1. Evolutionary Psych Core

Question 1

what did Darwins’ ideas contradict?

Answer 1

Creationism

and Cartesian dualism= Idea that the body and the mind are two separate things- body is subject to biological processes but mind is distinct- but Darwin argued brain is the same as the body and limited by biological processes.

Question 2

define genetic evolution

Answer 2

a change in (allele frequencies in) the gene pool over successive generations

Question 3

what cases evolution?

Answer 3

random variation of traits (coded by genes)

forces of selection acting on those traits which are

1) genetic shift (random)
2) selection systematic

Question 4

what is a gene

Answer 4

– a sequence of DNA that occupies a specific location on a chromosome

Question 5

what does a gene provide?

Answer 5

– provides the instructions for the assembly of amino acids into proteins

Question 6

what is an allele?

Answer 6

• An allele is one member of a pair or set of genes that occupy a specific position on a specific chromosome

Question 7

how can variation arise?

Answer 7

– Recombination in meiosis- variety of maternal and paternal genes hence siblings can be far more and far less related to each other.
– Sexual reproduction
– Mutation (copying error)

Question 8

what forces of selection are there?

Answer 8

Genetic drift (random) and selection

Question 9

when does selection occur?

Answer 9

o Occurs when a genetically controlled trait or preference results in differential survival and reproduction by those who possess it versus the people who have a different version of the trait.

Question 10

what ways can selection work?

Answer 10

Directional
stabilizing
disruptive

Question 11

what is directional selection? and give an example

Answer 11

• higher (or lower) values increase fitness
• a particular value of that trait is particularly useful and everyone shifts in that direction

e.g. anthropoid brain size

Question 12

what is stabilizing selection? and give an example

Answer 12

– No fitness advantage to very high or low values; rapidly fluctuating selection pressures so that medium values have best of both worlds
– Keeps everything at one point in the spectrum

e.g. giraffes long necks

Question 13

what is disruptive selection and give an example

Answer 13

creates two different populations
– No real advantage to a medium so you end up with a population of two subgroups

e..g anisogomy (sperm and egg of males and females are different- far more effort into ovum than sperm creation)
– Small gametes have quantity advantage (carry no nutrients so are cheaper and can make more)
– Large gametes have quality advantage (carry nutrients so more likely to survive/ be viable regardless of size of partner gamete)

Question 14

what is the different sizes in gametes referred to as?

Answer 14

Anisogomy

Question 15

what two modes of selection did Darwin propose?

Answer 15

1) Natural Selection

2) Sexual Selection

Question 16

explain natural selection

Answer 16

• Differential reproduction due to differential survival
• (Survival of fittest- not acc coined by Darwin)
• Characteristics which enhance survival are passed into the next generation
• Differential reproduction due to differential survival

Question 17

give an example of natural selection

Answer 17

The evolution of beak shape in Galapagos medium ground finches (data from Grant & Grant, in Boyd & Silk: How Humans Evolved.)
During drought seasons, seeds on the Galapagos islands become bigger and harder. Ground finches eat these seeds. We know that beak depth is useful for cracking seeds- bigger jaw and more muscle can eat bigger and harder seeds. Post selection (drought) there is more representation and more survival with those with big beaks. Over the period of the drought start of with shallower drought it goes up and then stays up as in 1978 compared to 1975 year before drought those who are around are those who survived/ offpring of those who survived the drought- stays high because gene pool has been changed.

Question 18

explain sexual selection

Answer 18

• Differential reproduction given survival
• “survival of the prettiest”
• Characteristics which enhance reproductive success are passed into the next generation
• You can live to 80 but if you don’t produce offspring your genes can’t be passed on.
• Many morphological and behavioural differences between males and females are likely to have evolved via sexual selection

Question 19

what are the two forms of sexual selection

Answer 19

intersexual and intrasexual selection

Question 20

what is intersexual selection

Answer 20

compete by exhibiting traits that are desirable to the opposite sex

Question 21

give an example of intersexual selection

Answer 21

• intersexual selection in widowbirds
  – Andersson (Nature 1982)
  – Females visit male territories, the mail display their tail and the females are attracted.
  – Manipulated tail length -tail cut or tail extended with cut off feathers
  – Extremely well done, controlled study – control where tails cut off and then put on again- needed because need to check that just having tail messed with alone doesn’t do anything
  – Females preferred experimentally longer tails
  – This is sexual selection via female choice

Question 22

what is intrasexual selection

Answer 22

compete by direct contest to establish within-sex dominance or territorial control (e.g. chimps fighting other males)

Question 23

give an e.g. of intrasexual selection

Answer 23

• Intra-sexual selection in Red-winged blackbirds
– Hanson and Rohwer (1986)
– Males defend territories and attract females to their territory
– However this is probably not due to female choice- females are going to territory and the male is there so they mate with him
– Birds with experimentally blackened epaulets (i.e. not red)
• receive more challenges for their territory (left)
• produce a lessened response when they challenge
• (I.e., they are considered less of a threat). Is not about showing females but is about signaling to other males that you are a threat and they should stay away

Question 24

what have evolutionary psychologists mainly restricted ‘sexual selection’ to

Answer 24

to intrasexual or intersexual competition for mating opportunities

Question 25

what is it important to remember when considering natural and sexual selection?

Answer 25

sometimes natural and sexual selection are in conflict things that help you survive might not help you reproduce and vice versa. When you get this in a situ is important to remember these two things are happening. Can think of sexual selection as a component of natural selection or something that can act in conflict and can be independent.

Question 26

what is the ‘essence’ of evolutionary theory?

Answer 26

• In a given ecological niche, certain characteristics will enhance an organism’s ability to survive and/or reproduce within that population/ niche.
• Where a characteristic does enhance survival and reproduction, the genes ‘coding’ for that characteristics will be more likely to be passed on to..
o Children
o Grandchildren
o Great-grandchildren
o Until most of the population have it … or something else gets in the way
o Or until the niche changes and that trait is no longer of use.

Question 27

what are common misunderstandings about natural selection?

Answer 27

1. Group selection
2. Evolution of complex traits is impossible
3. All evolution is gradual
4. Explaining an immediate cause negates the need for evolution
5. Evolutionary approaches are biologically determinist

Question 28

what is wrong about group selection?

Answer 28

gene is a unit of selection gene frequency is what’s important doesn’t matter what is happening to individual/ group/ species as long as the gene is going into the next generation.

Question 29

who suggested an example for group selection but what is the issue here?

Answer 29

Wilson and Sober (1994)

• Have to go quite a long way to come up with an idea about how group selection may work- one one island a genetic mutation produces increased feeding efficiency. Individuals with the gene have higher survival and reproductive success, and over time replace those without the gene. However, the group on the island then outstrips its resources, and goes extinct. In this case, group level characteristics are useful for thinking about natural selection: although selection occurs at the level of genes within individuals, the characteristics of groups can be important determinants of changes in gene frequencies over time (i.e., evolution).”

Question 30

What does group selection require? And what does this mean?

Answer 30

• Group isolation – so no genetic exchange with other groups
• Rapid group extension – so can’t adapt to circumstances
• Very strong selection- acting on some groups and not others
Hence this is so rare especially in humans where we can see genomes travel huge distances so doesn’t really apply to humans.

Question 31

explain why levels of exploration is often an attack of evolutionary psychology?

Answer 31

• Common accusation from social scientists…
• E.g. “Men have better visuospatial skills because they engage in more physical play during childhood. So why do we need evolution to explain that?”- this can be true but other things can also be true.

Question 32

What did Tinbergen come up with?

Answer 32

Tinbergen’s four why’s

Proximate- about what is going on at point of time/ individual’s lifetime
1. Proximate/mechanistic causes. The triggers that elicit the behavior in question.
2. Developmental/ontogenetic causes. The developmental events that contributed to the behavior during the lifetime of the individual.
———————–
ultimate- what’s gone on across evolutionary time in terms of lineage change and genetic benefit
3. Functional/ultimate causes. How does the behavior advance the individual’s genetic self-interest? How does it increase “survival of the fittest”?
4. Evolutionary/phylogenetic causes. How did the propensity for certain behaviors evolve in the ancestral environment? Change within a lineage.

Question 33

explain why a baby would cry using tinbergen’s four why’s

Answer 33

1. Proximate/mechanistic explanation: Baby is hungry, brain mechanism = crying
2. Developmental/ontogenetic explanation: Baby has learned that crying = food
3. Phylogenetic/historical explanation: All primates vocalise to attract care-giver
4. Functional/ultimate explanation: Crying alerts mother to problems etc. & results in better infant survival

Question 34

explain why a bird may sing using tinbergens 4 whys

Answer 34

They have learned to sing by imprinting their parents’ song repertoire and behaviour. Ontogenetic proximate explanation
They sing to establish their territory and attract mates. Ultimate explanation

Question 35

what is biological determinism? and what do evolutionary approaches argue?

Answer 35

– Idea that biology absolutely causes something without flexibility
– This is defo not true- All traits are subject to environmental influence
– Wrong we still have choice and ability to make own choices.
– Not good evolutionary psychology if it does this

Question 36

what is the naturalistic fallacy?

Answer 36

– What is, isn’t necessarily what ‘ought’ to be
– The way that nature has set something up is the way it ought to be- this isn’t necessarily true.
– Many prominent evolutionary psychologist stress that this isn’t about what we ought to do but about the legacy that evolution has left us with.

Question 37

what two camps can those studying human behavior be split into?

Answer 37

• Behavioural Ecologists

* Evolutionary Psychologists

Question 38

where does behavioral ecology ‘come in?’

Answer 38

Is evolutionary strategy a conscious choice?  according to EP conscious decisions are not part of strategies evolution does not care about decisions only about the outcomes in terms of genes.

Are some people who think maybe evolutionary strategy is a conscious choice and this is where behavioural ecology comes in.

Question 39

what backgrounds do behavioral ecologists tend to be from?

Answer 39

anthropological

Question 40

what are behavioral ecologists interested in?

Answer 40

– Interested in how humans adapt behaviour to produce highest fitness outcomes (“baby counting”)

-interested in the what not the how

Question 41

what do behavioral ecologists assume?

Answer 41

– Assume we have a generalised ‘fitness maximisation’ ability?- put humans in a given situation and the behaviour that will emerge is the best for that niche.

Question 42

what is the phenotypic gambit?

Answer 42

The phenotypic gambit refers to the simplifying assumption that complex traits, such as behavioural traits, can be modelled as if they were controlled by single distinct alleles, representing alternate strategies. In other words, the phenotypic gambit assumes that “selection will favour traits with high fitness …irrespective of the particulars of inheritance.

Question 43

what data do behavioral ecologists use?

Answer 43

– Modelling and analytic sophistication- this cuts out lots of the crazy things like humans self-reporting- this is key in terms of the statistical attack going on in the rest of psychology.

Question 44

what is an example of conscious strategizing/ plasticity

Answer 44

E.g. cultures where having a big family is desirable. Active choices being made to get the most offspring but this is not always the case e.g. in the west although maybe in the west we have smaller families is because we believe children to be expensive and what we consider to be the minimum per child is very different to those in a different socio-ecological setting.

Question 45

what backgrounds to evolutionary psychologists tend to be from?

Answer 45

• Tend to be from Psychology backgrounds (some biologists too)

Question 46

what are evolutionary psychologists interested in?

Answer 46

• Interested in psychological mechanisms which are the result of past adaptations

Question 47

what do evolutionary psychologists assume?

Answer 47

• Assume we have a number distinct specialist psycho-neural adaptations (‘swiss-army knife’ model of the brain)
• Assume current fitness is largely irrelevant

Question 48

what is a key concept of the stereotypical EP view?

Answer 48

• A key concept of the stereotypical EP view is that the human mind consists of a large number of special purpose decision making mechanisms formed for use during the EEA (environment of evolutionary adaption).

Question 49

what are key questions of evolutionary psychology/ pitfalls to avoid?

Answer 49

o How do we identify an adaptation?
o Is the brain that modular?
o Does the EEA work as a concept?

Question 50

what is the EEA

Answer 50

environment of evolutionary adaption

– Hypothetical environment in which it is argued human behaviour and cognition was shaped following our separation from other primate lineages.
– The environment to which our behavioural mechanisms were adapted to, at some point in our evolutionary past.

Question 51

what must an adaption be? according to buss et al., 1998

Answer 51

reliably developing must be a feature of the species and must facilitate reproduction

Question 52

what can be mistaken as an adaption but isn’t? and who coined this?

Answer 52

a spandrel (Gould, 1991)

Question 53

what is a spandrel? what was the example given?

Answer 53

in construction a space between functional things e. Gould argued that we think many things have evolved but really they are just the way they are e.g. bones are made of calcium them being white is just a side efect. g. Argued the female orgasm was a spandrel. Selection of male orgasm across many species as essential component of reproduction argued that female orgasm is non-functional and has evolved because the structure is needed to make a male orgasm happen (don’t agree lots of work on benefits of female orgasm)

Question 54

what is the basic assumption we can take away from spandrels?

Answer 54

• Basic assumption that we shouldn’t assume everything is adaptive is valid.

Can get behaviours that look adaptive and useful that still aren’t adaptations

Question 55

what is an example of an adaption that looks adaptive but might not be?

Answer 55

if you put live and dead ants in a petri dish- then live ants move dead ants into piles called “corpse aggregation”- clears out nest supprosdly but….
Pfeiffer, 1996- can create the same outcome in a very different way- robot with two sensors front left and front right telling it where things are like an ant cant see well straight ahead of them- rule is to avoid obsticles- means that anything in middle gets pushed around- set them going and the same outcome happens as ants where blocks are moved into piles. Can get exactly the same behavioural outcome using a very simple set of decision rules that have no direct link to the supposed outcome that has been put forward as to why we see the pattern in ants.

Question 56

who came up with modularity?

Answer 56

Fodor (1983)

Question 57

what is a module?

Answer 57

FIND My Cute Bird

F- Fast
I- has Information encapsulation
N- specific Neural architecture
D- Domain specific 
M- Mandatory/automatic  
C-Cognitively impenetrable
B- Breaks down in specific ways

Question 58

what has the concept of modularity been applied to?

Answer 58

applied to far more sophisticated behaviours. Have had modules posited as the meanings- known as massive modularity. Fodor was proposing modularity for basic perception as opposed to these sophisticated behaviours.

Question 59

what does Fodor argue about massive modularity?

Answer 59

‘modularity gone mad’

Question 60

what did Tooby and Cosmides argue about modules?

Answer 60

need modules and need particular adaptations to stop you behaving in random and unsuccessful ways.

Question 61

what does Stephen argue?

Answer 61

dont have to embrace massive modularity to be an evolutionary psychologist

It is not necessary to commit to one of these models of mind in order to formulate hypotheses based on evolutionary predictions. The core idea is that evolution has changed the view and process the world – i.e. don’t have to go full swiss army knife model to effectively pursue that research agenda.

Question 62

when is the EEA generally considered to be?

Answer 62

– It is generally considered to be found in late Pleistocene, typified by hunter/gatherer societies (African savannah)

Question 63

who introduced the concept of the EEA?

Answer 63

Bowlby

Question 64

who came up with kin selection

Answer 64

Maynard Smith

Question 65

who came up with inclusive fitness?

Answer 65

Hamilton

Question 66

define kin selection

Answer 66

the changes in gene frequency across generations that are driven at least in part by interactions between related individuals, and

Question 67

define inclusive fitness

Answer 67

he sum of an individual’s own reproductive success, (natural and sexual selection), plus the effects the individual’s actions have on the reproductive success of that individual’s kin, (kin selection).

Question 68

who emphasised the EEA

Answer 68

• Symons emphasised the concept in his 1979 treatise “The Evolution of Human Sexuality.”

Question 69

who said we carry round our stoneage brains

Answer 69

Tooby and Cosmides

Question 70

what do tooby and cosmides define the EEA as

Answer 70

The EEA is a statistical composite of the adaptation relevant properties of the ancestral environments encountered by members of ancestral populations.”
– Assume EEA is roughly about 250,000 to 10,000 years ago, sometime in the Pleistocene.

Their definition is almost useless in how vague it is but when people use specific examples use the African savannah.

Question 71

what are issues with the EEA

Answer 71

1)False idea of statis since Pleistocene
2)
Unwarranted reliance on hunter-gathered models

Question 72

explain False idea of statis since Pleistocene

Answer 72

Homo erectus lived from the south of Africa to the north, southern Europe, southern Asia- a huge global expanse.
Clearly we are missing something- homo erectus – know they cared for people who were injured so they were engaging in complex human like behaviours and living in a wide area of ecological conditions.
Homo-erectus interbred with homo-sapiens so their evolutionary adaptations would have influenced ours.

Question 73

explain Unwarranted reliance on hunter-gathered models

Answer 73

• Modern HG are not in a time capsule- can’t say that Hazda for example are the same as early homo-sapiens because they are not.
• What’s so strange about HG groups now…? In most cases to be a HG you have to be isolated to begin with or would have been pulled into historical transformations. Also some have gone back to hunter-gathering so haven’t always been hunter gatherers.
• They are not homogenous

Question 74

what is paleo diet

Answer 74

diet where don’t eat processed/ dairy (new invention) / wheat and grains (new inventions)
basically idea that we should be eating what our ancestors ‘used’ to eat and what our bodies are designed to eat. Based on an idea about how we live that is no longer true and that to a huge extent wasn’t true.

Question 75

arguments against paleo diet

Answer 75

Looking at different HG groups- there is a huge amount of variance between what people eat e.g. inuits live almost exclusively on fish, Hadza eat looks of meat, roots and fruit and veg- the point is we cant simplify HG lifestyles and diet and assume that how HG groups now give any specific insight into the environments and social ecology our ancestors evolved in.
Cant make assumptions about human ancestral evolution

Question 76

what does human behavior not have to be in its current environment?

Answer 76

• Remember that human behaviour doesn’t have to be optimal in the environment that is currently happening as this is not the environment under which it evolved. Things may seem maladaptive now that weren’t in the past.

Question 77

what is an advantage overall of EP

Answer 77

Has advantage over other areas of psychology as doing work with groups of people who are not normally represented in psychology research.

Question 78

what did Kurzban say about WEIRD/ non-WEIRD

Answer 78

quantified who was being used in research in two leading journals for psychology- in both the vast majority of people are WEIRD

More so for social than evolutionary- in evolutionary see a lot more research on non-WEIRD samples
He is forgetting that lots of work published in evolutionary behavioural ecology- so if want to take behavioural evolutionary sciences as a whole there is lots of work but a lot of this is being carried by the anthropologists a lot of the time. So cant be too complacent.

Question 79

what does WEIRD stand for?

Answer 79

western educated rich industrialised democratic societies