Oranus Salimi
301201582
Psychology 385
04.04.16
Evolutionary psychology looks to explain that the way individuals behave and act are due to the way we, humans have evolved, but can be used to understand other concepts as well. In this paper, I summarize an article by Gad Saad, entitled, “Nothing in Popular Culture Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,” and evaluate its claims regarding the importance of evolutionary psychology in comprehending pop culture (2012). This is an important issue because evolutionary psychology is not favoured by every individual; the reason for rejecting is not only due to a few bad papers in the field but also because it is not widely used in other fields concerning other topics. Consequently, …show more content…
Saad provides these case analysis examples, song lyrics provided by female artists are prominently about how they do not want someone who is financially unstable, whereas lyrics provided by male artists are about how much money they have; this shows a pattern in mating preferences between the two genders (2012). Another example includes how male artist lyrics contain content about the beauty of a female, whereas a female artist shows off her beauty; this is the same pattern as mentioned in the previous example (Saad, 2012). These examples support the idea of universal theme within different cultures. Like song lyrics, collective wisdom also follows a universal theme (Saad, 2012). The example for collective wisdom includes proverbs concerning kins selection which remains consistent regardless of time and place (Saad, 2012). For example, putting family first is a theme which has consistently been in quotes or proverbs regardless of the time and culture (Saad, 2012). Furthermore, it is culture and genes which greatly influence one another, not only do genes impact our surroundings but culture also impacts our genes, this study of culture is called
301201582
Psychology 385
04.04.16
Evolutionary psychology looks to explain that the way individuals behave and act are due to the way we, humans have evolved, but can be used to understand other concepts as well. In this paper, I summarize an article by Gad Saad, entitled, “Nothing in Popular Culture Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,” and evaluate its claims regarding the importance of evolutionary psychology in comprehending pop culture (2012). This is an important issue because evolutionary psychology is not favoured by every individual; the reason for rejecting is not only due to a few bad papers in the field but also because it is not widely used in other fields concerning other topics. Consequently, …show more content…
Saad provides these case analysis examples, song lyrics provided by female artists are prominently about how they do not want someone who is financially unstable, whereas lyrics provided by male artists are about how much money they have; this shows a pattern in mating preferences between the two genders (2012). Another example includes how male artist lyrics contain content about the beauty of a female, whereas a female artist shows off her beauty; this is the same pattern as mentioned in the previous example (Saad, 2012). These examples support the idea of universal theme within different cultures. Like song lyrics, collective wisdom also follows a universal theme (Saad, 2012). The example for collective wisdom includes proverbs concerning kins selection which remains consistent regardless of time and place (Saad, 2012). For example, putting family first is a theme which has consistently been in quotes or proverbs regardless of the time and culture (Saad, 2012). Furthermore, it is culture and genes which greatly influence one another, not only do genes impact our surroundings but culture also impacts our genes, this study of culture is called