Evolutionary Psychology
Definition
Evolutionary psychology is an approach in psychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits as the functional products of natural selection. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations.
Analogy
Think of evolutionary psychology like a software update for your phone. Just as updates add new features or fix bugs to help your phone work better, evolutionary pressures have shaped our minds and behaviors over time to increase our chances of survival and reproduction.
Related terms
Natural Selection: The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.
Adaptation: A trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection.
Sexual Selection: A mode of natural selection where members of one biological sex choose mates of the other sex with whom to reproduce, and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex.
"Evolutionary Psychology" appears in:
Study guides (1)
Practice Questions (11)
What's a critique of Evolutionary Psychology's explanation for human behavior?
What could dispute the evolutionary psychology view suggesting that our ancestors slept at night for protection from predators?
What role does olfaction play in mate selection according to evolutionary psychology?
How does evolutionary psychology explain differences in spatial skills between genders?
What explanation might evolutionary psychology provide for why some individuals are transgender?
What mechanism in evolutionary psychology explains the different mating behaviors observed between genders?
How does evolutionary psychology contribute to our understanding of psychological disorders?
What would be a compelling critique of Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments from an evolutionary psychology viewpoint?
How might evolutionary psychology explain aggression as a survival tool?
How does evolutionary psychology challenge traditional perspectives on interpersonal attraction?
What's a potential criticism of using evolutionary psychology as an explanation for interpersonal attraction?
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