Lecture 3 - Why Relationships?

inclusive fitness

behavioral and psychological strategies to solve personal problems often extend to related others as well (unit of importance in evolution is the gene and people we are related to share genes so its about ppl im related to being able to survive too, reason why we take care of our family), via relation, similarity or interdependence, use non-conscious appraisals of closeness to shape our prosocial behaviour, goal is to have more of your genes survive and community supports that

sexual selection

thought of as similar but distinct from natural selection (focused on survival and passing genes along), Its selecting for specific features that enable sexual selection even if they otherwise kill us

intrasexual competition

means within sex competition, females and males of a species do to compete for access to mates (sometimes males have to fight to the death for access to females like in lions the dominant one mates with all the females)

intersexual choice

means between sex competition, things males and females do with eachother to show that you should mate with them, refers to how we choose a mate 

parental investment

investment from both parents crucial for offspring survival, more they help the better chance offspring survives, behavioral things we do to keep father around would be needing to care for the mother out of love, committing to family unit

paternal uncertainty

problem that is especially true for species with long gestation length, don't know for sure who the father is because the conception happened so long ago, we want the parent who donated the sperm to provide resources and protection so the offspring survives to mating age, babies usually look like their fathers right after birth so could be adaptation for this problem

naturalistic fallacy

untrue belief that what is natural is good or what is natural is best (belief that the way things exist in nature is the way things should be), statement of judgment not just describing in nature but saying what is in nature is the way things should be (ex: all natural being on a product has no regulation but used for marketing because of this fallacy), basis for social darwinism

social darwinism in the naturalistic fallacy

the survival of the fittest, that only the strongest of a population will survive and so we should not help them cause its nature’s desire, idea that we are acting against nature by helping the poor and the sick), no direction of evolution it's just if we're fitted to the environment that we’re in, there are a lot of things that are natural that are bad 

biological determinism

the way things exist is how they must be (biology is destiny), your biology dictates what you should do/where you should be in life, idea that human behaviour is innate and only determined by genes, hormones, etc (contrasts notion that we need human interaction and learning, socialization and culture means nothing if this were true), showing that something is heritable is not the same thing as saying and so nothing else is possible

gender essentialism

a specific type of biological determinism, idea that men and women have inherent unique qualities that not just differentiate them but polarize them, almost exclusively positioned as opposite, all things people attribute to gender and infer that this is how things must be, to do smth any other way is against nature, only expect men and women to differ when the adaptive problem was very different (ex: if men faced a completely different issue than women then we would expect their evolution to diverge), holds up sort of cause sperm is expendable and ova is limited

john bowlby

founder of attachment theory (even though attachment is developed for adult-child relationships he predicted it maps onto adult relationships too), worked in homes for boys and orphanages, asked him to study maternal separation due to outcomes of WW2 (caused many kids to be without parents), worry about how they were going to develop after that

wire mother vs the cloth mother experiment (bowlby attachment theory)

the monkeys showed preference for the cloth one, new info is that infants want more than just resources they also want safety and security and comfort (proved that they need attention and comfort), before this experiment physical affection was thought to be damaging to babies but now this is why they immediately give the mother the baby after birth so there is skin to skin contact

goals of attachment theory

attachment system comes at birth but then we get info from the environment which informs how it functions, normative processes and individual differences

normative processes

proximity to caregiver is survival, set system meant to ensure and enable proximity, innate, necessary to feel security, specific proximity behaviors can vary (ex: crying to alert caregivers we need support, clinging to them and eventually as we age we learn they’ll comeback so wont feel need to do those behaviors anymore)

components of attachment bonds

proximity seeking, separation protest when proximity is gone, safe haven and secure base

safe haven

when in a time of stress we seek out our caregiver as a safe place, gives us reassurance

secure base

when we are in a stable environment, if we have a reliable attachment figure we are comfortable enough to go outside of the space and explore, caring in times of safety enabling taking risks and learning/trying new things

individual differences

gathering info about the self and others, attachment is like a schema so we’ll store info relevant to question of being worthy of love, highly guided by parent interaction, , question if others can be trusted, shapes how we perceive stuff and our expectations when interacting with others, conscious and non conscious elements, shape how we think and feel about things in the world, shapes our attachment throughout our life (in this way, attachment can be a core part of someone’s personality cause it remains fairly stable)

stranger situation (mary ainsworth)

Mom and baby plays in lab room, stranger enters, mom leaves and stranger offers comfort, mom returns and stranger leaves, mom leaves baby alone then mom returns, there is secure, avoidant and anxious/ambivalent

secure attachment response (strange situation)

60%, explores environment cause they have secure base, stranger coming in is not that upsetting but mom leaving is distressing, then mom comes back and immediately goes to her and is easily comforted

avoidant attachment response (strange situation)

20%, explores environment but doesn't cry when mom leaves, then don't really try and re-establish proximity when mom comes back just focuses on the toys the whole time

anxious/ambivalent attachment response (strange situation)

ambivalent means polarized, very good and very bad at the same time, they barely explore but has to keep an eye on mom, distressed when mom leaves and when mom comes back so very hard to comfort, once mom has left once and now even less exploration when mom is back

warm/responsive parents

linked to secure kids, when everything is ok they let their kids explore and comfort when something is wrong

rejecting parenting

linked to avoidant kids, learned that people don't respond to their crying so eventually stop trying, also see avoidance for parents who are absent for other reasons like working too much (important to note its based on behavior not motivation)

inconsistent parenting

associated with anxiety, sometimes they're there sometimes they're not, the overly invested parents, bottom line is wont know when they’ll be there and when they won't, causes extreme distress and difficulty comforting them