Evolutionary Psychology
- Evolution has shaped modern people and plays a big role in our behavior.
- For example it is often believed that men are hunters and women are gatherers. This means that in the modern world men generally are generally oriented with "masculine" things such as business and sports whereas women focus on "feminine" things such as cooking and household chores.
- This method of thinking isn't true, but it does have a large impact on our society.
Human Evolution in the Struggle for Existence
- Human behavior is impossible to understand if we do not see people as biological creatures that have developed through evolution.
- We have the traits we do due to their success and the genes for them being passed on to future generations.
- All the functions of our brain are in one way or another designed to keep us alive. Such as emotions, instincts and reactions to events.
- Automatic/involuntary reactions warn us of danger and create cohesion within groups, promoting survival.
- All of our conscious behavior is based upon our primal instincts.
- The maintenance of vital functions is located in the deep parts of the brain that develop first, whereas conscious functions are executed in the cerebral cortex, which is the outermost brain region.
- Humans have a large cerebral cortex compared to other species.
- Human behavior is reasonable when it is traced back to our survival as a species.
- For example many people flinch at objects that look like wild animals such as snakes.
- This is despite the fact that cars are far more dangerous and is due to our evolutionary history.
Instinctive Behavior
- Evolutionary psychology applies the principles of evolutionary biology to psychological research.
- According to evolution, the best adapted individuals were those that could reproduce and passed on their genes to the next generation.
- Individuals who were able to generate and regulate life-protecting emotions have survived better and reproduced more.
- Similarly, individuals who had the healthiest offspring and were able to raise them to sexual maturity and pass on their genes effectively.
- Evolutionary psychology is interested in behaviors that are typical to people worldwide.
- Non-cultural behavior originates from evolution.
Risk of Oversimplification
- Evolutionary psychology has been criticized as unscientific.
- Critics claim that evolutionary psychologists have an oversimplified perception of evolution and that the effect of genes, the environment and the importance of language and culture are not sufficiently taken into account.
- The evolutionary perspective regards a part of human behavior to have evolved randomly or by chance, which is why a few principles cannot explain everything.
- People are born very undeveloped compared to other animals, which means that we learn a lot from our experiences.
- Evolutionary psychology gives an explanation for certain behavior such as instincts and reactions.