Lecture 1

Question 1

What is Cartesian dualism?

Answer 1

The belief that there is a distinction between the mind and the body. However, Darwin believes there is an interaction between the two.

Question 2

Give 4 pieces of evidence for evolution

Answer 2

Fossils
Similarities among related species
Rapid selection (artificial)
Geographic isolation of related species

Question 3

What are the three principles of natural selection?

Answer 3

The principle of variation (everyone has variation)
The principle of inheritance (the variation must inheritable but this doesn’t have to be genetic, for example, culture)
The principle of adaptation (competition among offspring)

Question 4

What is adaptive radiation?

Answer 4

A diverse group of related organisms that fill different ecological niches.

Question 5

What are Tinbergen’s 4 explanations to explain behaviour?

What are the two subcategories for these?

Answer 5

Ontogenetic or developmental explanations; development changes individuals
Functional explanations/adaptations; a fitness advantage in the current environment
Mechanistic explanations; the structure of the component (biological)
Phylogenetic/historical explanations; the evolutionary history of the organism.

These are subdivided into proximate (how it occurs) (mechanistic and ontogenetic) and ultimate (why it occurs) (functional and phylogenetic). Proximate happens within a lifetime and ultimate happens in history.

Question 6

What is the difference between adaptive and adaptation?

Answer 6

Adaptive is an adjective and adaptation is a noun. For example, you could have an adaptation that is no longer adaptive and vice versa.

Question 7

What is the multi-regional hypothesis?
What is the out of Africa hypothesis?
Which one is accepted today?

Answer 7

The multi-regional hypothesis believes that homoerectus spilled out of Africa all over the world and the populations evolved into homosapiens separately. However, there was gene flow (sex between the populations) to prevent speciation.
The out of Africa hypothesis believes that homoerectus spread all over the world. However, only the population in Africa speciated to homosapiens and they out-competed all of the other populations and spread over the world. This was found based on mitochondrial DNA.
The out of Africa hypothesis is more widely accepted. However, the issue with it is that we have neanderthal DNA still even though the hypothesis suggests we are not related to this European population.

Question 8

True or false

Behaviour and cognitions are the product of evolution

Answer 8

True. Also, cultural phenomena can operate selection.

Question 9

Define anisogamy

Answer 9

The fact that females have a few, large gametes and males have the opposite. Therefore, poor offspring or failed reproduction is more costly for females so females need to be more choosy.

Question 10

What is Bateman’s principle?

Answer 10

The idea that there is large variation in males’ reproductive success because they are limited in the number of females. For example, males could mate a lot more if there were more females. This and anisogamy results in choosy females and increased male competition.

Question 11

How do men and women differ in their mate preferences?

Answer 11

Men; not choosy, polygynous, want youth and fertility. They care more about mating but have trade-offs between this and rearing. Humans have really high parental care. Men’s standards are lower than women’s.
Women; choosy, monogamous, want good genetic quality and resources. They care more about rearing. This explains why females seek older males as they have more resources, status etc; shown via lonely hearts columns.

Question 12

What is mate choice copying?

Answer 12

This is when you find someone more attractive because they have an attractive partner. This makes sense from an evolutionary point of view because someone must be attractive/have good fitness if that attractive person likes them.

Question 13

Polygyny is mainly a male viewpoint. However, can polygyny be affected by culture?

Answer 13

Yes, it can be affected by it a lot. For example, there is no evidence that shows that men cheat more than women in monogamous relationships.

Question 14

Why is there less sexual dimorphism among monogamous species?

Answer 14

Because there is less variation in reproductive success among males so therefore there is less competition and less need for morphological differences.

Question 15

What is the difference between inter and intra?

Answer 15

Inter is between people - like international

Intra is within the same group or person

Question 16

List some sexually selected characteristics that humans have

Answer 16

Males; muscular torso, beards, deep voice etc.
Females; neonatal facial features, breasts, waist to hip ratios etc. However, if females have sexually selected characteristics then there must be female-female competition. There are both physical and psychological (assertive men e.g.) sexually selected characteristics.

Question 17

Discuss attractiveness in terms of facial features

Answer 17

There are sex typical facial movements; the more facial movements, the more attractive a female is seen.
Additionally, symmetrical facial features are attractive among both genders, perhaps because it is a sign of resistance to disease or developmental stability.

Question 18

Discuss averageness and attractiveness

Answer 18

The more typical of a gender you are, the more attractive you are perceived. Also, averageness is seen as attractive, shown via ratings on a composite image.

Question 19

Discuss assortative mating

Answer 19

Assortative mating is when people assess their market value and then adjust their preference to match it. Their choices are modified on what they can offer. Hence why attractive people get together and vice versa. Additionally, your market value/others’ constantly changes, for example demandingness. When supply drops then standards lower, e.g. later on in the night.

Question 20

Discuss the similarities and differences between sexes in terms of flirting

Answer 20

Similarities; Eye contact, accidental touching, swaying body.
Differences; Women have more non-verbal cues and males usually respond with overt cues. The non-verbal cues women use are wedding rings or lack of, fitted clothing, make-up. Men use mobile phones as lekking devices to show off their resources. However, there are many cultural influences, for example, make-up could be used for personal use/fashion, not to attract a guy. Therefore, we can conclude that most strategies are contingent (unpredictable) strategies.

Question 21

Discuss Howard’s study

Answer 21

Evidence for sexual dimorphism. Salamanders have this; the females sexually select the males with larger tails. However, these larger tails have no fitness benefit and do not help the males among male-male competition.

Question 22

Discuss Waynforth’s study

Answer 22

They found that mate choice copying is predominantly a female tactic and only works when the female partner is attractive. It is a female tactic as it removes the costs of wasting time gathering information about the potential mate choice.

Question 23

Discuss Opie’s study

Answer 23

They explored why monogamous relationships have developed in humans. Cann found that it was a recent adaptation shown via mitochondrial DNA. The evolution of monogamy correlated with biparental care. However, it was mainly shown to be involved with protecting the child from the male infanticide of competitors.

Question 24

Discuss Kalmijn’s study

Answer 24

They researched whether cultural matching is more important than economic matching in terms of assortative mating. The results suggested that similar cultural status is more important when finding a mate compared to similar economic status.

Question 25

Discuss Ranganath’s study

Answer 25

They explored how good humans are at detecting flirtatious behaviour on speed dates. The results showed that humans are very poor at detecting flirting when comparing their detection scores to the flirtation-detection system. Humans often projected their intended behaviour onto the date’s behaviour.