ANT 385 2.2 - Lecture notes 2 PDF

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Adrian Jaeggi
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ANT 385 2.2 Evolutionary Psychology  

While HBE explains behavioral variation, Ev. Psych is interested in the universal architecture of the mind Goal: to identify evolved psych mechanisms, usually conceptualized as algorithms o

Ex. Social emotions: anger, gratitude, sympathy, etc. As calibrators of social change 

Anger – you want someone to treat you better – energy rises, temp rises, testosterone, all these changes serve purpose to show other person that you're willing to fight and aren't happy

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Gratitude – someone treated you well and you have to up your treatment of them in the future

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The mind is thought to consist of many such adaptations, the brain is literally treated as a computer

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99% of human evolutionary history was spent as small scale hunter-gatherers, most psych mechanisms are thought to be adapted to that lifestyle (EEA – environment of evolutionary adaptiveness)

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This knowledge of ancestors can make predictions of design of unknown psych mechanisms

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o

This is called adaptive thinking

o

Ex. Sex differences in spatial cognition 

Men are better at some aspects – from hunting, going long distances, or for finding a mate, or movement, large scale places

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Women are better at some aspects – women better at remembering location at food resources, exactly where specific places are

Design features of known psych mechanisms can be explained as adaptations to ancestral lifestyles o

Reverse engineering

o

Ex. Wason card-sorting task

o

Ex. Westermarck effect: if you lived with someone as a kid you aren't attracted to them as an adult, this is to avoid incest

Key Concepts: evolved Psychological Mechanisms 

What evolves is not behavior, but the underlying mechanisms o That’s where we should see adaptions (design) o

Ex. Jealousy – universal emotion that's an adaptation for detecting cheating in a relationship and trying to prevent it so that your genes can continue

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Human universals

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Can produce context-dependent behavior (See HBE) by responding to environmental cues that were reliably associated with different fitness outcomes o

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Life history theory

Kids like attachment because in the past because of hunter and gatherers and needed mom to stay safe o

Book: Attachment – John Bowlby

o

Argument is that play is in the natural way kids learn

o

But nowadays school is longer and more structured, so another reason kids are having a longer time focusing

Key concepts: Domain specificity 

Mind consists of adaptations for specific tasks o Visual perception, language, mate choice, parenting, friendship, disease avoidance, social exchange, etc. o

Contra 'Standard Social Science Model' 

Ex. Garcia learning experiments 

Had rats ate bad food and later exposed them to radiation and the rats felt nauseous bc of radiation so they avoided that food

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Also gave them electric shock after, but they were slower to learn that association bc outer pain not as associated w nausea and food

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But light and shock were associated w each other bc external

Key concepts: Adaptive thinking and reverse engineering 

Adaptive thinking: 1. Develop models of adaptive problems: e.g. altruism

2. How did these problems look in the EEA? E.g. necessity for helping and avoiding incest, possible cures of kinship 3. Develop a computational model: e.g. kinship estimator 

Case studies: Cheater detection o

Wason selection task: 

People are better at solving the same logical task when framed differently

 Case studies: Sex differences in mate choice

o

Sexual selection and parental investment theory:

o

Females should be choosy, seek investment

o

Males should seek many (fertile) mates, invest only if paternity confidence is high

o

David Buss' survey of 10,000 people in 37 countries

o

Universal sex differences 

Men like men that’s slightly older and women like men slightly younger 

o

Bc men want someone more fertile, women want someone who has resources

Not universal: 

Culture plays a part

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Found that chastity isn't as big of a deal in the US

 Case studies: Homicide

o

Kin selection & parental investment theory: 

o

Cinderella effect 

Step parents worse than biological parents

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More likely for abuse or for killing kids

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60x more likely to be killed by step fathers

Intrasexual selection and male-male copetition:

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Most homicides are male-male bc have to take greater risks in their competition than females

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Almost all homicides are one man killing another

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Fight over status

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Income inequality – change inequality and get less crime

 Disgust

o

Evolved defense against pathogens, non-beneficial relationships (sexual, cooperative)

o

Disease-relevant stimuli perceived as more disgusting

o

More so when more susceptible to disease 

Pregnancy

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Strangers

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High-pathogen environments

 Critical evaluation: EEA

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No one would argue that the EEA is a specific place and time 

o

It’s the weighted sum of past selection pressures that have acted on a specific trait

Nonetheless, inferences about past selection from modern hunter-gatherers can be tricky 

Huge variation in environments, lifestyles

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Technological change

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Etc.

 Critical Evaluation: Domain-Specificity...