HC 5: Evalutionary Approaches Flashcards
3 basic tenets of the Evolutionary Theory
1) Variation
2) Survival
3) Reproduction
Explain the Evolutionary Theory: Variation (3)
1) There is variation in traits between individuals within the same species.
2) Some of this variation is heritable (which is why offspring resemble parents).
3) Some of these trait variations give individuals an edge in the competition for resources.
Evolutionary Psychology (2)
1) Human mind and cognition are the product of evolutionary processes
2) Human minds contain a number of specialised psychological mechanisms (adaptations)
Explain Adaptations
Humans likely possess specialized adaptive mechanisms for heat regulation, predator avoidance, foraging, mate selection, parental investment, face recognition, language, social interaction, and leadership.
These psychological mechanisms are functional and domain-specific in the sense that they are extremely good at solving specific problems, but not others
For instance, language is a highly efficient device for sharing social information, but it is not good for keeping a body warm.
4 aspacts of Psychological Adaptations
1) Operate automatically
2) Do not require extensive learning/training
3) Are relatively culture free
4) Highly sensitive to environment
Some adaptations are shared with other species.
Most evolved mechanisms are adapted to past environments and may no longer be adaptive- provide fitness benefits in terms of survival/ reproduction.
You can think of them as “If –then” computational rules
Fundamental function of why we have leadership:
Increasing chances of survival of the group
Evolutionary theory assumes that leadership emerged as a simple coordination mechanism among group living species
5 functions of leadership
1) Movement
2) Resource acquisition/distribution
3) Conflict management
4) Alliance formation
5) Teaching
e.g. movement: One of the more fundamental coordination challenges involves the movement of the group from one place, say a waterhole, to another.
Simple rules such as “Move if hungry” or “Stay close to one’s neighbor” can produce something akin to leadership and followership.
Hunting Leaders: more complex social problems hunter-gatherer ancestors
Leadership facilitated the solution of more complex social problems that our hunter-gatherer ancestors faced, such as:
- policing groups,
- punishing free-riders,
- planning raids and battles,
- peacekeeping,
- teaching, and
- managing group resources.
Cultural Evolution
Human pass information through genes
and culture
Cultural evolution occurs at much faster
rate
- but culture is also a product of biological evolution
- Cultural evolution works through same principles of variation, selection, and retention
Explain the first emergence of Leadership
Leadership first emerged in prehuman species dating back many tens of millions of years ago as a mechanism to solve simple group coordination problems, where an individual initiated a movement and others followed; leadership was co-opted in our species, and perhaps other primates such as chimpanzees (with whom we shared a common ancestor some 5 to 7 million years ago), to foster collective action in situations involving significant conflicts of interest among individuals, such as conflict management and internal peacekeeping, in which physically dominant or socially important individuals emerged as leaders.
Explain emergence of dominance
Dominance, a heritage of our primate nature, was attenuated in early human egalitarian societies,
dating back some 2.5 million years ago, and this paved the way for prestige-based leadership and more democratic, participatory forms of group decision making, especially after the emergence of language about 100,000 years ago.
