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39 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is instinctual blindness? |
Unaware of reasons for things that seem utterly obvious Ex: Saving your own child rather than another person's child |
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What is Biophobia? |
Not believing in biological causes for things |
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Are differences among organisms quantitative or qualitative? |
Quantitative |
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What are Tinbergen's 4 questions? |
1) Ontogeny --> How does the trait develop in individuals? (trait forms at sequential life, mechanisms that control development, puberty) 2) Phylogeny --> What is the phylogenetic history of the trait? (history of trait reconstructed from phenotype and genotype precursors) 3) Mechanism --> What is the structure of the trait; how does it work? (trait's anatomy, physiology regulation, how it accomplishes functions, physical structure) 4) Adaptive Significance --> How have variations in the trait interacted with environments to influence fitness in ways that help explain the trait's form? (how variations in the trait have influenced fitness) |
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What is the difference between proximate and evolutionary reasons for differences among organisms?
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Proximate --> Explains how organisms work by describing their mechanisms and their ontogeny Evolutionary --> Explains how a species came to its current form by describing a sequence of forms, and how they were influenced by selection and other evolutionary factors |
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What is the difference between developmental/historical and single form reasons for differences among organisms?
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Developmental/Historical --> A sequence that results in the trait Single Forms --> The trait at one slice in time |
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What is sexual dimorphism? |
Biological and sexual differences between men and women |
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What are adaptations? |
Integrated mechanisms of an organism that are designed to perform a function (Problem solving devices) |
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What is the evolutionary approach to psychology? (5 step answer, 1 sentence) |
1. The brain is a physical system... 2. ...designed by natural selection... 3. ...composed of many functionally specialized circuits... 4. ...formed over the course of our species' evolutionary history... 5. ...that largely operates outside of our awareness. |
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What is it called when humans create something to solve specific problems?
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Intentional Design (Ex: Microsoft Excel --> designed to perform specific tasks) |
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What is the definition of natural selection?
(3 parts, 1 sentence) |
1. The set of enduring nonrandom relationships in the world that... 2. ...interact with the reliably developing features of organisms... 3. ...in such a way that they consistently cause some design variants to reproduce their designs more frequently than others because of their design differences. |
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What are the 3 principles of natural selection? |
A population of reproducing organisms: 1. Inheritance --> No variability, every species will have it (compared to the opposite, heritable, which means variation within that characteristic) (Everyone has a nose, but sizes and shapes differ) 2. Variations in designs 3. Differential rates of survival and reproduction caused by inherited variations in designs |
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What is a species typical feature? |
A feature that becomes common for a species because the frequency of that organism with the adaptation to avoid predators, avoid toxins, find food, survive the cold, find a mate, etc. increases in the population
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What are selection pressures? |
A statistically recurring feature of the biological, physical, or social world that affects reproduction. |
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How are complex functional adaptations created? |
1. Some designs are more successful than others 2. Random alterations occasionally produce a better design, which sweeps through the population 3. The new design in turn produces variations, and the process continues |
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What are the two designs of the adaptive cliff problem?
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Design A --> Becomes immobile, experiences "fear" and/or backs away near steep drop-offs Design B --> Runs in random direction near steep drop-offs |
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Why is Design A of the adaptive cliff problem better?
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Over time, individuals with "cliff fearing" design leave more surviving offspring and becomes species-typical and every individual in the species reacts like Design A |
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What are some examples of adaptive problems?
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Finding a mate, finding food, avoiding predators, avoiding incest, reading intentions of others, caring for offspring, forming alliances/friendships, detecting kin, helping close relatives, creating tools, avoiding disease-causing agents, and selecting a habitat |
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What are two things that adaptive problems have? |
1. Have recurred over the course of a species' evolutionary history 2. Problem whose solution affected the probability of reproduction (however indirectly) |
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What is the name for the father who is uncertain of whether their offspring is theirs? |
Putative Father |
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What are three theories of the origin of complex adaptive mechanisms? |
1. Creationism --> "Intelligent Design" 2. "Seeding Theory" 3. Evolution by natural selection |
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What are the three products of the evolutionary process? |
1) Adaptations: Inherited, reliably developing, natural selection, solved problem 1. Need not be present at birth (breasts & beards) 2. Must have contributed to reproduction, directly or indirectly 3. EEA (Environment and Evolution Adaptation) --> Description of selection pressures (statistical composite) 2) Byproducts of adaptations: Belly button, nose for glasses, thoughts of death 3) Noise: Random effects due to mutations or perturbations during development |
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What are the two strategies for generating and testing evolutionary hypotheses? |
1) Theory Driven: Top Down Strategy: Deductive Reasoning (Ex: Parental Investment Theory) a) Derive hypothesis from existing theory b) Test predictions based on hypothesis c) Evaluate whether results confirm 2) Observation Driven: Bottom Up Strategy: Inductive Reasoning (Ex: Female Orgasm) a) Derive hypothesis based on observation b) Test predictions based on hypothesis c) Evaluate results |
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What are the two possibilities of explanation for the female orgasm? |
1) Female orgasm is a byproduct of male orgasm due to fetal development history 2) Female orgasms have a "reproductive selection" function (Ex: Biasing likelihood of pregnancy with preferred males) |
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What is the Savanna Hypothesis? |
Where the most evolution has occurred over a time period; resources and safety |
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What does thermaldynamics mean? |
Does not occur spontaneously |
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What is counter factual thinking?
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Imagining alternative outcomes (past and future) |
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What are the three hypotheses for human food procurement? |
1) Hunting Hypothesis 2) Gathering Hypothesis 3) Scavenging Hypothesis |
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What is the hunting hypothesis? |
20-40% of diet typical (consists of meat); can reach as high as 90% of diet 1) Provisioning --> Heavy male parental investment in children 2) Strong male coalitions and strong reciprocal change 3) Sexual division of labor 4) Emergence of stone tool use 5) The "show off" hypothesis --> men's hunting behavior driven by women's desires ("honest indicators") |
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What is the gathering hypothesis? |
1) Emergence of stone tools to make gathering more efficient 2) Majority of calories secured through gathering 3) Comparing the hunting and gathering hypotheses |
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What is the scavenging hypothesis? |
Eating dead animals to survive |
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What are the 7 ways we combat predators and environmental dangers? (fears and phobias) |
1) Responses: Freeze, flee, flight, submit 2) Common human fears: Snakes, spiders, heights, separation, darkness, strangers 3) Developmental timing of onset of fears: Coincides with adaptive problems 4) Adaptive Conservation Hypothesis: Overgeneralization as sometimes adaptive (Stray away from anything that resembles a snake because of the high cost/potential of death) 5) Avoiding Toxins: The functions of allergies; extruding toxins from body 6) Combating disease: Fever, vectors and virulence 7) Behavioral Immune System: Disease avoidance mechanisms (Ex: Disfugurement, disability, antifat attitudes, xenophobia/ethnocentrism) |
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Are humans programmed to die? (2 explanations) |
1) Theory of senescence: We are made to die - Pleiotropic Genes --> Genes that have more than one purpose 2) Puzzle of suicide --> Burdensome to kin and other fitness failures |
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What are the the two types of the life history theory? |
1) Fast Life History --> Adaptive in harsh and unpredictable environments, do everything faster and earlier 2) Slow Life History --> Adaptive in safe and predictable environments (humans) |
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What is the adaptive reason women experience morning sickness in their first trimester? |
The body is trying to remove teratogens from the body for the fetus |
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How do we know to have careful food selection adaptively? (2 ways) |
1) Neophobia --> Fear of new foods 2) Disgust reactions |
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Difference between specialized and generalized parenting? |
1) Specialized --> Ex: Breast feeding 2) General --> Ex: Provide shelter (both mom and dad can do) |
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What is the Organism Design Theory? |
Our circuits are specialized to solve problems that our ancestors faced during our species' evolutionary history |
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What is reproductive variance? |
Number of sexual partners in a lifetime (men usually have more than women) |
