Controversies Surrounding Evolutionary Psychology

2019 ◽  
pp. 157-178
Author(s):  
Glenn Geher ◽  
Vania Rolón
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Infant Attachment ◽  
Human Emotion ◽  
Attachment Patterns ◽  
The Past ◽  
University Curricula

The field of evolution and human behavior is a powerful area of inquiry, shedding new light on such facets of human behavior as infant attachment patterns, visual perception, the human emotion system, the nature of altruism, the nature of aggression, human intimate relationships, and more. In fact, over the past several decades, many significant scholars have contributed great work in this field. However, the resistance within academia to the very idea of evolutionary psychology is quite strong. These facts taken together make for an interesting (and often difficult) environment when teaching and researching in the field of evolutionary psychology. This chapter focuses on a host of reasons to expand the inclusion of evolutionary psychology within university curricula—along with a demarcation of the several intellectual forces that surround this field within the academy.

One Name for the Evolutionary Baby? A Preliminary Guide for Everyone Confused by the Chaos of Names

2004 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iver Mysterud
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Human Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Evolutionary Anthropology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Evolutionary Studies ◽  
Human Ethology ◽  
Human Sociobiology

Evolutionary studies of human behavior and design are increasing in popularity. There are now few topics or disciplines where an evolutionary perspective is not applied. For the past 40 years, evolutionary approaches to human behavior and design have been given many names, e.g. human ethology, human sociobiology, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary psychology. This diversity may be confusing when one first becomes interested in evolutionary studies. Different names have come and gone – often because they have become unpopular in someone’s mind – while some names have survived and remained, but are often used with different meanings. This article presents the preliminary result of a scrutiny of names used in the evolutionary literature and what they mean. I also briefly discuss why there is a surplus of names and consider if we should attempt to find one name for the field(s) or if we should continue with the diversity.

Integrating Mechanisms and Functions to Understand Behavior

2019 ◽  
pp. xiv-9
Author(s):  
Lisa L. M. Welling ◽  
Todd K. Shackelford
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Reproductive Behavior ◽  
Affective Behavior ◽  
Behavioral Endocrinology ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Influence Behavior ◽  
Evolutionary Perspectives

Evolutionary psychology and behavioral endocrinology provide complementary perspectives on interpreting human behavior and psychology. Hormones can function as underlying mechanisms that influence behavior in functional ways. Understanding these proximate mechanisms can inform ultimate explanations of human psychology. This chapter introduces this edited volume by first discussing evolutionary perspectives in behavioral endocrinology. It then briefly addresses three broad topic areas of behavioral endocrinology: (1) development and survival, (2) reproductive behavior, and (3) social and affective behavior. It provides examples of research within each of these areas and describes potential adaptations. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the importance of integrating mechanisms with function when investigating human behavior and psychology.

scholarly journals Decolonising Terrorism Journals

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Ilyas Mohammed
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
The Past ◽  
Tremendous Amount ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
University Curricula ◽  
Amount Of Knowledge ◽  
The University ◽  
Tremendous Impact

Decolonisation of knowledge over the past few years has gained much traction among scholars and students in many countries. This situation has led to calls for the decolonisation of knowledge, academia, the university, and university curricula. That said, the knowledge production side of the terrorism industry, which sits inside academia, so far has escaped calls to decolonise. This situation is somewhat surprising because the terrorism industry has had a tremendous impact on many countries, especially Muslim majority ones. The 9/11 terrorist attacks have resulted in a tremendous amount of knowledge being produced and published on terrorism and counterterrorism. However, little is known about “who is publishing on terrorism and where they are based”. To this end, this paper adopts a decolonial approach and addresses the questions of “who is publishing on terrorism and where they are based” by analysing seven terrorism journals. It argues that most of the publications and knowledge on terrorism in the seven terrorism journals are produced by scholars with Western heritage and are based at Western institutions, which is connected to the coloniality of knowledge.

Expanding Evolutionary Psychology: toward a Better Understanding of Violence and Aggression

2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iver Mysterud ◽  
Dag Viljen Poleszynski
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Food Allergies ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Physical Chemical ◽  
Reactive Hypoglycemia ◽  
Proximate Factors ◽  
Survival And Reproduction ◽  
The Common ◽  
Habitual Intake

The “mainstream” evolutionary psychology model is currently under criticism from scientists of other persuasions wanting to expand the model or to make it more realistic in various ways. We argue that focusing on the environment as if it consisted only of social (or sociocultural) factors gives too limited a perspective if evolutionary approaches are to understand the behavior of modern humans. Taking the case of violence, we argue that numerous novel environmental factors of nutritional and physical-chemical origin should be considered as relevant proximate factors. The common thesis presented here is that several aspects of the biotic or abiotic environment are able to change brain chemistry, thus predisposing individuals to violence and aggression in given contexts. In the past, aggressive behavior has had a number of useful functions that were of particular importance to our ancestors' survival and reproduction. However, some of the conditions in our novel environment, which either lowered the threshold for aggression or released such behavior in contexts which were adaptive in our evolutionary past, no longer apply. It is high time evolutionary approaches to violence are expanded to include the possibilities that violence may be triggered by nutritionally depleted foods, reactive hypoglycemia caused by habitual intake of foods with a high glycemic index (GI), food allergies/intolerances and exposure to new environmental toxins (heavy metals, synthetic poisons).

scholarly journals Evolutionary Psychology in the Modern World: Applications, Perspectives, and Strategies

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 147470491201000 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Craig Roberts ◽  
Mark van Vugt ◽  
Robin I. M. Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Evolutionary Approach ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Darwinian Medicine ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Economics And Politics

An evolutionary approach is a powerful framework which can bring new perspectives on any aspect of human behavior, to inform and complement those from other disciplines, from psychology and anthropology to economics and politics. Here we argue that insights from evolutionary psychology may be increasingly applied to address practical issues and help alleviate social problems. We outline the promise of this endeavor, and some of the challenges it faces. In doing so, we draw parallels between an applied evolutionary psychology and recent developments in Darwinian medicine, which similarly has the potential to complement conventional approaches. Finally, we describe some promising new directions which are developed in the associated papers accompanying this article.

scholarly journals Free Will in Human Behavior and Physics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Dinev Penchev
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Quantum Bit ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The One

If the concept of “free will” is reduced to that of “choice” all physical world share the latter quality. Anyway the “free will” can be distinguished from the “choice”: The “free will” involves implicitly a certain goal, and the choice is only the mean, by which the aim can be achieved or not by the one who determines the target. Thus, for example, an electron has always a choice but not free will unlike a human possessing both. Consequently, and paradoxically, the determinism of classical physics is more subjective and more anthropomorphic than the indeterminism of quantum mechanics for the former presupposes certain deterministic goal implicitly following the model of human freewill behavior. Quantum mechanics introduces the choice in the fundament of physical world involving a generalized case of choice, which can be called “subjectless”: There is certain choice, which originates from the transition of the future into the past. Thus that kind of choice is shared of all existing and does not need any subject: It can be considered as a low of nature. There are a few theorems in quantum mechanics directly relevant to the topic: two of them are called “free will theorems” by their authors (Conway and Kochen 2006; 2009). Any quantum system either a human or an electron or whatever else has always a choice: Its behavior is not predetermined by its past. This is a physical law. It implies that a form of information, the quantum information underlies all existing for the unit of the quantity of information is an elementary choice: either a bit or a quantum bit (qubit).

scholarly journals From romantic jealousy to sympathetic joy: Monogamy, polyamory, and beyond

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Relational Identity ◽  
Romantic Jealousy ◽  
Serial Monogamy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Way

This paper explores how the extension of contemplative qualities to intimate relationships can transform human sexual/emotional responses and relationship choices. The paper reviews contemporary findings from the field of evolutionary psychology on the twin origins of jealousy and monogamy, argues for the possibility to transform jealousy into sympathetic joy (or compersion), addresses the common objections against polyamory (or nonmonogamy), and challenges the culturally prevalent belief that the only spiritually correct sexual options are either celibacy or (lifelong or serial) monogamy. To conclude, it is suggested that the cultivation of sympathetic joy in intimate bonds can pave the way to overcome the problematic dichotomy between monogamy and polyamory, grounding individuals in a radical openness to the dynamic unfolding of life that eludes any fixed relational identity or structure.

scholarly journals Guest Editorial: Colour in a Larger Perspective: The Rebirth of Gestalt Psychology

Perception ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 1341-1352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lothar Spillmann
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Single Unit ◽  
Guest Editorial ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The Past ◽  
Classical Receptive Field ◽  
Neuronal Mechanisms ◽  
Single Unit Recordings

This overview takes the reader from the classical contrast and assimilation studies of the past to today's colour research, in a broad sense, with its renewed emphasis on the phenomenological qualities of visual perception. It shows how the shift in paradigm from local to global effects in single-unit recordings prompted a reappraisal of appearance in visual experiments, not just in colour, but in the perception of motion, texture, and depth as well. Gestalt ideas placed in the context of modern concepts are shown to inspire psychophysicists, neurophysiologists, and computational vision scientists alike. Feedforward, horizontal interactions, and feedback are discussed as potential neuronal mechanisms to account for phenomena such as uniform surfaces, filling-in, and grouping arising from processes beyond the classical receptive field. A look forward towards future developments in the field of figure–ground segregation (Gestalt formation) concludes the article.

The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon D. Wisman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human History ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Role

Whereas President Barack Obama identified inequality as “the defining challenge of our time,” this book claims more: it is the defining issue of all human history. The struggle over inequality has been the underlying force driving human history’s unfolding. Drawing on the dynamics of inequality, this book reinterprets history and society. Beyond according inequality the central role in human history, this book is novel in two other respects. First, transcending the general failure of social scientists and historians to anchor their work in explicit theories of human behavior, this book grounds the origins and dynamics of inequality in evolutionary psychology, or, more specifically, Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. Second, this book is novel in according central importance to the critical historical role of ideology in legitimating inequality, a role typically ignored or given little attention by social scientists and historians. Because of the central role of inequality in history, inequality’s explosion over the past 45 years has not been an anomaly. It is a return to the political dynamics by which elites have, since the rise of the state, taken practically everything for themselves, leaving all others with little more than the means with which to survive. Due to elites’ persuasive ideology, even after workers in advanced capitalist countries gained the franchise to become the overwhelming majority of voters, inequality continued to increase. The anomaly is that the only intentional politically driven decline in inequality occurred between the 1930s and 1970s following the Great Depression’s partial delegitimation (this should remain delegitimation globally) of elites’ ideology.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document