A psychological adaptation, also known as evolved psychological mechanism (EPM), is evolved human or animal behavior resulting from evolutionary pressures. It could serve a specific purpose, have served a purpose in the past (see vestigiality), or be a side-effect of another EPM (see spandrel (biology)).[1] Evolutionary psychology proposes that the human psychology mostly comprises psychological adaptations, in opposition to tabula rasa or blank slate model of human psychology such as the standard social science model,[2] popular throughout most of the twentieth century. Instead, EPM's are ongoing processes in their emotions and intellect, that help individuals with their well being whether its through their mental state of mind or in culture.[3]
The least controversial EPMs are those commonly known as instincts, including interpreting stereoscopic vision and suckling a mother's breast.[4]
Contents
- 1 Evolutionary Psychology as Adaptation
- 2 Natural Selection as Adaptation
- 3 See also
- 4 References
- 5 External links
Evolutionary Psychology as Adaptation
Evolutionary psychologists are scarce because they try and determine not the interaction between environment and behavior but why a behavior is created in a specific environment.[5] In a Darwinian outlook, evolutionary psychology is seen as a succession of psychological adaptations occurring at individual times.[6] Not every trait of humans or animals are adaptations, but the ones that are tend to reflect the trend of the current population.[7] Evolutionary psychologists tend to study adaptations to give meaning to specific behaviors found in humans today.[8]
Evolutionary psychologist, David Buss, lays out six properties of evolved psychological mechanisms (EPM's):[9]
- An EPM exists in the form that it does because it solved a specific problem of survival or reproduction recurrently over evolutionary history.
- An EPM is designed to take in only a narrow slice of information
- The input of an EPM tells an organism the particular adaptive problem it is facing
- The input of an EPM is transformed through decision rules into output
- The output of an EPM can be physiological activity, information to other psychological mechanisms, or manifest behaviors
- The output of an EPM is directed toward the solution to a specific adaptive problem
Natural Selection as Adaptation
Charles Darwin's theory of Natural Selection is one of the more common psychological adaptations to be studied in history. His ideas began the understanding of adaptation due to survival.[10] The idea of Zietgeist also has a way of explaining psychological adaptation. The idea is of the nature of the times in which a specific event takes place. Whether its cultural influences, environmental influences, or political influences, the zietgiest should have an impact on the ways in which adapting occurred.[11]
EPM's tend to aid in solving specific adaptive problems. In biology, the idea that a plant or animal becomes fitted to its environment is the result of natural selection adapting to its inherited variation. However, in Psychological adaptation, the part of the environment causing the adaptation is society and culture of the times, while the adapting is taking place in the individual rather than the plant or animal. This helps contribute to ideas in human nature such as food selection, mate selection and intrasexual competition.
Further important properties include the following:[12]
- EPM's provide nonarbitrary criteria, (i.e. adaptive function) for "carving the mind at its joints," (i.e. evolved structure).
- EPM's are believed to be numerous, which contributes to human behavioral flexibility. An analogy would be like a carpenter who, instead of having one tool that does everything, has many tools, each with a specific function for a specific task, (e.g. a hammer for pounding nails, a saw for cutting wood, etc.)
- Some EPM's are domain-specific, (i.e. evolved to solve specific, recurrent adaptive problems), while others are domain-general, (i.e. evolved to aid the individual in dealing with novelty in the environment).
See also
- Adaptive bias
- Cognitive module
- Dual inheritance theory
- Evolutionary developmental psychology
- Evolutionary psychology
- Human behavioral ecology
- Instinct
- Modularity of mind
References
- ^ Barrett, H. C.; Kurzban, R. (2006). "Modularity in Cognition: Framing the Debate". Psychological Review 113 (3): 628–647. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.113.3.628. PMID 16802884. edit
- ^ http://www.themindevolution.com/2010/08/30/how-to-explain-human-nature-evolution-or-standard-social-science-model/
- ^ http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Psychological+adaptation
- ^ Ell, K., Nishimoto, R., Morvay, T., Mantell, J. and Hamovitch, M. (1989). A longitudinal analysis of psychological adaptation among. Survivors of cancer. Cancer, 63: 406–413. Funder, D. C. (2010). The Personality Puzzle (5th ed.). New York, NY: Norton
- ^ Boyer, P. & Barrett, H. C. (2005). Domain specificity and intuitive ontology. In Buss, D.M. (ed.). Handbook of evolutionary psychology. (pp. 96–118). Wiley.
- ^ Chiappe, D.; MacDonald, K. (2005). "The Evolution of Domain-General Mechanisms in Intelligence and Learning". The Journal of General Psychology 132 (1): 5–40. doi:10.3200/GENP.132.1.5-40. PMID 15685958. edit
- ^ Gaulin, S. J. (1997). "Cross-cultural patterns and the search for evolved psychological mechanisms". Ciba Foundation symposium 208: 195–207, discussion 207–11. PMID 9386913. edit
- ^ Krill, A. L.; Platek, S. M.; Goetz, A. T.; Shackelford, T. K. (2007). "Where evolutionary psychology meets cognitive neuroscience: A précis to evolutionary cognitive neuroscience". Evolutionary Psychology 5: 232–256.
- ^ Buss, D.M. (2004).Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. Boston, MA. Pearson Education, Inc.
- ^ Hernández Blasi, C.; Causey, K. (2010). "Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary developmental psychology: Understanding the evolution of human behavior and development". Psicothema 22 (1): 1–3. PMID 20100419. edit
- ^ Schultz, P.F. and Sydney, E.S. (2012). A History of Modern Psychology (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
- ^ Tooby, J., Cosmides, L. & Barrett, H. C. (2005). Resolving the debate on innate ideas: Learnability constraints and the evolved interpenetration of motivational and conceptual functions. In Carruthers, P., Laurence, S. & Stich, S. (Eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Content. NY: Oxford University Press.
External links
- Leda Cosmides &, John Tooby. "Evolutionary Psychology Primer by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby". www.psych.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
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Evolutionary psychology
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| Processes |
- Altruism
- Group selection
- Kin selection
- Sexual selection
- Sociobiology
- Coevolution
- Evolutionarily stable strategy
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| Areas |
- Psychological development
- Morality
- Religion
- Depression
- Developmental psychopathology
- Educational psychology
- Evolutionary aesthetics
- Music
- Darwinian literary studies
- Evolution of emotion
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| Seminal writers |
- Pascal Boyer
- Leda Cosmides
- Charles Darwin
- Richard Dawkins
- Daniel Dennett
- Jared Diamond
- Robin Dunbar
- David Geary
- Peter Kropotkin
- Geoffrey Miller
- Steven Mithen
- Steven Pinker
- John Tooby
- Robert Trivers
- E. O. Wilson
- D. S. Wilson
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| Related subjects |
- Memetics
- Sociobiology
- Evolutionary neuroscience
- Human evolution
- Sociocultural evolution
- Evolutionary anthropology
- Evolutionary medicine
- Evolutionary linguistics
- Biosocial criminology
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| Lists |
- Evolutionary psychologists
- Evolutionary psychology research groups and centers
- Bibliography of evolution and human behavior
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- Evolutionary psychology
- Psychology portal
- Evolutionary biology portal
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