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Psyc 2014 > Evolutionary psychology & Personality > Flashcards

Evolutionary psychology & Personality Flashcards

1
Q

Who was the first to offer a coherent evolutionary theory?

A

Jean Baptiste Lamarck (naturalist)

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2
Q

What was the Lamarkian suggestion of the complexifying force?

A
  • tendency for organisms to become more complex, moving ‘up’ a ladder
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3
Q

What did Lamarck suggest about the adaptive force?

A
  • more and more use of an organ gradually strengthens, develops and enlarges that organ
  • predominant use/disuse is preserved in reproduction
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4
Q

What did Charles Darwin suggest about natural selection?

A
  • naturalist
  • natural selection –> variation, if useful is preserved, slow changes
  • sexual selection main force in species with sexual reproduction–> males competition for mates e.g. Peacock’s tail
  • common descent–> common descents with chimps
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5
Q

What did Galton suggest in applying Darwinian Evolutionary thinking to humans’ variability?

A
  • cherished INNATE ABILITIES

- Eugenics

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6
Q

What is evolutionary psychology?

A
  • emphasis on adaptation–> genes trying to pass onto the next generation
  • modularity, adaptation and gene-level selection
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7
Q

Who is Stephen Pinker?

A
  • mind organised into modules or mental organs MIND NOT BRAIN
  • different modules that are designed to attack different elements ie. survival
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8
Q

What did Pinker say about our brains and modernism?

A
  • our brains are not wired to cope with our modern society
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9
Q

What did Malik say about Pinker’s suggestions?

A
  • said that the brain is ‘wired up’ to invent modernity but not cope with it is a bit of a stretch
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10
Q

What is David Buss’ evolutionary perspective?

A
  • Dora’s sexual adventures
  • personality linked to major classes of social relationships
  • PERSONALITY DETECTING MECHANISMS
  • CHEATING PERSONALITIES
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11
Q

What adaptations might one develop to stop being a victim of a psychopath?

A
  • identify and protection e.g. suspiciousness
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12
Q

What is the Welfare Tradeoff ratio?

A
  • how much weight you put on your own interests vs. others
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13
Q

What are relevant personality traits for WTR?

A
  • narcissism –> more stylish, cleavage, cheating

- agreeableness –> empathy

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14
Q

What are coalitions?

A
  • historically women’s coaltions for mutual assistance in child rearing
  • men’s coaltions attack/defend to attain/protect group’s resources (and womenn)
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15
Q

What are desirable qualities for coalitional alley?(for both sexes)

A
  • hardworking
  • intelligent
  • motivator
  • knowledge
  • humour
    WOMAN>MEN: conscientiousness, socially perceptive, low sexually promiscuity
    MEN> WOMAN:bravery, physical formidability, low athletically challenged
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16
Q

How is assessing enemies/rivals an adaptive problem?

A
  • accurately assess your rivals strength and willingness to engage
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17
Q

What personality traits do we care about in our enemies?

A

ALL: PSYCHOPATHY, MACHIAVELLANISM
MEN: aggression, fearfulness, strength
WOMEN: Intelligence, attractiveness, gossiper

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18
Q

What do we want in kin relationships?

A
  • provide resources, protection, offspring investment, social connection for coalitional concerns
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19
Q

What don’t we want in kin relationships?

A
  • poach resources, divert resources to others, offspring neglect, sexual unfaithfulness, abusive, social animosity.
20
Q

What do we value in mates?

A
  • dependable character, emotional stability and maturity
    CONSTRAINTS: own mate value, sex ratio, arranged marriage
    LINKS TO BIG 5
21
Q

Why do we value agreeableness in our mates?

A
  • trust, personal sacrifices, invest in mate and offspring
22
Q

Why do we value conscientiousness in our mates?

A
  • dependability, hardworking, reliability and capacity for enduring cmmitment
  • low sexual infidelity, low impulsivity, low laziness, low mortality
23
Q

Why do we value emotional stability in our mates?

A
  • abusiveness, reliability, health

- low emotional stability: high mood swings, high dependency and high resource draining, socially anxious (coalitions)

24
Q

What is the behavioural immune system?

A
  • psychological mechanisms to detect potential presence of disease in immediate environment and to engage in behaviour that prevents contact with these objects and individuals
25
Q

what are some behaviours that align with disease avoidance?

A
  • ostracism, social distance
26
Q

What are some processes that align with disease avoidance?

A
  • prejudice, stereotyping, xenophobia, disgust, personality modifications
27
Q

How did Murray & Schaller (2008) look at

A
  • looked at 71 regions from which personality trait data was available (prevalence of 9 different disease causing agents)
  • FOUND: dx prevalence was negatively correlated with female SOI scores (i.e. as dx prevalence goes up, sexuality goes down); men also negative but weaker
  • negative correlation with E and dx prevalance
  • negative correlation with E and dx prevalence
28
Q

What did Galton say about prominent ppl?

A
  • prominent ppl have prominent relatives

- the closer the kinship the likelier the relative is also prominent

29
Q

What is an alternative conclusion to Galton’s findings that prominent ppl have prominent families?

A
  • that children of “prominent” families have better environments- better access to education, resources, better “connections”
30
Q

What do Eugenics put towards policies and popularity?

A
  • sexual selection: sterilization
  • Roosevelt
  • Immigration laws in 1980s in US
  • Nazis
31
Q

What were some criticisms about Eugenics?

A
  • scientific e.g. genetic variability and environment

- ethics, prejudice, classism

32
Q

What does Thornhill & Palmer suggest about rape?

A
  • that it may be related to evolutionary psychology, an “adaptation”
33
Q

What did the Dar-Nimrod, Heine & Cheung’s study show about rape?

A
  • exposure to a SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST EXPLANATION: lead men to judge that men had more control over their behaviour, give more negative evaluations of male sexual aggresivenes and give harsher punishments COMPARED TO CONTROL. Women didn’t change.
34
Q

What do family resemblance studies suggest?

A
  • if a trait is genetic, greater genetic similarity should lead to greater trait similarity
35
Q

What is a problem with family resemblance studies?

A
  • genetic similarity related to environmental similarity.
  • therefore, overestimate genetic heritability “upper limit”
  • they give combined effect of genes + envrionment
36
Q

What are some problems with adoption studies?

A
  • selective placement

- reasons for adoptions (often have behavioural problems etc.)

37
Q

What do adoption studies aim to examine?

A
  • the correlation btw parents and non-adopted children and parents and adopted children
38
Q

What do twins studies attempt to examine?

A
  • compare monozygotic twins and dizygotic twins in same families
  • same environment, different genes
  • if the trait is genetic, MZ will be more similar than DZ twins
39
Q

What are some problems with twin studies?

A
  • assortative mating- DZ twins are more similar than chance (more than 50%)
  • evocativeness- similarity evokes similar reactions
40
Q

What are some cautions of heritability?

A
  • heritability of a particular trait is not absolute (it is a statistic for a given population at a given time)
  • change variability in the environment (reduced variability e.g. uniform schooling- increases relative contribution of genetic influences)
  • change variability in genetic contribution: reduced variability in genes e.g. clones - environment appears more significant relative to genetic variability
41
Q

What are the main conceptual points on heritability?

A
  1. heritability changes: if a trait has high heritability it means it is not greatly affected by EXISTING environmental differences
  2. heritability is a POPULATION STATISTIC
  3. heritability is based on distinguishing observed PHENOTYPES WITH LATENT CAUSES
42
Q

What is the heritability?

A

the proportion of phenotypic variance accounted for genetic variance h2 = Gv/Pv

43
Q

What are some criticisms of twin study methodology?

A
  • different environments? - share some time in-utero which may account for variation
  • separated at birth?- studies where they claim they were “separated at birth” were actually separated at 4-5 months
44
Q

What are the current estimates for g vs e components of the big 5?

A

Genetic: 50%
Environment: 30% shared, 10% non shared
Residual 10%

45
Q

What were Turkheimer’s 3 laws of genetic heritability?

A
  1. human behavioural traits are heritable
  2. being raised in the same family has a smaller effect than the effect of genes
  3. a substantial portion of variation on traits is not accounted for by effects of genes or families

Psyc 2014 (12 decks)

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