Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA)

2020 ◽  
pp. 1388-1391
Author(s):  
Kevin Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Environment Of Evolutionary Adaptedness

scholarly journals Sense or non-sense? a critical discussion of a recent evolutionary–cognitive approach to “folk-economic beliefs”

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theiss Bendixen
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Dual Inheritance Theory ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Massive Modularity ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Environment Of Evolutionary Adaptedness ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Dual Inheritance

Laypeople hold beliefs about economics and policy issues—so-called folk-economic beliefs (FEBs)—that are often wrong or misleading according to professional economists. Here, I critically discuss a recent evolutionary–cognitive approach to understanding folk-economic beliefs. According to this approach (Boyer & Petersen 2018a), some economic beliefs are more prevalent than others, because such beliefs (i.e., folk-economic beliefs) resonate with evolved features of the human mind. I refer to this as the “FEB hypothesis”. A central challenge to the FEB hypothesis, with its heavy reliance on universal cognitive features, is to explain individual and cultural differences in economic beliefs and behavior. This challenge is the starting point for the discussion. Overall, the conclusion of this paper is that the FEB hypothesis relies on unnecessarily strong and controversial theoretical assumptions (e.g., “massive modularity” and the “Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness”), and that it overlooks important findings from adjacent fields, but that the FEB hypothesis, following some modifications inspired by Dual Inheritance Theory, can be integrated with robust findings from the rest of the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, as well as standard political psychology. Based on this discussion, the paper ends with brief reflections on how to correct inaccurate folk-economic beliefs.

Novel status contests, archaic evolved psychologies

1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-231
Author(s):  
Richard Machalek
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Status Competition ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Environment Of Evolutionary Adaptedness

Women and men have evolved psychological traits adapted to different types of competition in the EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptedness). While women appear not to be as well adapted as men for violent status struggles, the decline of routine violence in status contests raises interesting questions about gender and status competition in contemporary societies.

Does Ethnic Conflict Pay?

2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Paul H. Rubin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Racial Segregation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Gains From Trade ◽  
The World ◽  
Environment Of Evolutionary Adaptedness ◽  
Zero Sum

It is often argued that ethnic conflict is an extreme example of nepotism, and is genetically based. This may be so: in the EEA (the environment of evolutionary adaptedness), such conflict may have been fitness improving, and we may be descended from those who participated successfully in such conflicts. This would provide us with a “taste” for xenophobia. But this taste can be overcome relatively easily, as shown by the changes in behavior in the United States in the 50 years since racial segregation was outlawed. Moreover, in today's world, such conflict does not provide benefits. There are several reasons for this, but the most important (and one that is often overlooked, even by evolutionists) is the possibility of gains from trade in exchanges between ethnic groups. While ethnic relations in the EEA may have approximated a zero-sum game, today a prisoner's dilemma is a more appropriate model for interactions, so that there are significant gains from cooperation. If we want to reduce the amount of conflict in the world, it is probably better to rely on increasing gains from trade than on increased size of in-groups, since the latter strategy will reach a natural limit.

scholarly journals Culture, embodiment and genes: unravelling the triple helix

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1509) ◽  
pp. 3563-3575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wheeler ◽  
Andy Clark
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Triple Helix ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Apparent Contrast ◽  
Cognitive Modularity ◽  
The Face ◽  
Environment Of Evolutionary Adaptedness

Much recent work stresses the role of embodiment and action in thought and reason, and celebrates the power of transmitted cultural and environmental structures to transform the problem-solving activity required of individual brains. By apparent contrast, much work in evolutionary psychology has stressed the selective fit of the biological brain to an ancestral environment of evolutionary adaptedness, with an attendant stress upon the limitations and cognitive biases that result. On the face of it, this suggests either a tension or, at least, a mismatch, with the symbiotic dyad of cultural evolution and embodied cognition. In what follows, we explore this mismatch by focusing on three key ideas: cognitive niche construction; cognitive modularity; and the existence (or otherwise) of an evolved universal human nature. An appreciation of the power and scope of the first, combined with consequently more nuanced visions of the latter two, allow us to begin to glimpse a much richer vision of the combined interactive potency of biological and cultural evolution for active, embodied agents.

Evolutionary psychology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Mate Preferences ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Nature Study ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Theories Of Mind ◽  
Environment Of Evolutionary Adaptedness ◽  
Adaptive Complexity

Evolutionary psychology is a recent approach to understanding human psychology that takes as its starting point the fact that minds, just like hearts, kidneys, eyes, and thumbs, are the products of evolution. Evolutionary psychologists believe that an evolutionary perspective on psychology implies ontological and methodological commitments that sharply distinguish evolutionary psychology from other scientific theories of mind. Among the more important of these commitments are that minds consist of many (thousands, according to some) domain-specific modules that arose as adaptations during the Pleistocene epoch (roughly 1.8 million years to 11.5 thousand years ago). These adaptations are common to all human beings, and thus constitute a human nature. Study of these adaptations requires hypotheses about features of the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA), as well as about which psychological properties exhibit adaptive complexity. Most celebrated by evolutionary psychologists are their discoveries in the areas of mate preferences, social exchange, and parent–offspring conflict. Critics have objected that evolutionary psychology is untestable because hypotheses about the EEA cannot be tested, that evolutionary psychology is adaptationist to a fault, and that commitment to the existence of a human nature is inconsistent with evolutionary theory.

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