Lecture 7 Flashcards
How did Dennett (1995) descrive evolutionary theory?
It eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionised world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognisable but transformed in fundamental ways
Discuss the resistance against psychology and the evolutionary theory?
Seen to be just stories; humans behave or look this way because of such and such (how the elephant got a trunk). These stories aren’t relied upon by data - BUT THEY ARE, we rely on data to support a hypothesis. Outside subjects don’t see that for something to be an adaption, there has to be a genetic component, so most traits of interest have genetic determinism.
History is also a large component of resistance; just because we study why Nazism may have happened it doens’t mean we support it. The idea’s stem from evolutionary theory but psychologists studying evolutionary theory are not in favour of this.
Evolutionary theories often tend to ignore culture and are reductionist.
Discuss the difference between the evolutionary model and the medical model of why we get sick
Medical model suggests we get sick because out body is a machine and machines sometimes break down, but we can repair them so they work again.
Evolutionary model suggests we get sick because of tradeoffs and constraints; pathogen coevolution; adaptations and environmental mismatch. For example, obesity is a form of environmental mismatch - we evolved to crave fatty foods whilst food was scarce, however now food is not scarce. Other examples indlue morning sickness which is a way of the mother getting rid of anything in her body that can harm the baby, fever which may allow for our body to get hot and kill bacteria or sneezing as a form of bacteria spreading.
Discuss darwinian medicine and depression
Depression is the 4th leading cause of global burden disease, and is assumed to be a brain disease or dysfunction of a healthy system. Klinger 1975 and Nesse 2004 suggest that depression is caused by failing efforts towards a goal, which result in low mood however instead of disengaging from this and relocating effort, person keeps pursing the unattaintable goal. Similarly, there is rapid progress towards a goal, which leads to high mood which leads to continued effort and risk taking.
Postpartrum depression; the medical model can’t explain it and suggests it’s a mistake. Whereas the evolutionary model suggests that psychological pain is analgous to physical pain which has a purpose. It suggests that evolution is telling the mother to withdraw her efforts. It is more linked to mothers with lower breast feeding rates and a problem at birth.
Discuss infanticide in humans
Sometimes, it could be adaptive is it preserves long-term reproductive values. It is defined by killing at young age usually by parent. As mother gets older, infanticide becomes less often, likely because she is less reproductive than younger moethers who have more potential in the future, and who may prefer to invest in other things whilst they are young. Daly & Wilson found that the step-parent is the most likely to commit infanticide, which from the evolutionary point of view makes sense as they are non-related thus investment is less beneficial.
What did Daly & Wilson find?
Step-parents are more likely to commit infanticide. And the younger the child, the more likely they are to be a victim. By teenage years it’s very unlikely
Discuss social policy and evolutionary theory
Does money buy happiness is one question we can ask to tactle this correlation. Happiness flatens quickly once people are earning over 20,000 GDP, suggesting that once you get to this earning, money doesn’t make you happier. However, richer countries who are more unqually distributed in terms of wealth have higher crime rates. This theory suggests once your needs are met, you compare yourself to others to rate how happy you are.
Discuss what is meant by young male syndrome
Male-male homocide is more likely than female-female, and male-female is roughly the same as female-male however both are still more that female-female. This helps to explain why females have higher life expentancy rates. It is more likely young men in homocide as they are the ones who are competiting for mates and social status.
What is negative relatedness?
This results in the evolution of spite, whereby it is beneficial for you to hinder yourself to hinder someone else more.
How is moral philosophy related to evolutionary theory?
Indirect harm to someone activates prefrontal cortex, whereas direct harm to somebody activates prefrontal cortex as well as limibic system which is what controls emotions. We judge actions rathers than inactions.
Discuss visual aesthetics and evolutionary theory
Strong cross cultural agreement in what is preferred in pictures. East african savannahs are most wanted in a picture, maybe this is because we are adapted to survive well there? People prefer moderatley dense tree canopies forking near ground
Discuss fiction and evolutionary theory
Average briton spends 6% of waking life engaged in fictional dramatic performances. There are 7 main types, and 4 of those have adpative metaphors. Overcoming the monster suggests a predator adaptive metophor, rags to riches suggests a competition and aquiring of resources adaptive metaphor etc.
