Evolution Flashcards
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
E.O Wilson (1975)
took which approach
took evolutionary approach of ethology. Focused on function (ultimate explanation) rather than stimuli (proximate)
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed,
and my own specified world to bring them
up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at
random and train him to become any type of
specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer,
artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies,
abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.”
who said this
John B Watson
what is the SSSM
standard social sciences model.
how evolutionary biologists view the idea that everything is a blank slate, everything can be learned.
Bio has nothing to do with behaviour and cognition
sociobiology: the new synthesis was accused of
other issues
biological determinism . was in conflict with cultural determinism
Enthusiastic just so stories was another problem (e.g. men are evolutionary more aggressive so should be expected to be aggressive.
- universal characteristics of human nature
- experience and expression of emotions
- spoken language
- status and roles including division of labour
- incest avoidance
- developmental trajectories
“branded” Evolutionary Psychology focuses on
evolved solutions to ancestral adaptive problems
Selection for evolved PSYCHOLOGICAL mechanisms, not behaviour
focus on human universals
Tooby and Cosmides
in adaptive mind book focus on
Modular and adaptive school of thought. e.g. unique brain networks for functions
- cognitive revolution
- innate psychological mechanisms
what dies EEA stand for
Environment of evolutionary adaptedness
what is environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA)
African Savanna during the Pleistocene (1.7 Ma - 10Ka)
99% of our homo history
Bowlby saw attachment of children as an adaptaion or pathology
adaptation
give an example of evolutionary mismatch or adaptive lag
having a fear of spiders now is not adaptive in UK.
But a fear of plug sockets or cars would be adaptive today
Critiques of evolutionary psychology
- not so different from sociobiology (panadaptaionism)
- out of date understanding of evolution
- EEA concept limited
- little known about EEA
- long evolutionary history before then
- diverse habitats
- not evident that hunter gatherers are reresentative (of out ancestral hunter gathereres from which we base our knowlege)
- Humans are still evolving
what is panadaptationism
saying that everything is adaptive e.g. write with left hand
Domain general psychology
- ability to learn is an adaptation (opposed to domain specific such as fear of spiders)
- cognitive abilities might be byproducts of more general abilities
- cognition involves integration across domains
behavioural ecology focus on
- adaptive responses to local environments ( contrasts with EEA)
- optimality and life history (organism change thru time) are adapted from behavioural ecology
- goal is to determine how differences among individuals can be due to optimality and fitness explanations (how do indivs make choices that should on the long run improve their fitness)
- not interested in proximate mechanisms (i.e., psychology)
Behavioural ecology started with
DeVore
- usuaully study small scale societies
- same approach as early ethnographers but
different theoretical background
- also use historical data sets (e.g., birth records)
to see how environment influences population
level behaviour
Behavioural ecology interested in
flexibility of individual behaviour
* facultative vs. obligate
* adaptability - degree to which a species can survive and reproduce in different environments
- evolution of behavioural flexibility (contrast with modularity)
- optimality - weigh costs and benefits of different strategies
- not conscious decision-making
e.g., sex did not evolve
because it makes us
think about babies
facultative vs. obligate
humans can facultatively live on the moon. Fish obligately live in water
what types of models do behavioural ecologists use
- formal models and hypothesis testing e.g. model predicts this behaviour will occour in this environment. Run the environment.
- proximate currencies e.g. calories to quantify fitness
- optimal foraging theory e.g. how long does it take species to forage
niche - environmental and way of life of an
organism
* greater overlap leads to__________
(e.g., prey size)
greater competition
ecophysiology
branch of behavioural psychology
how you make life history choices. e.g. growth or reproduction.
critiques of behavioural ecology
- focuses on current function(adaptive behaviours), not evolutionary history (adaptation)
Focus on behaviour, not psychology.
ignores constraints on adaptiveness (phenotypic gambit)
e.g. natural selection will always favour traits with high fitness. and there is a gene for each behaviour.
Levels of explanation
ultimate causation - refers to
proximate causation refers to
evolutionary levels of explanation
immediate circumstances
Four questions in levels of explanation
Ultimate (why questions)
- function
-evolution
Proximate (how questions)
- developmnent
- causation
function (adaptation) refers to
fitness value of a trait
evolution (phylogeny) -
evolutionary history of a
trait
