Lecture: Evolutionary Psychology

Question 1

When does evolution occur?

Answer 1

1) Generation of diversity
2) Selective reproduction
3) Transmitted change (Genetic, taught, imitated)

Question 2

Describe generation of diversity

Answer 2

• mutation

- crossover: what happens when there is sexual reproduction crossover of the parents genetics

Question 3

Describe selective reproduction

Answer 3

survival and reproduction of the fittest (the latter is what were more interested in because just because someone survives is irrelevant if they arent reproducing “genetic dead end”)

Question 4

describe transmitted change

Answer 4

Genetic, taught, imitated

Question 5

What are the components of biological evolution?

Answer 5

• Natural selection
• sexual selection
• artificial selection (e.g., breeding)

Question 6

What is a clear example of evolution?

Answer 6

• Peppered moth evolution

- beak of the finch (evolve with weather changes)

Question 7

What is evolutionary psychology?

Answer 7

• Explaining psychological traits as evolutionary adaptations
• Adaptationism: theorizing about evolutionary causes for phenotypes (not always true)
• Evolutionary psychology generates hypotheses, but these must be tested
• Many people will believe an evolutionary story without evidence
• There is good and bad evolutionary psychology

Question 8

What is pre determination?

Answer 8

• Mostly independent of environment (e.g., eye colour)

- Genotype and phenotype

Question 9

What traits are useless and why?

Answer 9

Proof of evolution!

• Male nipples (Nipples form before sex is determined in non-human ancestors. They are useful for females but only constitute a minor nutritive cost for males)
• Vestigial organs (e.g., appendix): Ancestors used them to digest food (not human ancestors but prototype humans long ago). Vestigial organs are some of the best evidence for evolution Why do we still have an appendix? There is little evolutionary pressure and not a lot of nutritive cost (its not like it affecting our health or abilities) so it remains.

Question 10

what is exaptation?

Answer 10

Something evolved for one purpose is used for another (e.g., female orgasm in primates (in humans oxytocin is released, increases bond, monkeys have a phenotype of being able to have in an organism but they never have sex long enough to have one), bird feathers, jaw bones exapted to inner ear bones in humans)

Question 11

what does overridable mean?

Answer 11

You can override your natural instincts E.g.,dislike/intolerance of bitter foods and drinks, such as coffee

Question 12

What is the baldwin effect?

Answer 12

Predisposition. We evolved to learn something so easily E.g., language. Monkeys and snakes (show the monkey a snake and even though they never seen one they are scared, did the same thing with a lamp and they weren’t scared)

Question 13

what is cortical and neural recycling?

Answer 13

We like the taste of aspartame, which has no nutritive value (but it resembles sugar, which we like). Masturbation is similar, tricking our bodies into thinking we are having sex

Question 14

What are culutural feedback loops?

Answer 14

Less hair leads to fewer pests, making fire and clothing allowed for us to develop less hair, there was evolutionary pressure for less hair because we had solutions for warmth and didnt want more pests. Northern Europe drank a lot of milk into adulthood, humans become lactose intolerant in adulthood, but because they drank it so much they have more lactose tolerance than other cultures.

Question 15

What is neoteny in humans?

Answer 15

Small jaw
Upright posture
Big head
Less developmental change
Less aggression
Sexual & natural selection 
--More violent people get killed 
--10% of people in hunter gatherer societies are killed through capital punishment

Question 16

When did our minds evolve from the perspective of evoltuionary psychology?

Answer 16

Our minds evolved, mostly during the pleistocence/paleolithic (The environment of evolutionary adaptation or EEA)
–Babies preferred landscape pictures of the savannah, where a lot of evolution occurred If the environment is changing really quickly there is no evolutionary effect (MSN messenger ~10 years)

Question 17

Describe mate selection in terms

Answer 17

Evolution predicts that men will be most attracted to healthy women who can bear children, and women should be most attracted to men who will provide resources to help raise the offspring
looks are usually more important to men. Men are most attracted to women in the reproductive range (18-35, physical maturation)
Men like a low waist to hip ratio (.7) and low ratios produce smarter children and healthier women
Research indicates that the richer the country the thinner they expect the women to be. In poor countries fat is good, shows availability of resources and health.

Question 18

What do women want?

Answer 18

• Woman prefer high prestige men or long term commitment, and dominant men for short term sexual affairs
• 3-4% of babies come from extra pair copulations

Question 19

What do we remember better?

Answer 19

Prediction: we should remember better things for survival (food, falling, etc.)
in a word memory test, this was found to be true.

Question 20

How has evolution effected our taste in food?

Answer 20

• Fat, salt, protein and sugar are important nutrients that were rare in the vast majority of our evolutionary history.
• Now we live in a society that has abundant fat and sugar. We didn’t evolve to deal with massive quantities of it–never had to.

Question 21

What do married people show modest correlations for (selfish genes and kin selection)?

Answer 21

• breadth of nose
• length of earlobe
• wrist measurements
• distance between eyes
• lung volume
• Length of middle finger correlates a whole .61. Similarity, in general, predicts marital success.

Question 22

What are our minds a collection of according to evolutionary psychology?

Answer 22

Our minds are a collection of special purpose mechanisms for dealing with specific kinds of problems
It is “molecular” rather than “general purpose”
These adaptations might no longer be beneficial