Environments of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA).

Question 1

Gene’s-eye-view perspective

Answer 1

genes build individuals in order to replicate themselves.

Question 2

One way to understand adaptation

Answer 2

genes that act as if they’re trying to replicate copies of themselves by building individuals that would then survive and reproduce.

Question 3

Examples of fitness maximisation prediction often fails profoundly in modern env’s.

Answer 3

• Wealthier people are actually having fewer offspring.
• No extreme competition to donate to sperm banks. - difficult to get men to do this.
• Non-reproductive sex is common (e.g. contraception, pornography).
• Many people choose not to have children.
• Various forms of self-destructive behaviour (addictions, unhealthy eating habits, etc). - not good for survival or reproduction.

Question 4

Problem of avoiding incest

Answer 4

you are likely to share recessive mutations with your relatives, which are more likely to express in your child. - Inbreeding depression leads to genetic conditions that can be detrimental.

Question 5

Adaptations are functionally specialised

Answer 5

An adaptation’s role in solving an adaptive problem is known as its function

Question 6

What is the Westermarck Effect?

Answer 6

‘If I grew up in the same household, suppress sexual attraction’.

Question 7

What is adaptive lag.

Answer 7

the more rapidly a species’ env changes, the more frequently its adaptations will tend to misfire.

Question 8

What is mismatch

Answer 8

Lack between the adaptations we have and the current env we live in

Question 9

Taste preferences for hard-to-acquire, essential nutrients. - Nesse & William

Answer 9

We have these preferences for foods that end up being bad for us and make us die early, (could be considered maladaptive) These foods used to be hard to acquire, this psychologically requires you to have a strong motivation (don’t have strong preferences for foods such as root vegetables because they have always been easily accessible)

Question 10

what outcomes can adaptive lag have?

Answer 10

maladaptive outcomes, including physical and mental illness.

Question 11

‘Humans are ancestral-environment fitness-cue maximisers’ - Tooby & Cosmides

Answer 11

If a cue was there ancestrally that led you to this adaptive behaviour, then you’re going to respond to that cue in the modern environment too

Question 12

Tooby & Cosmides main point.

Answer 12

“Humans are adaptation-executors, not fitness-strivers”

Question 13

‘Environments of evolutionary adaptedness’ invented by who?

Answer 13

Bowlby (1969) in considering origins of infant attachment styles.

Question 14

EEA does not refer to a single, specific time or place

Answer 14

each adaptation has its own EEA: the set of environments that ‘designed’ it.
Some adaptations have more recent EEA than others, e.g. language more recents than eyes.

Question 15

Which EEA is regarded as most relevant to human EP?

Answer 15

Pleistocene hunter-gatherer environments (2.6 million-12 thousand years ago). - most of our adaptations probably emerged during this period of time.

Question 16

Egalitarian

Answer 16

believing in or based on the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.

Question 17

Example of rats being picky

Answer 17

Rats are highly selective (more so than humans): eat new foods separately, and only avoid new foods after becoming sick.

Question 18

What does disgust do?

Answer 18

• It keeps us from ingesting harmful bacteria.
• It is a defence against microbial attack; germs, diseases, viruses.
• Women experience more (A) disgust toward disease-carrying objects, and (b), perception of disease risk. (Curtis et al., 2004).
• Believed to be an adaptation because when they are pregnant, it is a way of protecting the foetus.
• Increased disgust sensitivity is associated in modern populations with having fewer infections

Question 19

How disgust (adaptations) can be repurposed and perform functions in other domains.

Answer 19

sexual disgust whith the idea of being with someone they do not wnat to mate with.
There is also moral disgust - when you see shocking beh.

Question 20

Spices are hypothesised to be another antimicrobial defence

Answer 20

• Spices kill food-borne bacteria.

- More common in hot climates, in meat dishes.

Question 21

What is the hypothesised function of pregnancy sickness?

Answer 21

Adaptation to protect foetus from toxins (teratogens).

Question 22

The Hunting Hypothesis

Answer 22

• Hunting played a central role in the emergence of modern humans.
• Meat provides unique nutrients and an exceptionally dense package of calories.
• Good for our metabolically costly brains (2% of body mass, 20% of energy). - one way to get this was through hunting.
• cognitive niche

Question 23

‘cognitive niche’

Answer 23

developing new, innovative ways to exploit resources.

- Tooby

Question 24

§How are humans adapted for eating meat

Answer 24

• Human teeth, digestive systems are adapted for meat digestion (e.g. very long, small intestines for breaking down proteins.
• Hunter-gatherers spend huge amounts of time hunting

Question 25

What is the Hunting hypothesis also consistent with

Answer 25

• High male paternal investment (provisioning).
• Strong male coalitions.
• Social exchange (of resources). - we are an exchange orientated species.
• Division of labour.
• Tool use (male particularly interested in tools and ‘systems’).

Question 26

What is the ‘Showoff Hypothesis’ (Hawkes)

Answer 26

• explains why men might hunt more even in absence of benefits to family.
• Part of the Costly signalling theory - spending more effort on ‘prestigious prey’.

Question 27

State the sex differences in spatial abilities (may result from division of labour).

Answer 27

• Females: object location, especially for high value foods.
• Males: mental rotation, navigating unfamiliar terrain.

Question 28

Backup study for object location in women?

Answer 28

Study of California farmer’s markets found female advantage in remembering location of fruits and veg, esp high calorie ones.

Question 29

What is agency detection

Answer 29

As predators and prey we need to be able to recognise agents and also distinguish between predators and prey.

Question 30

what is an ‘agent’

Answer 30

Usually an animal that has some ability to act intentionally, on its own accord.

Question 31

Theory of senescence

Answer 31

• Nothing selection can do to prevent it, because reproduction is selection’s bottom line.
• Selection may favour adaptations that benefit reproduction earlier in life, even if detrimental in the long-term.

Question 32

Evidence of design in suicide (de Catanzaro, 1995).

Answer 32

More common in people who -

• Have poor reproductive prospects/mating success.
• Have poor health/financial prospects.
• Perceive selves as burden on kin.

Question 33

Evidence that depression is a by-product

Answer 33

• Suicide is a by-product of depression.

- Increased social isolation.