Psychology Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Evolutionary psychology: Evolutionary psychology explores how human behaviors and cognitive functions have evolved to enhance survival and reproduction. It examines how natural selection has shaped psychological traits, emphasizing the adaptive significance of traits in the context of ancestral environments. See also Evolution, Darwinism, Adaption, Selection, Environment, Personality traits, Behavior._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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David M. Buss on Evolutionary Psychology - Dictionary of Arguments
Corr II 171 Evolutionary Psychology/EP/Buss/Figueredo: (…) we may envision a mass of people escaping a burning building by different exits: main exits, emergency exits, windows and service doors. Personality is similar. Just as everyone has to escape the burning building in the analogy, so there is the evolutionary imperative to reproduce before death; and just as there are many exits, one can foster successful reproduction by being gregarious and charming as with the social extravert, dogged II 172 and persevering like the exceedingly conscientious, or ingratiating and affiliative like the highly agreeable. Thus, different personality styles and strategies have evolved in competition with one another for the same goal of survival and reproduction, but with different ways and means of adaptation. II 173 [Buss] insists that evolution forges the ‘physiological, anatomical and psychological mechanisms’ that inform choice, inclination, aversion and attraction. II 175 (…) the new science of EP correctly represented emitted behaviours as the product of the interactions between evolved psychological mechanisms and specific stimulus inputs from the environment to which they were finely tuned. II 179 Survival/Reproduction: (…) Buss outlined eight exigencies of survival and reproduction in any adaptive landscape populated by concentrations of conspecifics: (1) successful intrasexual competition, (2) mate selection, (3) successful conception, (4) mate retention, (5) reciprocal dyadic alliance formation, (6) coalition-building and maintenance, (7) parental care and socialization and (8) extra-parental kin investment. There follows a continuation of Buss’s claim that EP is an able arbiter of theory in its ability to impose a biologically informed kind of Occam’s razor upon theoretical claims within personality psychology. II 180 A common misconception regarding the evolution of personality, critiqued by Buss (2011)(1), is that selection acts as a homogenizing force leading to single point of optimality in the phenotype distribution. In contrast, evolutionary theory predicts that the location of this point will vary depending upon the type of selective pressures active, in accordance to the relationship between a trait and its fitness. II 182 The alternative explanations summarized by Buss (1991)(2) for the origins of partially heritable personality characteristics and the retention of individual differences remain as possibilities, but the list of alternatives has been expanded [in a volume edited by Buss and Hawley (2011)(3)]. For example, it has been argued as possible that selective sweeps within the past several thousand years (…) are behind the large variation among humans. Gene flow due to accelerated migration of individuals among human populations is also a contender hypothesis. Balancing selection, whereby multiple phenotypes are adaptive in a complementary way, each in a specific subset of the species niches, has remained as a focus of discussion. >Evolution, >Selection, >Adaptation, >Niches, >Species, >Genes, >Heritability. 1. Buss, D. (2011). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind (4th ed.). Hove, UK: Psychology Press. 2. Buss, D. M. (1991). Evolutionary personality psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 42, 459–491. 3. Buss, D. M., & Hawley, P. H. (2011). The evolution of personality and individual differences. New York: Oxford University Press. Figueredo, Aurelio J.; Fernandes, Heitor B. F.; Peñaherrera-Aguirre, Mateo and Hertler, Steven C.: “The Evolution of Personality Revisiting Buss (1991)”, In: Philip J. Corr (Ed.) 2018. Personality and Individual Differences. Revisiting the classical studies. Singapore, Washington DC, Melbourne: Sage, pp. 171-190._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Buss, David M. Corr I Philip J. Corr Gerald Matthews The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Psychology New York 2009 Corr II Philip J. Corr (Ed.) Personality and Individual Differences - Revisiting the classical studies Singapore, Washington DC, Melbourne 2018 |
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