3.2 Genes & the Psychosocial Environment Flashcards
What are the 3 major principles of Darwin’s theory?
- Heredity
- Variability
- Natural Selection
What are the 3 products of evolution?
- Adaptations
- By-products
- Noise
Discuss adaptation
Characteristics that stuck around because they help the organism survive better
Discuss by-products
Adaptations can create by-products
They do not solve a problem or increase chances of survival but are related to adaptation
Discuss noise
Random effects generated by genetic drift and chance mutations that do not affect survival
Define exaptation
Features that did not originally arise for their current use but rather were co-opted for new purposes
e.g. birds’ feathers
Discuss the “blank slate”
Differentiating between mind and brain
The mind is completely blank at birth
Needs experience in order to deduce rules, expectations etc
What does evolutionary psychology challenge and why?
The Standard Social Science model is challenged because it has largely ignored the role of evolution in shaping human behaviour
What did Steven Pinker say the ultimate goal of the mind is?
“The ultimate goal that the mind is designed to attain is maximising the number of copies of the genes that created it”
The goal of the mind is ensuring that the vehicle of the gene is doing a good job
The purpose of every organism is to pass on their genes
Taking the gene level perspective to understand physiology and our behaviour
What is the technical term use to refer to the environment in which we evloved in?
Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness or EEA
Refers to evolution over last 200,000+ years
What are the 2 views of the mind?
The Standard Science Model & the Evolutionary Psychology Model
Discuss the Standard Science Model of the mind
The mind has general mechanisms that can adapt to everything
Resonates with Watson and Skinner behaviourism
Mind is a blank slate that is shaped by experience
Discuss the Evolutionary Psychology Model of the mind
Mind is constituted by a series of specialised cog processes
At birth, we already have a substantial amount of knowledge about the world - sounds unintuitive and has generated a lot of resistance to evol. Psych
What were problems faced by ancestral humans?
Survival, mating, parenting, aiding genetic relatives
They need to reach puberty in order to reproduce so need to survive past this
Once they have reached puberty, need to find a mate
Responsibility from a genetic perspective to increase the chances that the offspring reproduces at a later stage - need to support them
Need to help people who share many of these genes in order to help carry on passing of your own
What was one of the most fatal things that killed ancestors?
Parasites - killed more individuals than predators
There was selection pressure and so evolved defensive mechanisms