Evolutionary Psychology

Definition

Evolutionary psychology is the study of behavior, thought, and feeling as viewed through the lens of evolutionary biology. Evolutionary psychologists presume all human behaviors reflect the influence of physical and psychological predispositions that helped human ancestors survive and reproduce. On the evolutionary view, any animal's brain and body are composed of mechanisms designed to work together to facilitate success within the environments that were commonly encountered by that animal's ancestors. Thus, a killer whale, though distantly related to a cow, would not do well with a cow's brain, since the killer whale needs a brain designed to control a body that tracks prey in the ocean rather than eating grass in a meadow. Likewise, a bat, though also a mammal, needs a brain designed to run a tiny body that flies around catching insects at high speeds in the dark. Evolutionary psychologists ask: What are the implications of human evolutionary history (e.g., living in omnivorous and hierarchical primate groups populated by kin) for the design of the human mind?

History and Background

Charles Darwin himself deserves the title of first evolutionary psychologist. In 1873, he argued that human emotional expressions likely evolved in the same way as physical features (such as opposable thumbs and upright posture). Darwin presumed emotional expressions served the very useful function of communicating with other members of one's own species. An angry facial expression signals a willingness to fight but leaves the observer an option to back off without either animal being hurt. Darwin's view had a profound influence on the early development of psychology. In 1890, William James's classic text Principles of Psychology used the term evolutionary psychology, and James argued that many human behaviors reflect the operation of instincts (inherited predispositions to respond to certain stimuli in adaptive ways). A prototypical instinct for James was a sneeze, the predisposition to respond with a rapid blast of air to clear away a nasal irritant. In 1908, William McDougall adopted this perspective in his classic textbook Social Psychology. McDougall also believed many important social behaviors were motivated by instincts, but he viewed instincts as complex programs in which particular stimuli (e.g., social obstacles) lead to particular emotional states (e.g., anger) that in turn increase the likelihood of particular behaviors (e.g., aggression).

McDougall's view of social behavior as instinctdriven lost popularity during the mid-20th century, as behaviorism dominated the field. According to the behaviorist view championed by John Watson (who publicly debated McDougall), the mind was mainly a blank slate, and behaviors were determined almost entirely by experiences after birth. Twentieth-century anthropology also contributed to the blank slate viewpoint. Anthropologists reported vastly different social norms in other cultures, and many social scientists made the logical error of presuming that wide crosscultural variation must mean no constraints on human nature.

The blank slate viewpoint began to unravel in the face of numerous empirical findings in the second half of the 20th century. A more careful look at crosscultural research revealed evidence of universal preferences and biases across the human species. For example, men the world over are attracted to women who are in the years of peak fertility, whereas women most commonly prefer men who can provide resources (which often translates into older males). As another example, males in more than 90% of other mammalian [Page 317]species contribute no resources to the offspring, yet all human cultures have long-term cooperative relationships between fathers and mothers, in which the males contribute to offspring. Looked at from an even broader comparative perspective, these general human behavior patterns reflect powerful principles that apply widely across the animal kingdom. For example, investment by fathers is more likely to be found in altricial species (those with helpless offspring, such as birds and humans) than in precocial species (whose young are mobile at birth, such as goats and many other mammals).

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