chapter 10 - evolution & individual differences

Question 1

what is the clockwork universe? how did the zeitgeist of the victorian era both limit and make possible darwin’s ideas?

Answer 1

• clockwork universe: the belief that god created everything that exists, earth began 6000 years ago
• limit: Victorian era was very conservative and religious, repressive about sex and women. Darwin’s views pushed against those of the church, feared for his life. ran counter to the notion of humankind’s supremacy and God’s hand in the world order
• make possible: theory of evolution of natural selection allowed people to break free from the tradition belief of special creation. opportunity to build works on a purely scientific foundation, phenomena of the inanimate world as a result of natural processes

Question 2

how did darwin influence psychology?

Answer 2

• comparative psychology (using comparison to learn about ourselves)
• developmental psychology (origins proper our understanding, nature vs nurture)
• instincts (biologically hardwired reactions to things)
• adaption (anxiety to keep us safe)
• William James and Functionalism
• evolutionary and animal psychology
• individual differences research (IQ tests)

Question 3

what are some of the ways that darwin’s ideas have been misappropriated by others?

Answer 3

• evolution has been used as a justification for racist and sexist ideologies
• used “survival of the fittest” into evidence that men are superior because they have upper-body strength, no emotions, etc. even though evolution never told us what traits were “good” or “bad”
• other cultures that do not exhibit the same behavior as Westerners are somehow more primitive and inferior
• evolution laid the groundwork for eugenics and the Holocaust

Question 4

how would darwin describe the causes of human behavior and thought?

Answer 4

• relative importance of an individual’s innate qualities (nature) versus personal experiences (nurture) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits
• Darwin concluded that facial movements, bodily gestures, sounds, and other physiological changes that accompanied and expressed emotions were largely instinctive, traces of behavioral modifications that occurred in our animal ancestors
• as an explanation of behavior through selection, stating that the same mechanisms explaining morphological changes also account for gradual improvements in instincts