Buss Flashcards
Three different kinds of selection:
Artificial selection
Natural selection
Sexual selection
-“known as breeding”
-occurs when humans select particular desirable traits in a breeding species
Artificial selection
- more general form of artificial selection in which nature rather than people select the traits.
-occurs when traits become either more or less common in a species over long periods of time because they do or do not lead to greater survivability
-involves “evolved strategies” for a species’ survival
Natural selection
-operates when members of the opposite sex find certain traits more appealing and attractive than others and thereby produce offspring with those traits
-the key is that these qualities have to be markers of fitness that can’t be easily faked.
Sexual selection
The evolutionary process (natural and sexual selection and chance) results in three distinct outcomes:
adaptations, by-products, and noise
-are evolved strategies that solve important survival and/or reproductive problems.
-are often the products of natural or sexual selection and must have a genetic or inherited basis to them
-(ex. Sweat glands)
Adaptations
-are traits that happen as a result of adaptations but are not part of the functional design
- “come along for the ride” of natural or sexual selection. (ex. Scientific ability or driving skill is each a by-product of adaptations)
By-products
-also known as “random effects,” occurs when evolution produces random changes in design that do not affect function.
- tends to be produced by chance and not selected for (ex. Shape of a belly button)
Noise
- however, assumes that the true origins of these traits reach far back in ancestral times. The true origin of personality is evolution, meaning that it is caused by an interaction between an ever changing environment and a changing body and brain.
Evolutionary theory
- is one of the few recent theories of personality that attempts once again to explain the grand view of human personality-its ultimate origins as well as its overall function and structure
Evolutionary theory
-Evolutionary meta-theory, properly conceived, provides for personality psychology the grand framework it seeks, and which has been missing almost entirely from its core formulations
-The essence of Buss’s theory of personality revolves around adaptive problems and their solutions or mechanisms.
Evolutionary theory
-behavior and personality are caused by either internal qualities or external-environmental ones
Nature and nurture of personality
-the tendency to assume that the environment alone can produce behavior void of a stable internal mechanism.
“Without internal mechanisms, there can be no behavior”
fundamental situational error
•describe our tendency to ignore situational and environmental forces when explaining the behavior of other people and instead focus on internal dispositions.
fundamental attribution error
•describe our tendency to ignore situational and environmental forces when explaining the behavior of other people and instead focus on internal dispositions.
fundamental attribution error
two fundamental problems of adaptation
•survival (food, danger, predation, etc.)
• reproduction.
In order to survive any living thing has to deal with what he called the “______ ______ ___ __________,” which include disease, parasites, food shortages, harsh climate, predators, and other natural hazards
hostile forces of nature
-The process of evolution by natural selection has produced solutions to these two basic problems of life
Mechanisms
•operate according to principles in different adaptive domains
∙ number in the dozens or hundreds (maybe even thousands)
•are complex solutions to specific adaptive problems (survival, reproduction)
Mechanisms
Two classes of mechanism
Physical mechanism
Psychological mechanism
-are physiological organs and systems that evolved to solve problems of survival
Physical mechanism
are internal and specific cognitive, motivational, and personality systems that solve specific survival and reproduction problems.
psychological mechanisms
Anatomical and physiological mechanisms are often shared by many species, whereas __________ __________are often more specific to species
psychological mechanisms
Evolutionary biology focuses on the origin of physical mechanisms, whereas__________ ___________ focuses on the origin of psychological mechanisms.
evolutionary psychology
~are internal processes that help solve problems of survival and/or reproduction.
•relevant to personality can be grouped into three main categories:
. goals/drives/motives
∙ emotions
∙ personality traits
psychological mechanisms
Two goals and motives that act as evolved mechanisms
Power and intimacy
taking the form of aggression, dominance, achievement, status, “negotiation of hierarchy
Power
-taking the form of love, attachment, “reciprocal alliance
intimacy
Evolutionary psychology refers to these drives as “______________” because they directly affect the health and well being of the person.
adaptations
__________ and __________ are directly linked with stable personality traits
Motivation and emotion
Buss starts with the assumption that ___________, ____________, and _____________ are adaptive in that they solve problems of survival and reproduction
motivation, emotion, and personality
behavioral dispositions have adaptive significance/ 5 dimensions :
∙ Surgency/extraversion/dominance
∙ Agreeableness
∙ Conscientiousness
∙ Emotional stability (opposite of neuroticism)
∙ Openness/intellect
(first dimension)
- involves the disposition to experience positive emotional states and to engage in one’s environment and to be sociable and self-confident.
-one who is driven to achieve and often tends to dominate and lead others. It is nearly synonymous with “extraversion
-involves “hierarchy proclivities”; that is, how people negotiate and decide who is dominant and who is submissive.
-is also marked by a tendency to take risks and to experience positive emotion (i.e., be happy) and initiating and maintaining friendships and relationships.
-People high in _________ are also driven and ambitious
Surgency
(second dimension)
-is marked by a person’s willingness and capacity to cooperate and help the group on the one hand or to be hostile and aggressive on the other
- Some people are warm, cooperative, and group-oriented, but others
-are more selfish and hostile toward others.
-are individuals likely to work to smooth over group conflict and form alliances between people.
- people foster group cohesion and tend to conform to group norms. They get along and go along with others.
-_____________ marks a person’s willingness to cooperate
agreeableness/hostility
- revolves around response to danger and threat.
-All animals have alarm systems that warn them of potential danger and harm
-Vigilance or sensitivity to harm and threat is quite necessary and adaptive.
-Emotional stability involves one’s ability to handle stress or not
-Some people are calm under stress while others are high-strung much of the time
emotional stability/neuroticism
- _________ and _________are adaptive emotions without them, we would certainly die as individuals and as a species.
Fear and anxiety
-one’s capacity and commitment to work
-people are careful and detail-oriented as well as focused and reliable.
- Less _________ people are less reliable and dependable and tend to lack focus
- it signals to others whom we can trust with tasks and responsibilities and whom we can depend on in times of need
conscientiousness
-involves one’s propensity for innovation and ability to solve problems.
-It is closely aligned with intellect and intelligence but also a willingness to try new things and a willingness to have novel experiences rather than sticking with one’s routine.
-These people are the explorers of a group-they forge ahead where others are hesitant.
openness
-Buss (1991) argues that of the five personality
dimensions, ______________________, _________________ and ________________\ are the most important traits because they most directly provide answers to a host of adaptive problems
surgency/dominance, agreeableness, and conscientious
-Adaptive differences increase reproductive success and one’s chance of survival
-One tsource of personality differences is what Buss termed early experiential calibration, by which he meant that childhood experiences make some behavioral strategies more likely than other (ex. of early experiential calibration - people grow up without a father; attachment style)
-A second origin of environment induced individual differences is alternative niche specialization, which means that different people find what makes them stand out from others in order to gain attention from parents or potential mates. (ex. birth order)
Environmental Sources
is the extent to which a trait is under genetic influence
heritability
-Body type, facial morphology, and degree of physical attractiveness act as heritable sources of individual differences
- muscular men or men with masculine, dominant looks will garner more female attention, which will lead to more opportunities for sexual activity, than will thin men or men with less dominant looks
Heritable/ Genetic source
is the shape of one’s face or body is mostly controlled by
genetics
-Some sources of individuals do not benefit survival or reproductive success and hence are categorized as
“_____________.”
-The most common _______ _______of individual differences is neutral genetic variations, which most often take the form of genetic mutations.
-Some mutations are neutral in that they are neither harmful nor beneficial to the individual
-They may stay in the gene pool indefinitely until pressures of natural or sexual selection eliminate them
Nonadaptive Sources
- ____________traits are those that actively harm one’s chance for survival or decrease one’s sexual attractiveness
-These can stem from either genetic or environmental sources. One genetic source is genetic defect, but in this case the mutation is harmful to the person.
-An environmental source is seen in environmental trauma, such as brain or spinal cord injury, which can also lead to maladaptive individual
Maladaptive Sources
