The Evolution of Evolutionary Psychology

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The Evolution of Evolutionary Psychology

• Overview of The Day
• Psychology in the 20th Century
• The standard social science model
• Key propositions of evolutionary psychology
• Methodology in evolutionary psychology

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PsychologyA Curious
History

• By the early 20th century, evolutionary theory
  was firmly established within the discipline of
  biology
• Darwins theory of evolution and the modern
  understanding of genetic inheritance have been
  the theoretical underpinnings of biology and the
  life sciences since the late 1930s. This has
  lead to major advances in evolutionary biology
  throughout the twentieth century.
• Where was evolutionary theory in psychology?

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Evolution was almost absent until the 1990s

• A few notable exceptions in the early 20th
  century, but they did not catch on
• Instinct theories of William James, James
  McDougall, and Sigmund Freud
• 1920s to 1960s psychology was dominated by
  behaviorism
• 1970s to 1990s, cognitive revolution in psychology

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Behaviorism

• Classical and operant
• Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, Skinner
• Emphases on
• Learning
• equipotentiality principle
• contiguity principle
• Mind as simple learning machine
• Role of the environment in learning

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The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology

• Focus turned from observable behavior too
  workings of the mind
• Similar assumptions as behaviorism
• content neutral (equipotentiality)
• domain general mind
• Also, like behaviorism, no real biology
  (literature with statistics)

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Standard Social Science Model (SSSM)

• There is a psychic unity of human nature
• Differences between people arise between
  differences in their experiences and cultures
• Biological constraints on human behavior are
  unimportant
• Learning operates by one or a very small number
  of general-purpose mechanisms
• The job of psychology is to discover how culture
  and experience, operating by means of the general
  purpose learning mechanisms produce variation in
  human behavior

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Some evolutionary ideas in behaviorism and
cognitive psychology

• Skinner, habitual behaviors, social customs, and
  language content--what works through trail and
  error
• Cognitive psychology. Chomsky

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Reoccurring Problems with Behaviorism and
Cognitive psychology

• Violations of behaviorist principles
• Misbehavior of animals (animals have specific
  natures)
• Garcia effect
• Cognitive mental modules, importance of content
  (memory for faces vs.. words)
• Behavior genetics and role of nature
• Behavioral neuroscience and biology of behavior

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Enter Evolutionary Psychology

• All species have a nature
• There is a psychic unity of human nature
• People are fundamentally similar. Differences are
  superficial
• Biological constraints on human behavior are
  important
• Learning operates by many complex mental modules,
  (psychological mechanisms)
• The job of psychology is to identify
  psychological mechanisms and understand how they
  interact with the environment

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Psychological Mechanisms

• Mental mechanisms that that are adaptations that
  evolved during the EEA
• Each mechanism tends to have a specific function
• They tend to be problem-specific
• Humans have many mechanisms
• The specificity, complexity, and large numbers of
  psychological mechanisms give humans behavioral
  flexibility.
• Distinct from by-products and random noise

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Psychological Mechanisms are Not Instincts

• Three problems with using instincts to explain
  behavior
• 1. Nominal fallacy
• 2. Instinctual explanations avoid environmental
  input
• 3. No way of telling how many there are

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Theory In Evolutionary Psychology

• General evolutionary theory
• Middle-level theories
• Specific evolutionary hypotheses
• Specific predictions from evolutionary hypotheses

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Methods in Evolutionary Psychology

• Comparing different species
• Comparing males and females
• Compare individuals within species
• Compare the same individuals in different
  contexts
• Experimental methods

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Sources of Data

• Data from hunter-gatherer societies
• Observations
• Self reports
• Human Products

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Summary

• Overview of psychologys history and where
  evolutionary psychology fits in
• The standard social science model
• Key propositions of evolutionary psychology
• Methodology in evolutionary psychology