Lecture 23: Human and animal Flashcards
Give an example of Tinbergen’s 4 whys in terms of babies crying
Proximate: Being hungry, a brain mechanism
Ontogenetic: Baby has learnt that crying means food
Phylogenetic: All primate vocalise to attract the caregiver
Functional: Crying bonds the baby and mother and alerts the mother to problems.
List a synonym for each: Proximate Ontogenetic Phylogenetic Functional
Mechanistic
Developmental
Historical
Ultimate
What is property dualism?
Why is property dualism controversial?
The idea that there is a conflict of decisions between mental substances and physical substances.
Descartes said it’s controversial because it is dualistic as the two are different but the mental substances controls the physical brain.
Define cartesian dualism
Talk about it
The idea that the mind isn’t a physical substance but the body is and the two interact.
This theory contradicts evolution as it causes a clear divide between animals and humans which people are looking for.
Describe human behaviour from a biological principle
They don’t leave room for culture, e.g. Wilson 1975. They believe in genetic determinism and claim that opponents commit naturalistic fallacy. However, evolutionary analysis has revealed phenotypic plasticity.
Give an example of phenotypic plasticity
The out of Africa hypothesis. For example the fact that the world colonised itself very rapidly resulting in different taxa and behaviours.
What are the 4 common misconceptions about evolution today?
Humans have stopped evolving, evolution results in improvement, humans evolved from monkeys and group selection, developed by Wynne-Edwards 1962.
Discuss mate choice in terms of evolution
One example is anisogamy between gametes. Poor quality offspring is more costly for females as males can mate with many, therefore, females should spend their investment wisely.
Also, there’s Bateman’s principle, men can produce more offspring but are limited by females, therefore there is a huge variation in male reproductive success.
Both of these things have made females choosier, this is thanks to evolution. This results in different preferences between genders.
Describe a man’s preference in a female
Describe a woman’s
Relate this to humans
Not choosy, emphasises mating effort (this is a tradeoff between mating and rearing), seek polygyny, youth and fertility.
Choosy, emphasises rearing effort, seek monogamy, genetic quality and ability to provide.
Women seek well off, professional, educated, stable, dependable and family orientated men.
Men seek good looking, healthy, pretty and shapely women. The traits people offer reflect what they seek.
Men usually like younger women and vice versa for women, this is because of reproductive value vs access to resources. Waynforth 1995.
Are women more choosy?
They seek more traits than men in adverts, men are more willing to date a wider range of women, women use a variety of cues whereas men just use attractiveness as a cue. Grammer 1999. There is also examples of mate choice copying as women find men more attractive if they’re with an attractive woman.
Discuss altruism in terms of evolution
Hamilton’s theory; the more closely related, the more altruistic you are to them. rB>C. We can see whether this rule is real via perceived investment measured through questionnaires, actual investment (wills) and lack of investment (neglect of children). Smith 1987 found that a higher proportion of the estate in wills is given to the closest relatives, this then decreases along with relatedness. Madsen 2007 found that people would last longer in an isometric skiing task if they were getting paid directly (100% relatedness) then this would slightly decrease along with relatedness.
Discuss altruism in terms of people who are unsure of their relatives
This would happen mainly in males as they are uncertain of their offspring whereas females are certain. This is paternity certainty. Apicella 2004 found that men invested more if their child resembled them (positive correlation) and there was a positive correlation between the faithfulness of the partner and the investment in the offspring. Platek 2004 found that when a child’s face was morphed with the participants’ face, the men said that they were more likely to invest in the offspring, due to resemblance, compared to women.
Discuss how altruism is negative for non-relatives
Daly and Wilson 1988 did a study about homicide and found leading figures in evolutionary approaches to violence. Relatives are least at risk of homicide compared to non-relatives. Also, the risk of infanticide is much higher when living with a step-parent, regardless of their personality.
Discuss cheat detection in terms of evolution
The cheat detection module is the idea that living in groups requires cooperation which requires the ability to detect cheaters. A rapid mechanism for this would be advantageous. We can detect cheaters via the Wason selection task; you are presented with 4 cards, you are told ‘the ones with a vowel on the front have an even number on the reverse’, you are given cards that say A. H. 4. 7. How do you detect the cheater? You turn over the vowel card and the odd number card. If this is changed to a social situation, the solution is much easier.
How relevant is evolution?
This time 40 years ago, most books didn’t discuss it however in the present day, more than 90% of psychological academic journals discuss evolution.
