IDA: Evolutionary explanations

Question 1

Issues of gender

Answer 1

• Evolutionary explanations can have sexist biases
• By arguing that there are fundamental, natural differences between men and women, evolutionary psychologists seem to be arguing that these differences are unchangeable.

Question 2

Gender differences in EEA

Answer 2

• The image they present of men as natural hunters and women as natural mothers implies that women should stay at home to look after children while men go out to work.
• It also implies that women who choose not to have children, or to work full- time, i.e., to have reduced levels of parental investment, are being ‘unnatural’.
• It also reinforces the way in which women in our society are judged by their looks and men by their achievements in work.

Question 3

Accounts for gender inequalities

Answer 3

-The image presented of sex differences, therefore, reinforces traditional gender roles and gender inequality: men earn more than women because their role is to provide resources for women to raise their offspring, while women cannot expect to earn more because they are naturally designed for child- rearing, i.e., parental investment.

Question 4

Can be used to justify immoral behaviour

Answer 4

-For example, men can claim that it is only ‘natural’ that they ogle attractive women, are unfaithful in relationships (or want to be), consume pornography, etc, because that is how they have been designed by

Question 5

Ignores cultural variation

Answer 5

• There is much variation between cultures in gender norms

- The Evo expl does not account for this

Question 6

Ignores alternative explanations for gender differences

Answer 6

• Could be explained by SLT
• We all grow up in societies with certain models on whom we base our behaviour, and imitate such models.
• For example, male investment in offspring via childcare has increased greatly over the last 50 years, as well as varying between societies, and this cannot be explained by changes / differences in genes.

Question 7

Stresses nature above nurture

Answer 7

• Evo expls stress biological factors over nurture and environmental factors.
• For instance being bought up in other cultures will results in different kinds of relationship formation and breakdown etc

Question 8

Sexual selection is unscientific

Answer 8

• Some critics have argued that evolutionary theory make itself unfalsifiable by claiming to be able to explain any behaviour, even when two behaviours contradict each other.
• Science is supposed to involve hypothesis testing, i.e., making a prediction, testing the hypothesis and rejecting the theory if the evidence does not support the prediction.

Question 9

Gould argues…

Answer 9

-Gould argues that evolutionary explanations involve ‘just- so’ stories (after Kipling’s whimsical tales) in which evolutionary ‘stories’ are made up to explain any behaviour.

Question 10

Rose argues…

Answer 10

-Rose argues that evolutionary psychologists take how humans behave now, imagine how these abilities evolved then use this to explain the present behaviour. This is just circular!

Question 11

The theory is speculative because…

Answer 11

• There is an additional problem; you cannot go back in time and study what life was like in the EEA.
• This makes evolutionary ideas about why humans are the way we are very speculative, and thus unscientific.