Human Evolution & Natural Selection Flashcards by Yasmine Benzidane

What does Nativism supports

Knowledge of the world is mostly innate, and determines certain abilities

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Nativism supports Nature or Nurture

Nature (genes, etc) determines behaviour according to nativism

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True or False, empiricism supports that at birth, the mind is tabula rasa (empty state), nothing in terms of behaviour and knowledge is inherited, ALL IS LEARNED

True!

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Empiricism supports Nature or Nurture

Nurture aka the environment determines behaviour

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What does interactionism supports

Basic abilities and knowledge is innate, but can be influence by experience

→strong evidence of that statement

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What is the Out of Africa Migration

Migration of the homo sapiens out of Africa and crossbreeding between different homo then occured

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What is the cognitive revolution and its cause

It is the massive increase of the brain size caused by mutation in the gene ARHGAP11B

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What is the consequence of the mutation in the ARHGAP11B gene

It lead to the developpment of typical “folded” structure of human brain

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What are the consequences of the increase of brain size for humans (5)

spend more time looking for food
muscle atrophy
human premature birth
cooking
very special language

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What are the 2 consequences of cooking for humans

increase nutritional density of food

2. improve digestion speed

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What is particular to human communication (4)

ability to communicate knowledge about the world
planning
communication about social structure
ability to communicate about things that do not exists

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What did the ability to communicate non-physical concepts allows us to do

Increase size of functional human societies according to laws, rules, concepts
create cooperation of strangers
rapid innovation of social behaviour

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What is the main impact of the Agricultural Revolution

Animals and plants were domesticated (or did they domesticate us)

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What are the 5 consequences of the agricultural revolution

concept of ownership
- by accumulation
Villages, cities and nations became default social structures
Diet change : wholesome and varied → monocultural
- nutrion-related diseases occured
Reduced knowledge about wider surroundings
More time working or food than for hunting
- work related disease emerged

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True or false, accroding to Evolutionary Psychologist, our mind remained hunter-gathered minds and our behaviour reflect this?

True, we are not yet adapted to the settled lifestyle

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Why did we become sedentarist according to evolutionary psychology

To have more kids, genetic survival

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What is the main focus of the scientific revolution

Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and others shifted the aim to understand human nature instead of controlling it

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What characterizes the Anthropocene

Present period characterized by human ability to modify our environment

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How does the perception of cuteness that elicit caretaking is called

Kindchenschema

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What is piloerection and why does it happen

The phenomenon of hair that stand up as a reaction to fright, cold, etc

It happens to insulate us from cold, but evolution speaking to make us appear bigger and scarier

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What does the fact that children love to build caves. littles forts and hideaway infere

that we have an unconscious use of environmental features to provide cover

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Why many humans prefer to sit back against walls and first occupy seats at corners and at borders/edges

Symbol of protection that provides higher lookout as habitation

What do body contact express

It signals affection, caring and grooming

What are 5 examples of inborn characteristics

inborn reflexes
attraction to novelty
motive to explore and manipulate objects
impulse to play
capacity for specific basic cognitive ability

Describe 5 innate human behaviour

1. the moro reflex 2. Grasping reflex 3. Rooting reflex (feeding behaviour) 4. crying 5. Smilling & laughing

What is the Moro Reflex, one of the 5 innate human behaviour

it is the reflex after the lost of balance of a baby to attract the mother's attention to be able to survive

What observation lead to think that smiling and laughing is an innate human behaviour

A little and cute boy who is blind and deaf from birth can smile and laugh! This inferes that laughing and smiling is universal for all humans

What does the crying of a baby and toddler creates to an adult, neurologicaly speaking

stimulates the amygdala and promotes a fear response

What is the difference between genotype and phenotype

A genotype refers to the genes of an individual. As for the phenotype, it refers to a precise characteristic of the individual that is the product of the genotype. So genotype influence phenotype and not inversely. However, environmental factors can influence gene expression

What are the two dimension to consider to explain behaviour

1. Proximate cause | 2. Ultimate cause

What is the Proximate cause

Internal changes in animal such as hormones, learnings, experience explain HOW the animal produces a behaviour

What is the Ultimate causes

it is related to the evolutionary causes of behaviour and explains WHY an animal behaves a certain way

What does the Tomato Plant experiment represents

Pot : environment Seed : genetic Two different set of growth where one strongly favors growth compared to the other one from the same kind of seeds. Within the same pot, they are small differences. However, between to the pots, there are big differences. * this demonstrate how the environment induces greater differences than the genetics

What is the nature and nurture characteristics of monozygotic twins growing apart

- EQUAL nature | - DIFFERENT nurture

What is the nature and nurture characteristics of dyzygotic twins living together

- SIMILAR nature, but not identical | - EQUAL nurture

True or false, monozygotic twins have more simialr IQ-test scores than dizygotic twins

True!

True or false, adopted children have a smaller correlation with the scores of their biological than non biological relative

False! Scores of adopted children correlate stronger with the scores of their biological than non nonbiological relatives

- Rapid multiplication - Limited environmental resources - Struggle for existence - Variation/mutations - Survival for the fittesst - Inheritance of the useful variation describe which theory

Darwin's Theory of Evolution

What do the rapid multiplication of Darwin infers

Many species tend to produce more offspring than can survive to increase random mutations that increases the chances of survival

What does the struggle for existence allows.

Competition that create symbiosis!

What are the positive aspect of variation in the genome

Greater genetic variation increases the chance to adapt to the variant environment

How does today technology impacts human natural selection

We now control our environment, we manage to "run" the planet, no more genetic adaption to nature is needed ps: we need to adapt the world we constructed, to our own nature

What is the Endosymbiotic Theory

Theory that explains evolution by the principle of cooperation of an organism inside another organism to a more complex organism that favors survival

What does prokaryote means (decompose the word)

pro : before | karyon : nucleus

True or false, eukaryotic mitochondria reproduce by themselves

Indeed bibi

Where do the organelles of an eukarotic cell come from

from the symbiosis of living prokaryotic life forms

What are the 3 main problems/critics of Evolutionary Psychology

- Modularity principle - Poor and rare diagnostic test in evolutionary psychology - Simple genetic model

Why does the modularity of the mind is considered one of the critic of evolutionary psychology

Plasticity in the brain during and after development is hard to reconcile with the modularity of mind hypothesis

What are example of psychological conditions that cannot be explained by evolutionary psychology

Suicide, homosexuality, self-harm

Why do males tend to be more promiscuous/immoral than females according evolutionary Ψ

It's because they do not need to invest into a parter in order to spread their genes... this is also why they supposedly desire secual novelty

Why do females tend to be more monogamous than males according to evolutionary Ψ

It's because of the high cost of investment into pregnancy and that may explain why they prefer security over novelty

True or false, evolutionary Ψ is based on simplistic stereotypes of gender differences

True.

Is infidelity in small groups not adaptative strategy

yes

Which has a better rate of survival, cooperation or competition

Cooperation