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PSY 330 - Evolutionary Psychology > Exam 1 > Flashcards

Exam 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the 4 areas EP seeks to understand? (PDFI)

A
  • 1.) casual processes that shaped human minds
  • 2.) “design” of the mind (its mechanisms and organization)
  • 3.) functions the mind serves (what it’s designed to do)
  • 4.) how interaction between design & current environment shape behavior
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2
Q

What are the 3 key components of natural selection? Define each

A
  • variation: within the trait (ex. giraffes and neck length)
  • inheritance: only the variations that are inherited by offspring are passed down
  • selection: organisms w/ desriable variants produce more offspring bc variants help w/ survival and reproduction
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3
Q

What is sexual selection? What are the types of sexual selection?

A
  • inconsistency w/ natural selection; competition over mates that results in differential reproduction
  • Intrasexual comp: competition for mates by members of one sex (ex. male-male competition, males compete for access to mates)
  • intersexual comp: individuals of one sex choose partners based on specific qualities (“female choice”)
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4
Q

Define natural selection

A
  • process by which traits become more or less common in a population due to consistent effects upon survival or reproduction upon the bearers
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5
Q

How does evolution act as a sieve?

A
  • selection acts like a sieve bc it filters out undesirable traits (that dont help with surv. or repr.) and remaining traits serve a specific adaptive purpose
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6
Q

Who are the major theorists and what were their contributions?

A
  • Darwin: natural and sexual selection
  • William Hamilton: inclusive fitness; passing on genes is important (gene’s eye view)
  • George Williams: how to determine what’s an adaptation; argued against group selection (idea that whole groups out compete other groups)
  • Robert Trivers: reciprocal altruism, parental investment (sex differences), parent-offsping conflict
  • Leda Cosmides and John Tooby: founders of EP, people have a cognitive sturcture designed by evolution
  • David Buss: men and women face diff adaptive problems which leads to sex differences in behavior
  • Randy Thornhill: rape adaptation, pathogens influence xenophobia
  • Steve Gangestead: women have cyclical hormonal changes that affect mate choice
  • Martin Daly and Margo Wilson: there are adaptation for physical aggression, studied homicide
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7
Q

Explain what’s wrong with the misconception “people strive to have as many children as possible”

A
  • fitness is not the “goal” of an individual
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8
Q

Explain what’s wrong with the misconception “human behavior is genetically determined”

A
  • EP perspective not about genetic determinism

- 2 ingredients to behavior: evolved adaptations and environmental input

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9
Q

Explain what’s wrong with the misconception “because cultures are so different, there can be no evolution for humans”

A
  • cultural variation does not eliminate an evolutionary explanation
  • “cognitive architecture” influences which ideas/beliefs are important in the culture
  • idea of evoked culture: culture diff may be due to diff environmental conditions faced by diff groups
  • transmitted culture: values that exist in one mind spread to other minds through observation interaction (may create new selection pressures)
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10
Q

Explain what’s wrong with the misconception “current mechanisms are optimally designed”

A
  • adaptations do no need to increase fitness in the current environment but they did in past environments on average (ex. we like the taste of fatty foods bc in past aided in selection pressure)
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11
Q

What is the Savannah Principle?

A
  • people initially evolved in the African Savannah

- our brains do not deal well with situations that did not exist in our past ancestral environment

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12
Q

What is the standard social science model?

A
  • 1.) humans are exempt from biology
  • 2.) evolution stops at the neck (doesn’t consider psych adaptations)
  • 3.) human nature is a tabula rasa (blank slate): experience is the only thing that matters
  • 4.) human behavior is a product of the environment and socialization (not biology)
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13
Q

What evidence exists to indicate that the eye does not need to be created by a creator?

A
  • the eye could evolve rapidly by producing many small rapid adaptations
  • ex. light-sensing patches, to cup-like eye (to see light and shadow), to addition of lens to focus images
  • additionally the eye contains many imperfections including blind spots and the potential for retinal tearing
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14
Q

What are the three products of evolution and give an example of each

A
  • adaptation: traits that solve problems of survival and reproduction, inherited and reliably developing, ex. umbilical cord
  • by-product: characteristics w/ no function that are “carried along” with other characteristics, ex. belly button product of umbilical cord
  • noise: random effects due to mutations, chance effects during development, etc, not linked to adaptive process, ex. shape of belly button
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15
Q

What is the EEA?

A
  • Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness: selection pressures that occurred during the time period when an adaptation was being shaped, not a specific time or place
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16
Q

What does it mean to say something is a “proximate cause” of behavior? The “ultimate cause” of behavior?

A
  • proximate cause: direct cause of behavior; how adaptions behavior
  • ultimate cause: why does an adaptation exist; historical pathways leading to a behavior (origin of behavior and its alteration over time), past effects of natural selection in shaping current behavior (past & current utility of the behavior in reproductive/adaptive terms)
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17
Q

What is the naturalistic fallacy? What is the moralistic fallacy?

A
  • naturalistic fallacy: tendency to believe what is “natural” is good (ex. feeling envy is natural, therefore nothing wrong w/ feeling it)
  • moralistic fallacy: assuming that whichever aspect of nature which has socially unpleasant consequences cannot exist, what is good must be natural, (ex. bc men and women should be treated equally, there are no differences between them)
18
Q

Describe when, where and special characteristics of the human ancestor Austalopithecines

A
  • oldest hominids 4-4.5 MYA
  • bipedal ape
  • African savannah
19
Q

Describe when, where and special characteristics of the human ancestor homo habilis

A
  • 2.3-1.2 MYA
  • less ape-like
  • larger cranial capacity
  • used stone tools
20
Q

Describe when, where and special characteristics of the human ancestor homo habilis

A
  • 2.3-1.2 MYA
  • less ape-like
  • fully bipedal
  • larger cranial capacity
  • used stone tools
  • Africa
21
Q

Describe when, where and special characteristics of the human ancestor homo erectus

A
  • 1.89 MYA - 143,000 YA
  • first hominin to leave Africa
  • fossils found in Java and China
  • cared for old and weak individuals
22
Q

Describe when, where and special characteristics of the human ancestor Neandertals

A
  • inhabited most of Europe and Western Asia
  • 200,000-30,000 YA
  • robust build: muscular, short, large hear/face
  • first hominins to wear clothes
  • intelligent
  • some modern ppl have neandertal DNA (the BNC2 gene affects skin color and other traits)
23
Q

Describe when, where and special characteristics of the human ancestor homo sapien

A
  • 200,000 YA - present
  • evolved in Africa and then slowly spread (“out of Africa” theory)
  • largest brain to body size of any hominin
24
Q

Describe when, where and special characteristics of the human ancestor homo naledi

A
  • discovered in South Africa
  • unclear when they lived
  • small brains, but size more similar to small humans
  • human-like foot
  • pelvis and femur more like australopithicines
  • hand is mix of more ancient and more modern traits
25
Q

Explain how natural selection works. What key concepts are necessary to explain this process?

A
  • def: process by which traits become more or less common in a population due to consistent effects upon the survival or reproduction of their bearers
  • requires: variation, inheritance, selection
26
Q

Explain the concept of adaptation

A
  • traits that helped solve problem of survival and reproduction
  • some individuals had this trait and passed on to subsequent generations
  • serve a “special purpose”
  • involve historical or selective pressures that lead to design of trait
27
Q

Explain the concept of fitness. How is it measured in Darwinian terms?

A

-

28
Q

What does it mean that the brain is a domain specific organ and not a general purpose organ? Why do evolutionary psychologists emphasize domain specificity?

A
  • evolved solutions must be specific to fit the problem
  • mind is designed to take in certain info (limited cues activate each adaptation)
  • inputs tell a an organism the particular adaptive problem they’re facing
  • output can be physiological, info for other mechanisms, or behavior
  • output is directed toward the solution to a specific adaptive problem
29
Q

What is combinatorial explosion? What is the solution to this?

A
  • def: is when there are too many option to leading to inaction
  • the solution to this is domain specificity which helps limit the available options
30
Q

What is meant by human nature?

A
  • cumulative product of the experiences of our ancestors affects how we feel/behave
  • human nature is universal
  • a product of both out innate human nature and our unique experiences and environment
31
Q

According to evolutionary psychologists, what is the problem with relying on “learning” alone to explain human behavior?

A
  • to say something is learned simply claims that environmental input is one component of behavior
  • learning requires evolved psych adaptations
    must be many learning adaptations as they are specific to solve certain problems
  • design features of learning adaptations must fit with specific solution to adaptive problem
32
Q

Why does EP not seek to find the specific genes that play a role in behavior to make the claim that there is an evolutionary history of behavior?

A
  • genes are polygenic- many genes work together to do different things
  • studying the specific design features of an adaptation show us that an adaptation must be evolved - helps us understand what the ancestral environment was like
33
Q

Did Darwin believe that evolution was like a ladder or a tree?

A
  • believed it was like a tree
34
Q

How can we identify adaptations?

A
  • bottom-up or “reverse engineering” - examine the solution (adaptation) and try to figure out what problem caused need for it; observation driven (ex. women like masculine faces, hypothesis: masculine faces are cues for good genes)
  • top-down - examine the problem and try to figure out what the possible solutions could have been; theory driven (ex. theory: paternity certainty; hypothesis: men will guard women to prevent cheating)
35
Q

What are the criteria for adaptations?

A
  • reliability: does the adaptation develop in most or all members of a species under normal environment; does it perform dependably in the contexts to which it is adapted
  • efficiency: does the mechanism solve a particular adaptive problem well; how effectively the trait is designed
  • economy: not unnecessarily costly; some constraints due to previous adaptations and/or sexual selection (ex. male peacock tails costly in terms of predation)
  • complexity: evolved traits are often complex so that they can solve a problem well enough; if it’s complex its probably not due to chance (ex. the eye)
  • specificity: a trait should not serve another function equally well (ex. wing designed for flight, not equally as well designed for catching prey)
36
Q

What is a direct adaptation? What is an indirect adaptation?

A
  • direct adaptation: aids in survival or reproduction
  • indirect adaptation: aid in survival or reproduction indirectly (ex. seek high status job - may lead to better mate access - higher reproductive success)
37
Q

What is an exaptation?

A
  • traits that evolved for one reason and then co-opted for another purpose
  • ex. human ear bones evolved from gill arches in fish
  • ex. penguin wings
38
Q

What is the social brain hypothesis?

A
  • in order to cooperate and compete, a big brain is necessary
  • avoid ppl who are threats, keeps track of cooperative ppl
39
Q

What is the ecological hypothesis for the evolution of big brains?

A
  • need for food drove brain size
  • require large brain to find food in seasonally changing Savannah, store food, prepare/cook food to make it easier to eat (build tools, fire)
40
Q

How are humans different than other animals?

A
  • large powerful brains
  • abstract culture
  • extensive use of language (complexity of grammar and syntax)
41
Q

What are two potential effects of novel environemental stimuli>

A
  • adaptations that were successful in ancestral environments may no longer be successful due to differences between ancestral and modern environment (ex. male sexual jealousy evolved to keep from raising unrelated offspring; the mismatch now is that birth control can serve this purpose)
  • novel stimuli may hijack evolved adaptations when closely mimic ancestral cues (ex. men in past aroused by naked women - reliable cue of sexual opportunity; while now pornoraphy hijacks this evolved arousal system and isnt adaptive
42
Q

What is inclusive fitness? Who proposed it?

A
  • proposed by William Hamilton

- total measure of organism’s reproductive success including success of future generations

PSY 330 - Evolutionary Psychology (4 decks)

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