biological approach-evolutionary psychology Flashcards
how do things change over time ?
through a process reffered to as natural selection
explain natural selection ?
those who posses characteristics that help the organism to stay alive (and reproduce) are the ones who passed there genes onto the next generation.
. all organisms are what they are because their characteristics enabled them to survive in a particular environment
who created this idea ?
Charles Darwin
what do we mean by environment of evolutionary adaption (EEA) ?
. all living things today are the outcome of natural selection
. as well as humans changing physically over time our behaviour and minds changed to ensure survival in our habitat- such as being able to use tools and language
. therefore, what we are today is largely based on the evolutionary pressures in our ancestoral environment.
what can evolutionary pressure do ?
change the human genome over thousands of years.
what is genome lag ?
when changes to our environment happen much more rapidly than our genes.
. some of our behaviours are no longer adaptive because genetic changes over thousands of years have proceeded much slower then environmental changes
give an example of genome lag ?
our minds of still adapted to the EEA
specific example of genome lag due to EEA
most of the population no longer lives in small groups but in vast cities alongside many people. But we still have “small group” mentality
. another example is our stress response
whats an example of a evolutionary behaviour ?
Fight,flight, freeze response
.helped our ancestors to cope with threats. Those who responded in this way had an advantage - therefore they were more likely to survive and reproduce. So the genes were passed on
explain the freeze response ?
one the threat is perceived, the sympathetic division of the ANS is activated
. This creates psychological arousal that prepares the individual to…
either confront the threat (fight)
runaway (flight)
or stay still to avoid attention (freeze)
what did Darwin discover about sexual selection ?
evolutionary pressure also acts on reproductive success
some characteristics continue to exist even when they threaten an organisms survival because they make an individual more attractive to potential mates
example- peacocks tails. Big target for predators and hard for males to carry around. But are attractive to females; so increases the chance of reproduction
strength -
research supports
research into partner preference
our preference has changed hugely over the last 100 years. women have greater roles in the workplace and are less dependant on men to provide for them. So women’s partner preference is less dictated by resource consideration
this supports genome lag because it shows that a behaviour important to survival-choosing a man- has been influenced by cultural changes while our genome structure has hardly changed at all.
weakness-
problem with the EEA conept
. it implies thatsignificant evolution of human characteristics stopped about 10,000 years ago
however, this may not be the case. For example most humans were lactose intolerant but some are not now . The gene that allows us to digest milk was selected and passed on because it was a survival advantage.But this happend less than 10000 years ago.
weakness-
gender bias= fight,flight,freeze may explain men’s response to threat but not women’s.
Such response would of been a disadvantage for women as it would of been harder to protect their offspring
therefore evolutionary psychology may be biased towards men’s behaviour when explaining responses to threat.
