Chapter 2 Flashcards
A student of Darwinian theory might argue that modern humans are inclined toward social behaviors because those behaviors afforded out ancestors a fitness advantage
True or false
True
Which of the following is an example of genes programming us?
Being emotionally drawn to food
Being fearful and protecting our bodies from danger
Being interested in sex, love, or lust , enabling our genders to pass on to the next generation
All of the above
Scientists, such as Robin Dunbar, have hypothesized that ___ and _____ replaced grooming as the glue that holds society together?
Laughter and conversation
The positive emotional response to baby-like features could be an example of a _______ for protecting one’s offspring
Adaption
Principles of natural selection
Superabundance
Variation
Selection
Superabundance
Produce more offspring than necessary to copy themselves
Evolutionary psychology
Definition
Core contributors
Psychology will be based on a new foundation , that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation
David Buss
Core tenets of evolutionary psychology
- input is necessary
- all psychological mechanisms are shaped by evolution
- selection is how evolution creates psychological adaptations
Core tenets of evolutionary psychology con’td
psychological adaptations are:
- information processing devices (they identify and provide solutions to adaptive problems )
- instantiated in the brain
- functional
Adaptation
genetically based traits that allow the organism to cope well with specific selection pressures , and to survive and reproduce
Innate fear ? Animals exposed to snakes experiment finding ?
Animals that have never been exposed to snakes were slower to retrieve food and withdraw more frequently when exposed to a fake snake
Emotion and the Four F’s
Ethnologist have come up with major categories for fixed action patterns, that are selected for based on selection. What are the four categories?
Fighting
Feeding
Fleeing
Mating
How do emotions help for adaptation
Emotions :
- draw attention to problems
- keep attention on problems, until problems are solved
- different emotions are adapted to socks different kinds of problems
Examples of adaptations
Avoid eating toxins= distare for bitterness
Find health mate= perceive facial symmetry as beautiful
Find fertile mate= preference for mate with youthful appearance
Evolutionary “just so stories”
Each story tells how a particular animal was modified from an original from to its current from by the acts of man, or some magical being
Are emotions innate? If so what we can we use to tell
We can tell through expressions in babies
Are there innate emotions ? Evidence
Babies ?
Barridge : the face of liking ?
Matsumoto ?
Babies make context appropriate expressions that we tend to recognize as emotional
Rodents perform some of the same actions as babies in response to sweet and bitter tastes
Blind athletes show context appropriate expressions of emotion
Altruistic punishment
Rejecting unfair offers in a one-shot anonymous interaction, at personal expense
A behavior that is cross-culturally conserved
The purpose is that there is no benefit to the individual, the purpose is solely to punish unfairness
This refers to the motivation known as ?
Inequality aversion
Animals must have some from of inequality aversion ?
Yes or no
Yes
Is inequality aversion innate ?
Maybe, hard to test , but it does look to be cross-cultural
Evolutionary approach to inequality aversion
Theorists suggest that recent evolution in humans may have worked to shape out emotional response to inequality
Darwin’s principles of expressions
- the principle of serviceable associated habits (it has to have a function)
- the principal of antithesis (the opposite function should have the opposite expression)
- the principle of direct action of the nervous system ( it should not be necessarily voluntary)
When researchers reversed the movements required to make a face to create anti-expressions what did they find about the expressions of fear and disgust ?
People perceived anti-fear as disgust and anti-disgust as fear
Findings of participants posing fear/disgust faces while performing visual tasks
Posing emotional expressions changed sensitivity to information in the visual field and associated with the openness of the eyes
Peoples eye movements were faster when they were making fear faces
Findings of participants posing fear/disgust faces while breathing in ?
People inhaled more and faster when they were making a fear face
Findings of participants posing fear/disgust faces while measuring nasal cavity ?
Posing a fear face lead to greater space inside participants nasal cavity, when compared to disgust faces
Three social motivations and one antisocial motivation
Attachment (protection)
Assertion (power)
Affiliation (affection)
Hostility
