nevertheless derive
from evolved Darwinian algorithms that are species-specific adaptations of homo
sapiens.
Mysticism. Intuitive ontologies are the basis for mystical experiences. Usually they serve
to classify reality into animate and inanimate objects, animals or plants, for example.
For a variety of psychological reasons, supernatural experiences result from a mixture of
different ontological categories.
Ethics. The basis for ethics lies in the social competency of human beings. Ethics is
founded on the concept of social exchange (“social-contract algorithm”) with its
ideas about reciprocity, fairness, justice, cheater detection, in-group/out-group
differentiation, etc.
Myths. The basis for myths is the “language instinct”. We interpret myths as the
verbal expression of the cognitive content of those individual modules that constitute the
belief system. Above all, myths document the experience and processing of contingency and
thus help social bonding.
Rituals. Rituals are based on the handicap principle. By making certain symbols and acts
more expensive, they signal commitment for a reliable in-group morale.
In conclusion, we argue that human religiosity emerges from a cognitive interaction
between these four domains. Religiosity processes contingencies and enhances co-operation
through social bonding, norm setting and cheater detection. It fulfils those functions for
which the mental modules of its four domains have evolved so that we feel it appears to be
justified to attribute to religiosity the evolutionary status of an adaptation. -
nel.edu/23_s4/NEL231002R10_Soeling.htm
Comparative Approaches in Evolutionary Psychology: Molecular Neuroscience Meets the
Mind
ABSTRACT: Evolutionary psychologists often overlook a wealth of information existing
between the proximate genotypic level and the ultimate phenotypic level. This commonly
ignored level of biological organization is the ongoing activity of neurobiological
systems. In this paper, we extend our previous arguments concerning strategic weaknesses
of evolutionary psychology by advocating a foundational view that focuses on similarities
in brain, behavior, and various basic psychological features across mammalian species.
Such an approach offers the potential to link the emerging discipline of evolutionary
psychology to its parent scientific disciplines such as biochemistry, physiology,
molecular genetics, developmental biology and the neuroscientific analysis of animal
behavior. We detail an example of this through our impending work using gene microarray
technology to characterize gene expression patterns in rats during aggressive and playful
social interactions. Through a focus on functional homologies and the experimental
analysis of conserved, subcortical emotional and motivational brain systems,
neuroevolutionary psychobiology can reveal ancient features of the human mind that are
still shared with other animals. Claims regarding evolved, uniquely human, psychological
constructs should be constrained by the rigorous evidentiary standards that are routine in
other sciences. - nel.edu/23_s4/NEL231002R11_Panksepp.htm
Psychopathology or Adaptation?
Genetic and Evolutionary Perspectives on Individual Differences and Psychopathology
ABSTRACT: A greater understanding of psychopathology will be found in the integration
of genetic and evolutionary perspectives on adaptation and function. Evolutionary theory
proposes that adaptive traits are reproduced more successfully than maladaptive ones.
However, some traits, while contributing to fitness in the ancestral environment, may
contribute to fitness no longer. This is known as mismatch theory. Evolutionarily informed
research into various “pathologies” has yielded interesting results, some based
on this theory. This paper serves to distinguish between genetic and evolutionary
perspectives on psychopathology as well as to examine some recent research on the
selective forces that may be implicated in psychopathy, anorexic behavior, and ADHD. We
suggest that research into psychopathy in general would benefit from an evolutionary
perspective and an examination of the assumptions behind past research. -
nel.edu/23_s4/NEL231002R04_Crawford.htm
Does evolutionary psychology have any problems?
Yes. Here are what I see as a few of the major problems currently faced by
evolutionary psychology: Extract from: The Evolutionary Psychology FAQ -
anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/epfaq/problems.html
1. Evolutionary psychology is attempting to elucidate the functional organization of the
brain even though researchers currently cannot, with very few exceptions, directly study
complex neural circuits.
2. The domains of cognition proposed by evolutionary psychologists are often pretty ad
hoc. Traditionally, cognitive psychologists have assumed that cognitive abilities are
relatively abstract: categorization, signal detection, recognition, memory, logic,
inference, etc. Evolutionary psychology proposes a radically orthogonal set of
'ecologically valid' domains and reasoning abilities: predator detection, toxin avoidance,
incest avoidance, mate selection, mating strategies, social exchange, and so on.
3. Evolutionary psychology (and adaptationism in general) has devoted considerable
theoretical attention to the issue of design, the first link in the causal chain leading
from phenotype structure to reproductive outcome, but has lumped every other link into the
category 'reproductive problem.'
4. Evolutionary psychology is founded on a model of ancestral human reproductive ecology
(the EEA), yet the current version of this model is woefully out of date. Life history
theory, the sub-discipline of biology devoted to understanding the fundamental aspects of
the reproductive ecologies of plant and animals, has made enormous strides in the last
decade or so.
Hunter-gatherer theory is a related issue. Evolutionary psychology uses an odd mix of
Kalahari and tropical Amazonian ethnography for its basic model of the EEA. Although much
(if not most) work by evolutionary psychologists relies on indisputable features of the
EEA such as women got pregnant and men didn't, it is time for evolutionary psychology to
start talking more seriously with archaeologists and paleoanthropologists. We know a lot
more about the past than we did even 10 years ago, and some of what we thought we knew has
now been called into question.
5. Convergent evolution vs. phylogenetic inertia. In contrast to early approaches to the
evolution of human behavior that emphasized chimp or gorilla models, evolutionary
psychology relies heavily on convergent evolution type arguments.
6. Finally, even the best work in evolutionary psychology remains incomplete. Two
examples: 1) evolutionary psychologists have made several predictions about mate
preferences, and these predictions have been verified in a broad range of cross-cultural
contexts.
Evolutionary Psychology
TODD J. ZYWICKI, George Mason University - School of Law
George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 07-10
Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives, Forthcoming
Abstract: This is the entry for “Evolutionary Psychology” in the Encyclopedia of
Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives. This entry provides a summary and
overview of the science of evolutionary psychology and its implications for the study of
law. Understanding how evolution has shaped human nature and individual preferences can
provide insight into how to use law to direct individual behavior in pro-social directions
and away from anti-social behavior. This essay provides an overview of the science of
evolutionary psychology, especially as it manifests itself in human proclivities for
cooperation and conflict. In contrast to the Hobbesian view of human nature that
implicitly underlies the modern understanding of law, evolutionary psychology provides
several models of cooperation in the absence of law. But evolutionary psychology also
provides insights into the nature of social conflict and the challenges this presents for
legal regulation. Finally, the article describes the research program of law and
evolutionary psychology, the testable hypotheses of evolutionary psychology, and the
criteria for distinguishing evolutionary explanations of human behavior from legalistic
and norms-based theories. - papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=960872
A Burning Desire: Steps Toward an Evolutionary Psychology of Fire Learning
Author: Fessler, Daniel M.T.
Source: Journal of Cognition and Culture, Volume 6, Numbers 3-4, 2006, pp. 429-451(23)
Abstract: Although fire is inherently dangerous, leading many animals to avoid it, for
most of human history, mastery of fire has been critical to survival. Humans can therefore
be expected to possess evolved psychological mechanisms dedicated to controlling fire.
Because techniques for starting, maintaining, and using fire differ across ecosystems, the
postulated adaptations can be expected to take the form of domain-specific learning
mechanisms rather than fixed behavioral templates. After outlining features that such
mechanisms are predicted to possess, I review the literature on fire play in western
children, finding that attraction to and interest in fire is widespread, experimentation
with fire often begins in early childhood, and fire play typically peaks in late childhood
or early adolescence. The latter aspect stands in contrast to results from a survey of
ethnographers which reveals that, in societies in which fire is routinely used as a tool,
children typically master control of fire by middle childhood, at which point interest in
fire is already declining. This suggests that fire learning is retarded in western
children, arguably due to patterns of fire use in modern societies that are atypical when
viewed from a broader cross-cultural perspective. Together with the fact that western
entertainment media provide a distorted portrait of the properties of fire, this pattern,
while limiting the value of naturalistic observations of fire learning in the West,
nevertheless has the benefit of providing a strong testing ground for future experiments
exploring the universality of the psychology underlying the control of fire. -
ingentaconnect.com
Evolutionary Psychology and the Social Sciences - TODD J. ZYWICKI
George Mason University - School of Law - Humane Studies Review
Abstract: This essay provides a general, nontechnical survey of the field of evolutionary
psychology and discusses some of the implications of evolutionary psychology for law and
the social sciences. The focus of the essay is on the "four paths to
cooperation" in nature that have been identified by evolutionary psychologists.
Through this discussion, the essay illuminates the importance of evolutionary psychology
for a proper understanding of social norms, the state, constitutions, and the evolution of
cooperation in the absence of culture, informal norms, legal rules, and political
institutions. By understanding the evolution of cooperation absent these other forces it
becomes possible to understand the sources and the importance of norms, rules, and
institutions, at the margin. Discussion of these social institutions is incomplete without
a grounding in evolutionary psychology. The essay concludes with a survey of developing
issues in law and the social sciences that could be fruitfully studied through the lens of
evolutionary psychology. - papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=244552
Evolutionary Psychology: Counting Babies or Studying Information-Processing
Mechanisms
CHARLES CRAWFORD, Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby
Evolutionary psychology focuses on the study of adaptations. Its practitioners put little
credence in the study of reproductive success in recent and current environments, and
argue for an information-processing, cost-benefit conception of adaptation. Because
ancestral and current environments differ, it is necessary to distinguish between innate
and operational adaptations and between concurrently contingent and developmentally
contingent behaviors. These distinctions lead to an evolutionary classification of
behaviors into true pathologies, pseudopathologies, quasinormal behaviors, and
adaptive-culturally-variable behaviors. I argue that a complete study of the functioning
of a behavioral adaptation involves modeling ancestral selection pressures, cross-cultural
research, experimental studies of mental processes, and studies of the proximate
biological correlates of information-processing adaptations. Finally, I claim that
evolutionary psychology can help us avoid making both naturalistic and moralistic
fallacies. - annalsnyas.org/cgi/content/abstract/907/1/21
What is evolutionary psychology?
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