Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Evolutionary Psychology (evolutionary + psychology)
Selected AbstractsTHE WILES OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND THE INDETERMINACY OF SELECTIONPHILOSOPHICAL FORUM, Issue 1 2008JUSTIN LEIBER First page of article [source] THE RELEVANCE OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY FOR PSYCHOTHERAPYBRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY, Issue 3 2005Anthony Ryle ABSTRACT The claims made for the contribution of Evolutionary Psychology to psychotherapy are questioned. The relevance of human evolutionary history is not disputed, but it is argued that insufficient account is taken of the unique features of human beings, that the polemical attacks made on the social and human sciences are irrational, that the hypothetical reconstructions of human evolution are frequently arbitrary and biased, and that the extent to which evolved innate,mentalities'are said to determine social roles ignores the evidence for the plasticity of human brains and for social influences in individual development. In its consistent bias in favour of innate rather than learned and culturally formed processes and in its language and assumptions EP underestimates the inherited and acquired capacities of human societies and individuals to change. It fails to take adequate account of the key evolutionary development whereby humans became symbol-making and symbol-using social animals whose individual psychological development involves processes, the understanding of which requires a new theoretical perspective. These features, combined with the absence of a clear model of practice, seriously limit the contribution of EP to psychotherapy. [source] Instinctive Incest Avoidance: A Paradigm Case for Evolutionary Psychology EvaporatesJOURNAL FOR THE THEORY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, Issue 4 2006JUSTIN LEIBER Westermarck proposed that humans have an incest avoidance instinct, triggered by frequent intimate contact with family members during the first several years of life. Westermarck reasons that (1) familial incest will tend to produce less fit offspring, (2) those humans without instinctive incest avoidance would hence have tended to die off and those with the avoidance instinct would have produced more viable offspring, and hence (3) familial incest would be, as indeed it is, universally and instinctively avoided (the desire simply does arise given early continuous intimate contact; the "potty principle" as some psychologists have succinctly termed it). Victorian Westermarck claimed this as a human adaptation. Evolutionary psychologists have generalized these claims to Pleistocene humans and their ancestors, to primates, and indeed to animals generally. Yet there is surprisingly little evidence for these claims of universal instinctive avoidance. Considerable inbreeding appears among large, territorial primates and may have been so with early humans and with their ancestors. While there is little reliable non-anecdotal evidence about incestuous behavior or the lack of it among humans, what little there is does not fit well with the Westermarck thesis. [source] Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human NatureAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2006H. Clark Barrett No abstract is available for this article. [source] THE RELEVANCE OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY FOR PSYCHOTHERAPYBRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY, Issue 3 2005Anthony Ryle ABSTRACT The claims made for the contribution of Evolutionary Psychology to psychotherapy are questioned. The relevance of human evolutionary history is not disputed, but it is argued that insufficient account is taken of the unique features of human beings, that the polemical attacks made on the social and human sciences are irrational, that the hypothetical reconstructions of human evolution are frequently arbitrary and biased, and that the extent to which evolved innate,mentalities'are said to determine social roles ignores the evidence for the plasticity of human brains and for social influences in individual development. In its consistent bias in favour of innate rather than learned and culturally formed processes and in its language and assumptions EP underestimates the inherited and acquired capacities of human societies and individuals to change. It fails to take adequate account of the key evolutionary development whereby humans became symbol-making and symbol-using social animals whose individual psychological development involves processes, the understanding of which requires a new theoretical perspective. These features, combined with the absence of a clear model of practice, seriously limit the contribution of EP to psychotherapy. [source] Child Development and Evolutionary PsychologyCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2000David F. Bjorklund Evolutionary developmental psychology involves the expression of evolved, epigenetic programs, as described by the developmental systems approach, over the course of ontogeny. There have been different selection pressures on organisms at different times in ontogeny, and some characteristics of infants and children were selected in evolution to serve an adaptive function at that time in their life history rather than to prepare individuals for later adulthood. Examples of such adaptive functions of immaturity are provided from infancy, play, and cognitive development. Most evolved psychological mechanisms are proposed to be domain specific in nature and have been identified for various aspects of children's cognitive and social development, most notably for the acquisition of language and for theory of mind. Differences in the quality and quantity of parental investment affect children's development and influence their subsequent reproductive and childcare strategies. Some sex differences observed in childhood, particularly as expressed during play, are seen as antecedents and preparations for adult sex differences. Because evolved mechanisms were adaptive to ancestral environments, they are not always adaptive for contemporary people, and this mismatch of evolved mechanisms with modern environments is seen in children's maladjustment to some aspects of formal schooling. We argue that an evolutionary perspective can be valuable for developing a better understanding of human ontogeny in contemporary society and that a developmental perspective is important for a better understanding of evolutionary psychology. [source] Visible changes of female facial skin surface topography in relation to age and attractiveness perceptionJOURNAL OF COSMETIC DERMATOLOGY, Issue 2 2010Nadine Samson Summary Objectives, Evolutionary psychology suggests that a woman's age and physical appearance are important mate choice criteria. Given that changes in female facial skin surface topography are important, prominent visible signs of aging, male perceptual sensitivity for variation in this trait may also affect preference and attractiveness judgment. Methods, Two experiments were conducted to investigate perception (Experiment 1) and noticeability (Experiment 2) of skin surface topography manipulations in facial images of six British women, aged 45,65 years. In Experiment 1 skin surface topography cues were completely removed on the cheeks, the "crow's feet" area adjacent to the eye, under the eyes, above the upper lip, and on the forehead while, in Experiment 2, it was removed gradually (20% increments) on the forehead and around the eyes. In both experiments, stimuli were presented to American and German participants (total N = 300, aged 15,55 years) in omnibus pair-wise combinations (within-face). With each pair, respondents were asked to select that face which they considered as younger looking (Experiments 1 and 2) and more attractive (Experiment 1). Results, Faces with skin surface topography cues removed were judged significantly younger and more attractive than their original (unmodified) counterparts, with modifications on the forehead and around the eyes showing the highest differences. In these areas, participants were able to detect at least a 20% visual change in skin surface topography. Conclusions, The results support the assertion that even small changes in skin surface topography affect the perceptions of a woman's facial age and attractiveness and may, thus, also influence men's mate preferences. [source] Can behavioral evolution be measured on a staircase? a commentaryDEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY, Issue 1 2004Celia L. Moore Abstract The serious, comparative study of behavioral complexity that Greenberg et al. advocate is a progressive direction for the field, but their proposal to separate comparative psychology from its roots in evolutionary biology seems regressive. Modern evolutionary theory has been broadened within biology to include development and paleontology alongside natural selection, making closer integration with that discipline particularly timely. Such an integrated evolutionary approach in psychology would offer a useful alternative to the adaptationism popularized by evolutionary psychology. Although the differences between comparative psychologists and biologists may be blurred in the process, the behavioral sciences will be better served by a rich biological approach to evolution than by a uniquely psychological approach. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 44: 16,20, 2004. [source] Priorities in social categoriesEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2010Katherine D. Kinzler In this paper we review evidence from social, developmental, and evolutionary psychology to raise a common question: Are there priorities in how humans categorize their social world? Are some social groupings more prominent in childhood, and more resilient in adulthood than others? We review and compare evidence from each field, with a particular emphasis on exploring the relative robustness of gender, race, age, and language as social categories. We highlight the value of developmental approaches for characterizing the origins and nature of social categories in adults, and provide suggestions for how collaborative research from social, developmental, and evolutionary psychology could inform our understanding of potential priorities in social categorization. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Language Games and Natural ReactionsJOURNAL FOR THE THEORY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, Issue 1 2004David Rubinstein Ludwig Wittgenstein imagines a variety of eccentric social practices,like a tribe trained "to give no expression of feeling of any kind". But he also speaks of "the common behavior of mankind" that is rooted in "natural/primitive reactions". This emphasis on the uniformities of human behavior raises questions about the plausibility of some of his imagined language games. Indeed, it suggests the claim of evolutionary psychologists that there are biologically based human universals that shape social practices. But in contrast to E.O. Wilson's belief that "genes hold culture on a leash", Wittgenstein sees culture as a mediator,rather than a conduit,of "natural reactions". This suggests that social science can incorporate the claims of evolutionary psychology without scanting the centrality of culture in action and allows that nature can be overwhelmed by culture. [source] Trait-Specific Dependence in Romantic RelationshipsJOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 5 2002Bruce J. Ellis ABSTRACT Informed by three theoretical frameworks,trait psychology, evolutionary psychology, and interdependence theory,we report four investigations designed to develop and test the reliability and validity of a new construct and accompanying multiscale inventory, the Trait-Specific Dependence Inventory (TSDI). The TSDI assesses comparisons between present and alternative romantic partners on major dimensions of mate value. In Study 1, principal components analyses revealed that the provisional pool of theory-generated TSDI items were represented by six factors: Agreeable/Committed, Resource Accruing Potential, Physical Prowess, Emotional Stability, Surgency, and Physical Attractiveness. In Study 2, confirmatory factor analysis replicated these results on a different sample and tested how well different structural models fit the data. Study 3 provided evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of the six TSDI scales by correlating each one with a matched personality trait scale that did not explicitly incorporate comparisons between partners. Study 4 provided further validation evidence, revealing that the six TSDI scales successfully predicted three relationship outcome measures,love, time investment, and anger/upset,above and beyond matched sets of traditional personality trait measures. These results suggest that the TSDI is a reliable, valid, and unique construct that represents a new trait-specific method of assessing dependence in romantic relationships. The construct of trait-specific dependence is introduced and linked with other theories of mate value. [source] Victorian Psychology and the NovelLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2008Anne Stiles Over the last three decades, literary critics have evinced growing interest in nineteenth-century psychology and its reciprocal relationship with the Victorian novel. The resulting body of interdisciplinary scholarship has yielded insight into how early and mid-Victorian psychological movements (moral management, associationism, evolutionary psychology, and so forth) left their mark on realist authors like George Eliot and writers of sensation fiction such as Wilkie Collins or Mary Elizabeth Braddon. But these scholarly works have dealt less comprehensively with the psychological significance of late Victorian genres like the romance and neo-Gothic novel. Moreover, literary critics are only beginning to explore the ways in which psychology subtly shaded into physiology during the late Victorian era. This materialist shift was felt most strongly after 1870, when cerebral localization experiments by David Ferrier, John Hughlings Jackson, and other neurologists linked specific emotions, faculties, and movements to discrete areas of the brain. These experiments suggested that human behavior amounted to the sum of various neurochemical impulses, a conclusion that raised hackles because it threatened cherished notions of the soul, will, and individual identity. Literary scholars have only recently discussed the ways in which late Victorian novels engaged with these unsettling neurological discoveries. Based on the early promise of these discussions, we might expect to see more work on Victorian brains than Victorian psyches in future literary criticism. [source] Envy and positional bias in the evolutionary psychology of managementMANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 2-3 2006Sarah E. Hill We propose that humans have evolved at least two specialized cognitive adaptations shaped by selection to solve problems associated with resource competition: (1) a positional bias by which individuals judge success in domains that affect fitness in terms of standing relative to their reference group; and (2) envy, an emotion that functions to alert individuals to fitness-relevant advantages enjoyed by rivals and to motivate individuals to acquire those same advantages. We present new data supporting the existence of design features of these hypothesized psychological adaptations and discuss implications for economists, organizations, marketers, and managers. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR ARTICLE Rethinking women's sexual orientation: An interdisciplinary, relationship-focused approachPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS, Issue 1 2001LETITIA ANNE PEPLAU What leads some women to form romantic and sexual relationships with men, and other women to form intimate relationships with women? This article presents a new conceptual paradigm for understanding women's sexual orientation that is emerging from research in such diverse fields as social psychology, sex research, evolutionary psychology, attachment theory, and neuroscience. This approach acknowledges the potential plasticity of women's sexuality and the emphasis that women place on close relationships as a context for sexuality. Research also raises the possibility that for women the biological determinants of sexual desire, attraction, and attachment are not inherently linked to a partner's gender. This article begins with a brief survey of research on women's same-sex romantic and sexual relationships not only in the United States today but also in other cultures and historical periods. These and other findings are used to critique prevailing conceptual models of women's sexual orientation. Finally, key elements in an alternative paradigm are described. [source] The adult attachment interview and self-reports of romantic attachment: Associations across domains and methodsPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS, Issue 1 2000PHILLIP R. SHAVER Two lines of research on adult attachment have emerged; both are based on Bowlby and Ainsworth's attachment theory, which in turn relies on evolutionary theory. Investigators in one tradition use the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) to assess "state of mind with respect to attachment." The AAI has been validated primarily by its ability to predict the attachment classification of an interviewee's child in Ainsworth's "strange situation." Investigators in the second tradition use self-report measures to assess romantic "attachment style." The self-report measures have been validated by their ability to predict features of romantic/marital relationships. Although the two constructs. state of mind and romantic attachment, are importantly different and so would not be expected to relate highly, some of their components, especially ability to depend on attachment figures, should be related if both stem from a person's attachment history. We report associations between components, or aspects, of the two measures. Overlap occurs mainly in the areas of comfort depending on attachment figures and comfort serving as an attachment figure for others. Implications of the findings for attachment theory and research, as well as for evolutionary psychology, are discussed. [source] Applying Darwinian principles in designing effective intervention strategies: The case of sun tanningPSYCHOLOGY & MARKETING, Issue 7 2006Gad Saad Public-service announcements typically seek to educate consumers regarding a given unhealthy practice, the assumption being that individuals will cease the harmful behavior once they are fully informed. Many intervention strategies have failed in curbing the targeted behaviors because these are not due to incomplete information but instead may also have a Darwinian-based etiology. Using sunbathing as a case analysis, it is shown how Darwinian theorizing (evolutionary psychology, life-history theory, gene-culture co-evolution, and memetic theory) can augment social marketers' ability to develop efficacious intervention strategies. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Intuitive evolutionary perspectives in marketing practices,PSYCHOLOGY & MARKETING, Issue 9 2003Stephen M. Colarelli Firms spend considerable sums of money on marketing, and they continue to do so because marketing works. However, marketing can only work if marketers have a reasonably accurate view of human nature. It is argued that many consumer products and advertisements reflect an accurate view of human nature, a view that is compatible with the tenets of evolutionary psychology. Implicit theories of human nature that are out of synch with reality sell few products. An overview of an evolutionary perspective on marketing is provided here, and connections between marketing practices and evolved adaptations, including kin selection, prestige seeking, preferences for salt, sweets, and fat, and savanna-like landscapes are examined. Adaptations that differ by sex and how they are mirrored in marketing are also examined. Finally, some marketing practices that reflect evolutionary principles of variation are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] SENSUAL ATTACHMENT AND INCEST AVOIDANCE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION AND CHILD DEVELOPMENTTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 4 2005John M. Ingham The authors take issue with the critique of psychoanalysis and the depiction of human sexuality and incest avoidance in evolutionary psychology. Drawing on human neurobiology and evolutionary anthropology, they show that human beings have an evolved disposition toward pair-bonding and evolved capacities for self-regulation of sexual and aggressive impulses. The realization that these characteristics are not only important but also interrelated leads to a reassessment of the Oedipus complex, a new model of incest avoidance in humans, and a fresh perspective on the relation between reproductive behaviour and environmental conditions. [source] Child Development and Evolutionary PsychologyCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2000David F. Bjorklund Evolutionary developmental psychology involves the expression of evolved, epigenetic programs, as described by the developmental systems approach, over the course of ontogeny. There have been different selection pressures on organisms at different times in ontogeny, and some characteristics of infants and children were selected in evolution to serve an adaptive function at that time in their life history rather than to prepare individuals for later adulthood. Examples of such adaptive functions of immaturity are provided from infancy, play, and cognitive development. Most evolved psychological mechanisms are proposed to be domain specific in nature and have been identified for various aspects of children's cognitive and social development, most notably for the acquisition of language and for theory of mind. Differences in the quality and quantity of parental investment affect children's development and influence their subsequent reproductive and childcare strategies. Some sex differences observed in childhood, particularly as expressed during play, are seen as antecedents and preparations for adult sex differences. Because evolved mechanisms were adaptive to ancestral environments, they are not always adaptive for contemporary people, and this mismatch of evolved mechanisms with modern environments is seen in children's maladjustment to some aspects of formal schooling. We argue that an evolutionary perspective can be valuable for developing a better understanding of human ontogeny in contemporary society and that a developmental perspective is important for a better understanding of evolutionary psychology. [source] Language Acquisition Meets Language EvolutionCOGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 7 2010Nick Chater Abstract Recent research suggests that language evolution is a process of cultural change, in which linguistic structures are shaped through repeated cycles of learning and use by domain-general mechanisms. This paper draws out the implications of this viewpoint for understanding the problem of language acquisition, which is cast in a new, and much more tractable, form. In essence, the child faces a problem of induction, where the objective is to coordinate with others (C-induction), rather than to model the structure of the natural world (N-induction). We argue that, of the two, C-induction is dramatically easier. More broadly, we argue that understanding the acquisition of any cultural form, whether linguistic or otherwise, during development, requires considering the corresponding question of how that cultural form arose through processes of cultural evolution. This perspective helps resolve the "logical" problem of language acquisition and has far-reaching implications for evolutionary psychology. [source] Relationship Development and Workplace Integration: An Evolutionary PerspectiveCOMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 4 2005JC. Bruno Teboul In this article, the authors argue that recent scholarship emanating from the field of evolutionary psychology (EP) promises to further current understanding of relationship development processes in organizations. To this end, they briefly review EP's core assumptions about human nature and behavior and then examine three adaptive mechanisms that underlie close relational functioning in the workplace. Specifically, the authors describe how reciprocal altruism and preference for similarity, coupled with sensitivity toward prestige hierarchies, underscore the exchange and coordination activities of employees' relationships at work. The proposed model of relationship development is discussed in terms of employee adjustment and integration processes. In conclusion, the authors highlight the potential of EP as both (a) a metatheoretic framework through which seemingly disparate areas of scholarship can be unified, and (b) a vehicle for theoretical development, a catalyst of novel predictions about communication in organizations, grounded in ultimate, rather than proximate, causation. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||