Lecture 8 Flashcards
What did Lamarkian theorise?
That characteristics acquired of an individual’s lifetime are passed on to their offspring
What are the characteristics of natural selection?
- Individual variations within populations
- Competition for survival
- Evolutionary fitness and reproduction
What is natural selection?
Where organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring
What does evolutionary psychology look at?
Looks at the distant past to understand the present
According to evolutionary psychology, how should we understand personality?
in terms of adaption to the environment
According to evolutionary psychology’s perspective on personality….?
the mind evolved to serve various adaptive functions
What is the modularity of mind?
our minds have developed particular kinds of tools (modules) that allow us to survive e.g. predator detection module & attachment theory
What does the Swiss Army Knife Model mean?
That are minds come up with different strategies to help us survive
What does Tooby and Cosmides, 1990, state?
that we should see no differences between the forces that shape our physiological factors and those that shape our psychological factors
What do environmental psychologists believe about human nature?
That we are acting upon unconscious instinctive motivation - we behave according to ancient programming - everything is caused by our need/want to reproduce and survive
Describe Buss’ Mating Strategy hypothesis
Where males and females differ it is a result of different problems with environmental adaption
According to Buss, what are two characteristics of females in the animal kingdom?
- Females tend to typically invest more heavily in offspring than males
- Females tend to be more selective in mate choice
What are three female mating strategies?
- females & gestation, childbirth, lactation
- attempt to secure a mate to maintain offspring & offer protection
- prefer long-term mating to short-term
What are three male mating strategies?
- males desire to spread their genes as far as possible
- attempt to secure as many sexual partners as possible
- greater preference for short-term mating
What are two findings by Buss?
- females prefer wealthy men and men prefer young, buxom women
- male prefer looks in ST & LT, females prefer status and and resource in LT
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