Evolutionary Theories in Psychology and The Nature-Nurture Question

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts from Evolutionary Theories in Psychology and The Nature-Nurture Question.

Evolution

Change over time.

Adaptations

Evolved solutions to problems that historically contributed to reproductive success.

Survival Adaptations

Mechanisms that helped ancestors handle the hostile forces of nature, such as sweat glands for cooling, shivering for warmth, and specialized fears.

Sexual Selection Theory

An evolutionary theory proposed by Charles Darwin stating that characteristics evolve not because of survival advantage, but because of mating advantage.

Intrasexual Competition

A process of sexual selection by which members of one sex compete with each other, and the victors gain preferential mating access to members of the opposite sex.

Intersexual Selection

A process of sexual selection by which evolution occurs as a consequence of the mate preferences of one sex exerting selection pressure on members of the opposite sex; also called preferential mate choice.

Gene Selection Theory

The modern theory of evolution by selection by which differential gene replication is the defining process of evolutionary change.

Inclusive Fitness

The property where genes influence an organism to help genetic relatives survive and reproduce because those relatives also likely contain those genes.

Psychological Adaptations

Mechanisms of the mind that evolved to solve specific problems of survival or reproduction, conceptualized as information processing devices.

Physiological Adaptations

Adaptations that occur in the body as a consequence of one's environment, such as skin growing calluses in response to repeated friction.

Sexual Strategies Theory

A comprehensive evolutionary theory of human mating that defines the menu of mating strategies humans pursue, the adaptive problems women and men face when pursuing these strategies, and the evolved solutions to these mating problems.

Error Management Theory (EMT)

A theory of selection under conditions of uncertainty in which recurrent cost asymmetries of judgment or inference favor the evolution of adaptive cognitive biases that function to minimize the more costly errors.

Visual Descent Illusion

An adaptive bias where people overestimate distance when looking down from a height compared to looking up, making them especially wary of falling.

Auditory Looming Bias

An adaptive bias where people overestimate how close objects are when a sound is moving toward them compared to when it is moving away.

Sexual Overperception Bias

An adaptive mating bias predicted by EMT where men misread minimal cues, such as a friendly smile, as signals of sexual interest.

Behavioral Genetics

The empirical science of how genes and environments combine to generate behavior.

Adoption Study

A behavior genetic research method that involves comparison of adopted children to their adoptive and biological parents.

Twin Studies

A behavior genetic research method that involves comparison of the similarity of identical (monozygotic; MZ) and fraternal (dizygotic; DZ) twins.

Monozygotic (MZ) Twins

Identical twins resulting from a single fertilized egg (zygote) that share 100% of their DNA.

Dizygotic (DZ) Twins

Fraternal twins developing from two separate zygotes that share 50% of their DNA, being ordinary siblings born at the same time.

Quantitative Genetics

Scientific and mathematical methods for inferring genetic and environmental processes based on the degree of genetic and environmental similarity among organisms.

Heritability Coefficient

An easily misinterpreted statistical construct varying from 0 to 1 that purports to measure the role of genetics in explaining differences among individuals.

Gene-Environment Interaction ($G \times E$)

A phenomenon in which genetic differences affect behavior under some environmental circumstances but not others.

Epigenetics

A process in which DNA itself is modified by environmental events, and those genetic changes are transmitted to children.