Lecture 1

Introduction & Overview, Evolutionary Psychology

Reductionism

An epistemological position that simplifies a complex phenomenon by isolating independent and dependent variables and examining their interrelation

Holism

An epistemological position emphasising the irreducible complexity of phenomena - the whole is different from the sum of its parts

Behavioural genetics

A biometric approach concerned with isolating genetic vs environmental sources of individual differences in intelligence, personality or proneness to mental illness - reductionist

Nature vs Nurture debate → Twins separated at birth

Maccoby (2000) → There is evidence that (a) parents influence children (b) children’s genetic makeup affects how they are treated by parents

Psychology

The scientific study of the mind and behaviour, also a set of practices int he community and wider society → centred on the individual

Phylogeny

About species and how it has developed

Ontogeny

How an individual has developed in their own lifestyle

Evolutionary biology/psychology

A conceptual framework for understanding human traits as products of natural selection during our evolutionary past

Sociobiology

A branch of evolutionary biology, focused on reproductive success as an explanation for the natural selection of particular traits

Criticisms → genetically deterministic

Game theory

A branch of mathematics analysing strategies for dealing with competitive situation where the outcome of a participants choice depends on the action of other participants

E.g. the prisoners dilemma

Inclusive fitness

The theory that co-operation and altruism increases the organisms gentic success and therefore the survival of the species

Not talking about fitness as in physique → more like how a species is fit for a envi

Comparative psychology

The study of similarities and differences in organisms behaviour

Evolutionary psychology

Redefined in the late 1980s by Cosmides and Tooby as the theoretical perspective integrating principle of evolutionary biology with the information processing framework of cognitive psychology

The Massive Modularity Hypothesis

Criticisms

The human mind consists of many innate special purpose information processing systems shaped by natural selection, each dedicated to solving a restricted set of problems

Ketehar and Ellis (2000) → The basic assumption of evolutionary psychology can’t be tested by the scientific method

David (2002) → Dangers of importing a model from computer systems to psychology given that sociological explanation can account for human cultural rules that computers cannot follow

Samuels (1998) → The ‘library model of cognition’

The ‘library model of cognition’

Samuels (1998) → An alternative theor