Introduction/Evolution

What is mental health?

Social and psychological well-being, affecting how one thinks, feels, makes choices, handles stress, and relates to others.

What are proximate explanations?

Explains how a trait arises in an individual.

What are ultimate explanations?

Explains why a trait exists in the first place.

What is evolution in a biological context?

The process by which heritable traits of a population change over time.

What is natural selection?

A mechanism of evolution in which heritable traits that provide advantages for survival and reproduction are favored and retained over time, while less beneficial traits are diminished, resulting in the adaptation of organisms to their environments.

What are Darwin’s three postulates?

1. Struggle for existence

2. Individual variation affects success

3. Variation is heritable

What is adaptation?

An heritable trait that improves bearer’s chance of survival and/or reproduction.

How do complex adaptations emerge?

Evolve through gradual modifications that emerge step-by-step, with each modification providing advantages in their respective environments.

What is phenotypic plasticity?

The ability of genotypes to produce different phenotypes in response to different environments.

What is fitness?

The reproductive success, specifically the genetic representation of an organism in the next generation.

Whose fitness does natural selection act to maximize?

Individuals genetic makeup

What is inclusive fitness?

An individual may sacrifice its own reproductive success to benefit relatives, thereby increasing the chances of shared genes being passed to future generations.

How does natural selection prepares us to learn?

Children have an evolved predisposition to attend to and remember information about dangerousness.

Why did humans evolve a biological and psychological aversion to mating with close relatives?

Westermarck Effect

What is the Westermarck Effect?

If raised intimately in same household with someone (a sibling), you’ll experience less sexual attraction.

What are vestigial traits?

The retained characteristics that have lost some or all of their ancestral function.

What is a by-product?

A trait that was not selected for but inevitably arises from other traits under selection.

What are mismatches?

Adaptations that are no longer beneficial in new environment.

How does superstimuli hijack mechanisms?

Through exaggerating cues those mechanisms evolved to respond to.