Evolutionary Psychology Chapter 1

Inclusive fitness led to era called...

"Gene's Eye Thinking"- If you were a gene what would facilitate reproduction? 1. Ensure well-being of vehicle for survival 2. Induce vehicle to reproduce 3. Help survival and reproduction of vehicles tha contain copies of you

3 Common Misconceptions of Evolution

1. Human Behavior is Genetically Determined- human behavior is not exclusively controlled by genes (ex. calluses) 2. If it's evolutionary we can't change it 3. Current Mechanisms are Optimally Designed- not true because there is a lag. Sometimes we have adaptations like holding onto fat which makes sense for us in the past but causes problems now.

Freud's 2 classes of Instincts

1. Life Preserving (need air, food, etc)- needed for survival 2. Sexual Instincts- leads to reproduction These instincts correlate to Darwin's theories but Freud diverged when he created 2 new categories of instincts. 1. Life Instincts (life preserving and sexual) 2. Death Instincts

4 questions evolutionary psych. focuses on?

1. Why is the mind designed the way it is? 2. How is the mind designed? 3. What are the functions are the separate parts and the structure as a whole? 4. How does the physical brain interact with the environment to lead to behavior?

Behavior and Evolution

Behavior is not exempt from the sculpting hand of evolution. Species can be bred for certain behavioral characteristics, like aggressiveness.

New Synthesis

Book by Wilson Caused uproar similar to Darwin Focused most on non-humans but a little on humans People feel to misconceptions of evolution and didnt believe Wilson Wilson thought sociobiology would cannabalize psyc. which pissed people off

Differential Reproductive Success

Bottom Line of Evolution Brought about by possession of heritable variants that increase or decrease an individuals chances of surviving and reproducing. Defined by comparison of reproductive success or failure of others.

Cognitive Revolution

Brought about by the violations of the fundamental laws of learning, the study of language by Chomsky, and rise of computers and information-processing metaphor. A cognitive description of information as input, procedures to transform information, data structures, and behaviors as outputs.

Cuvier's Theory

Catastophism- Species are extinguished periodically by sudden catastrophes, such as meteorites, and then replaced by different species.

Inclusive Fitness as opposed to Classical Fitness

Classical fitness- the measure of an individual's direct reproductive success in passing on genes through the production of offspring Hamilton thought this was too narrow. He thought natural selection favors characteristics that cause an organisms genes to be passed on regardless of whether the organism produces offspring directly. Inclusive fitness can be viewed as the sum of individual's reproductive success plus success of his or her genetic relatives (close kin counting more).

Ethology

Created by Lorenz Branch of biology to study behavior from an evolutionary perspective. Defined as the study of the proximate mechanisms and adaptive value of animal behavior.

One problems with Darwinian Evolution- Inheritance

Darwin couldn't fully explain inheritance. He thought that there was a blended inheritance where offspring are mixtures of the parents. This is wrong.

Out of Africa Theory

Early humans in Africa evolved and then these humans moved to Europe and Asia

Multi-Regional Continuity Theory

Early humans in Asia, Africa, and Europe evolved parallel to each other, with enough interbreeding between populations to not allow for separate species to evolve.

Darwin's Animal Example

Finches on the Galapogos All originated from the same place but varied because of different ecological conditions on the islands.

Lamark's 2 theories of species change

First to term the word Biologie 1. Natural tendency for species to progress toward a higher goal and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. 2. Animals must struggle to survive- struggle leads to nerves secreting fluid to enlarge organs used to struggle.

John Garcia

Gave rats food then dosed them with radiation to make them sick. Rats learned to not eat that food again. When nausea was paired with light and buzzers, Garcia couldn't train the rats to avoid the food. In other words, rats are preprogrammed to learn some things easily but other things not as easily.

4 Causes of evolution besides Natural Selection and Sexual Selection.

Genetic Drift- random changes in the genetic makeup of a population Mutation Founder Effect- when a small portion of the population estabilshes a new colony and the founders of the new colony are not entirely genetically representative of the original population. Genetic bottlenecks- When a population shrinks (maybe from earthquake) and the survivors carry on only a subset of the genes of the original population.

Animal Lamark used as an example

Giraffes- they acquired longer necks to reach higher in trees to get food.

3 ingredients of Natural Selection

Inheritance, Variability, Selection Species vary in terms of wing length, bone mass, etc. This variability leads to the selection of the best characteristics which leads to inheritance of the best.

2 ways Sexual Selection Operates

Intrasexual Competition- competition of organisms of the same gender and species (bulls locking horns). Intersexual Competition- members of one sex have some consensus on desired qualities in members of opposite sex, so those are selected as mates.

William James and Instincts

James defined instincts as "the faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, without foresight of the ends, and without previous education in the performance." He thought there were many instincts which was controversial. Believed people have more instincts than other animals.

Correct Theory of Inheritance

Mendel's theory of particulate inheritance- qualities of the parents are not blended but passed on intact to the offspring in genes which cannot be gained by experience.

What was Mendel's theory of Inheritance and Darwinian Evolution called?

Modern Synthesis

Group Selection

Notion that adaptations evolved for the benefit of the group through differential survival and reproduction of groups. Example- Individual may abstain from reproduction to preserve low resources.

Multi regional theory of OOA?

OOA is right. It is the most well-backed up, at least.

Domain generality

Problem of combinatorial explosion Combinatorial Exploion is the rapid proliferation of response options caused by combining two or more sequential possibilities (within one minute you could perform 100 actions and the same for the next minute and the next minute...etc.

Seligman

Proposed it was easy to condition people to develop certain fears, but difficult to develop other fears (like cars and outlets)

Harry Harlow

Raised monkeys in a lab with a mesh mom and terry cloth mom. Monkeys were given food from mesh mom but became attached to terry cloth mom.

Conclusions of Garcia, Seligman, and Harlow's experiments

Rats, monkeys, and humans seemed predisposed to learn some thing s very easily and not learn other things at all. External environment is not the sole determinant of behavior

3 Seminal Papers by Trivers

Reciprocal Altruism among non-kin Parent-Offspring conflict Parental Investment Theory

Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

Sexuality as the driving force of human behavior regardless of age.

Fixed Action Patterns

Stereotypic Behavior sequences an animal follows after being triggered by a well-defined stimulus. Once the pattern is triggered, the animal follows it to completion.

Who did Darwin draw from?

Thomas Malthus Malthus said organisms exist in numbers far greater than can survive and reproduce. Darwin determined there must be a 'struggle for existence' where favorable variations tend to be preserved. Once the process is repeated several generations is forms an adaptation.

4 Things Ethologists were Interested in

Tinbergen- 4 whys of behavior 1. Immediate influences on behavior ( movement of mother duck) 2. Developmental influences on behavior (events during ducks lifetime that causes change) 3. The function of behavior or the adaptive purpose it fulfills (keeping the baby duck close to the mother so it survives) 4. The evolutionary origins of behavior (what sequence of evolutionary events led to the origins of imprinting ducks)

Cultural Variability

Universality among culture is more prominent than anthropologists once thought.

Rise of Behaviorism

Watson believed the opposite of James. Watson thought there was a single all purpose learning mechanism of classical conditioning. Skinner later went radical with operant conditioning.

What else did Williams contribute?

Why altruism is good. It is good to make individuals help their kin and therefore their genes.

Who discredited Group Selection Theory and how?

Williams Example- 2 individual birds living in a group- selfish ones and altruistic ones. The altruistic birds are more likely to commit suicide to allow rest of group to survive. Selfish ones will be left. Selection of individuals therefore undermines selection of the group.