Human Behaviour and Evolution Flashcards
What is the environment of evolutionary adaption?
EEA - idea that we have evolved our current behaviour from past environments, and so cannot look to the current state of things for behavioural explanation
Adaptionist approach to human evolution?
Behaviour reflects environmental selective pressure, usually from our African origins/stone age dispersals.
Phylogenetic inertia?
We may now be post-evolutionary, and exhibit many behaviours with no actual advantage
How can we measure human fitness? (3)
Counting babies - not very applicable anymore
Attractiveness/preference surveys, not very realistic
Questionnaires - hypothetical so also not very realistic
What are the tenets of evolutionary biology? (4)
Adaptionist environments (EEA)
Gradualism
Modularity and cognition (task-specific traits)
Universal psychological mechanisms
Gradualism?
Due to weak selection over time, there is a temporal mismatch between acquired behaviours and the factors that caused them
What is the modular mind?
Idea that our brains have evolved to solve modern issues with some locational specificity i.e. certain regions for certain tasks
Fodor modules?
Sensory input systems argued to be modular, as they are specific to their tasks and localised to one area
Evidence for modularity? (4)
Perceptual systems e.g. facial recognition even when images are distorted
Dedicated areas (Broca’s, Wernickes)
Reflexes and relic behaviours in newborns
Rapid language acquisition suggests instinctive
What functions are suggested have adapted modules? (5)
Cheater-detection Incest avoidance Self recognition Predator detection WHR detection (waist hip ratio for fertility)
What is WEIRD science?
Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic bias in research, also dominated by US studies
Culturally labile traits?
Those that vary between locations e.g. WHR preferences, specific in US, may be different e.g. in places with food scarcity
What are behavioural signatures?
Certain traits that can be mapped to a cause e.g. lactose tolerance mapped to history of livestock rearing and milk-drinking
Stages of demographic transition?
- High stationary (pre industrial-revolution)
- Early expanding (death rates down)
- Late expanding (growth slows as birth rates drop)
- Low stationary (both low)
- Declining (theoretical, birth rate below death)
How can we identify human adaptation?
EEA
Punctuated vs gradual change
Universality
Human behavioural ecology?
Looking from an ecological perspective: foraging, life history, marriage/inheritance
Evolutionary psychology?
Looking from adaptationist/sexual selection perspective: mate choice, attractiveness, modularity
How do social relationships affect health?
White Hall Study - like Sapolski’s baboons, lower ranking civil servants had poorest health due to uncertainty and lack of skill utilisation
What is culture?
Inheritance of acquired behaviour
Key aspect of cultural transmission?
Social learning - through copying others
What is cumulative culture?
Acquisition of information that is then modified - unique to humans, it requires high transmission rates in large populations to retain the modifications
Cultural evolution?
Change in traits in a population due to social learning
Horizontal transmission?
Within a generation/ non-parental
Meme?
Cultural entity (analogous to a gene) replicated and transmitted
Replicator?
Something that can be replicated (e.g. DNA sequence) and manipulate its chances of replication
Vertical transmission?
Genetic or non-genetic info transfer from parent to offspring
Examples of cultural behaviour in animals?
3
Learned behaviours like nest building, tool use, innovations
How can we study animal culture? What is the most common animal?
Usually via ethnographic descriptions - behaviours in a population not observed in another
Fish are the best method for this; easy to identify different environmental backgrounds
Chimp vs human learning?
Chimps emulate, understanding the aim of the behaviour
Children imitate i.e. copy irrelevant actions, with high fidelity so-we do not need to understand the mechanism
Dual inheritance theory?
Human evolution centred on balance between biological and cultural processes
Examples of dual inheritance? (2)
Lactose intolerance - cultural driver (milk farming or not) of biological trait (enzymes)
Fire (cultural) meant our eating changed, causing changes to teeth/guts
Features of evolutionary memes? (4)
Cultural replicators: High mutation rate Rapid evolution Spread independent of accuracy (unlike biology) Neutral, functionless units
Stepwise evolution?
Has led to stable societies in primates - ancestral behaviours e.g. language can be tracked along out evolutionary history
Rate of language evolution depends on? (2)
Word length
Frequency of use
Phonemic diversity and importance?
Number of sounds in a language - this is greatest in Africa, supporting the idea that language expanded from here with our migration
