Evolutionary psychology

Assess the impact of evolutionary thought on psychology. Illustrate your answer with examples of relevant research. The notion of evolution, as described by both Lamarck and Darwin in the 1800’s, had such an impact on intellectual life that it has changed the way we study the human mind today. Darwin’s (1859) theory is still widely accepted as what we know as the theory of natural selection, and provides a structure for examining human behaviour. He saw the future of psychology as “based on a new foundation”, and evolutionary psychology is now still emerging and developing. Darwinian evolution means we can ask how each aspect of human nature is adaptive as it allows many approaches to be covered by one theory, and provides a “theoretical framework”…

Building on the work of Huxley, Tinbergen (1963) formulated four questions to tap into how organisms were structured and why they evolved the way they did (p. 411). Evolutionary questions typically fall into the why group as they address the ultimate levels of inference. Conversely, questions of ontology seek developmental answers for observable changes. Psychology is primarily concerned with the individual level of analysis, but in the case evolutionary psychology the theoretical and practical…

Evolutionary psychology has been criticized by many, and before I took this class I was not sure which side of the debate I was on. I felt like evolutionary psychology suggested behavior is caused by nature alone, and to some extent it does, but it depends on interpretation. It searches for biological and physiological causes for human behavior, emotions, and motivation. In my other psychology classes I was hearing different views about evolutionary theory from my professors. One professor…

Pick an emotion, any emotion you would like to learn more about (except happiness and stress). Panic Quote from Mr. Robot a) Do some research about that emotion using an “evolutionary psychology” standpoint to explain the reason and/or function of the emotion. “Why does the emotion exist?” If the question is asking about the origin and evolutionary development of Panic, the answer depends on how far back we can go to study the evolution of brains’ pain mechanism. According to Panksepp…

Evolutionary psychology is defined “the branch of psychology that studies the ways in which adaptation and natural selection are connected with mental processes and behavior.” (Rathus, 2013) Natural selection is important because it is the ability to allow species to adapt to the current environment in order to survive and reproduce. Evolutionary psychologists study how adaption and natural selection connect with behavior and mental processes. In other words, they study changes in human…

A. Summarize the main thesis or argument of each assigned reading for the week (one to two sentences). The article, “Evolutionary Models in Psychology,” illustrated by Michael Wheeler states that according to the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM), the mind is innate with the ideas of senses and some basic drives such as hunger, fear and the capacity of learning. Additionally, according to the article, the mind at birth is a blank slate, and eventually as the mind evolves it learns new…

used quite frequently in Biology. However, I chose to take a different approach. The other day in psychology class, I realized I could connect my class to biology in many ways. Biology is the study of life while psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. There are many similarities between the two classes such as genetics, evolution, and cell structure. Taking one class helps me to understand the other class much better. This semester, I am currently taking a psychology class. the main…

Evolutionary Social Psychology Mark A. Lee Keiser University Evolutionary Psychology Dr. Sonia Troche October 21, 2015 Evolutionary Social Psychology This chapter begins with much known dilemma in psychology weather human social behavior is influenced by their biology and genes. The authors noticed that classical social psychologists criticize evolutionary psychologists and their theories and even when they accept evolutionary perspective it is taken with great reserve and…

science of psychology. Exploring Psychology 8th edition by David Myers, module 8-5 introduces the perspective of understanding human nature known as evolutionary psychology. This perspective is built upon understanding human behavior and mental processes through the principles of Charles Darwin’s idea of natural selection. (Myers, 2010). The validity of evolutionary psychology as a viable approach to researching and understanding human nature is debated in two research articles which will be…

Are we humans perfectly fitted to the world we live in today? Evolutionary psychology suggests this may not be the case. An important concept in evolutionary psychology is mismatch (link is external) (1). Evolutionary mismatch occurs when the environment that organisms are adapted to, via a slow process of biological evolution, changes so quickly and intensely that it hinders these organisms to fulfill their reproductive needs. Take an example from nature. Deforestation has changed the habitats…