PSYC 358 Evolutionary Psychology Instructor: Mark Schaller Class website: http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/psyc358.htm Today’s topic: Introduction to “Evolutionary Psychology” What is “evolutionary psychology”? What’s going to happen in this course? Contemporary humans are a product of hundreds of millions of years of genetic evolution! What is “Evolutionary Psychology”? Here’s one answer: (paraphrased from Cosmides & Tooby, 1997) Evolutionary psychology is an approach to asking and answering questions about how the mind works, in which basic principles of evolutionary biology are used to inform research on human psychology. (Evolutionary psychology isn’t defined by any specific topics of inquiry; instead, it is defined by a systematic way of thinking about psychology, which can potentially be applied to any topic area within the psychological sciences.) What is “Evolutionary Psychology”? Here’s another answer: Evolutionary psychology assumes two elementary principles of genetic evolution and developmental biology… 1. The genes that define contemporary human populations are products of a long history of evolution by natural selection. 2. The human nervous system typically develops according to a recipe encoded in those genes. …and, by systematically considering the implications of those assumptions, this approach yields new insights about how the human mind was “designed” by natural selection, and about how our minds work right here and right now. What is “Evolutionary Psychology”? And here’s another answer: A lot of complicated processes are implied here: Cognition, affect, behavior in the here and now cognitive, affective, and behavioral neuroscience How the nervous system actually works. anatomy and physiology Development of the human nervous system developmental biology Actual genetic stuff that characterizes contemporary humans. evolutionary biology; population genetics Specific selection pressures on ancestral populations. What we will actually focus on: Cognition, affect, behavior in the here and now How the nervous system actually works. Development of the human nervous system Actual genetic stuff that characterizes contemporary humans. Specific selection pressures on ancestral populations. This course in three parts: Part 1: Gene`s eye view of life, and the useful implications of this perspective for understanding how the human mind works. Part 2: Challenges associated with survival and sexual reproduction in ancestral populations, which affected how the human mind evolved, with implications for contemporary human cognition and behavior. Part 3: Other challenges that mattered in ancestral populations, which also affected how the human mind evolved, with additional implications for contemporary human cognition and behavior. Class Website… http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/psyc358.htm Scaling of Grades… Next class: Logical principles underlying evolutionary psychology Readings (in addition to reading the syllabus, of course): Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1997). Evolutionary psychology: A primer. Center for Evolutionary Psychology; University of California, Santa Barbara. Confer, J. C., Easton, J. A., Fleischman, D. S., Goetz, C. D., Lewis, D. G. M., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2010). Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations. American Psychologist, 65, 110–126.
