Lecture 17: Evolutionary Psychology

Q: Name the three conditions necessary for evolution to occur in a population.
A: Generation of diversity (mutation, crossover), Selective reproduction (survival and reproduction of the fittest), and Transmitted change (genetic, taught, or imitated).
Q: Contrast Natural Selection and Sexual Selection.
A: Natural Selection is based on natural reasons for differential reproduction (survival); Sexual Selection is based on the choices of sexually reproducing creatures in choosing a mate.
Q: What is Adaptationism in evolutionary psychology?
A: The practice of theorizing about the evolutionary causes for phenotypes (traits caused by evolution) and generating hypotheses to be tested.

Q: What kind of genetic influence is predetermination?
A: Traits that are mostly independent of environment (e.g., eye color).
Q: What are vestigial organs, and what is an example?
A: Organs or traits that are useless now but were useful for ancestors (e.g., male nipples or the appendix).
Q: What is Exaptation?
A: Something that evolved for one purpose but is used for another (e.g., bird feathers evolved for warmth but were exapted for flight; primate jaw bones were exapted to inner ear bones in humans).
Q: What is the Baldwin Effect?
A: We evolve to make it easy to learn something (e.g., the ease with which human babies acquire language).

Q: What is Neoteny in humans?
A: The retention of juvenile features into adulthood, making adult humans more like baby versions of other primates (e.g., smaller jaw, big head, less aggression).
Q: The experiment with foxes demonstrated that selecting only for tameness also led to what other developmental change?
A: The animals matured later (less aggressive), supporting the theory that humans domesticated themselves.
Q: Evolutionary psychologists assume our minds evolved primarily during what time period and setting?
A: The Pleistocene/Paleolithic time, when humans were endurance hunting on the plains of Africa.
Q: Rather than being general purpose, the evolutionary psychology perspective views the mind as being modular. What does this mean?
A: The mind is a collection of special-purpose mechanisms designed for dealing with specific kinds of problems encountered in the ancestral environment.

Q: Evolution predicts that men will be most attracted to women who signal what?
A: Health and the ability to bear children (e.g., a low waist-to-hip ratio of $\sim 0.7$).
Q: Evolution predicts that women will be most attracted to men who signal what?
A: The ability to provide resources to help raise offspring.
Q: What is the finding regarding testosterone and mate choice?
A: Women prefer masculine faces when ovulating, but prefer more feminine faces when not ovulating, as testosterone correlates with poorer parenting (divorce, infidelity, violence).
Q: What surprising factor in the smelly t-shirt experiment did women choose shirts based on?
A: Compatible immune systems. (Men, conversely, prefer shirts of ovulating women).
Q: When women choose mates, they prefer high prestige men for long-term commitments. What kind of men do they prefer for short-term sexual affairs?
A: Dominant men.
Q: What did the memory word test find regarding the evolutionary purpose of memory?
A: We remember better those things that are important for survival (e.g., food, falling).

Q: Why do we still crave large quantities of fat, salt, protein, and sugar?
A: These were important nutrients that were rare in our evolutionary history, and we didn't evolve to deal with the massive quantities available in modern society.