Drawing on the psychological literature from more Essay Example For Students

Drawing on the psychological literature from more Essay Drawing on the psychological literature from more than one topic area of research, evaluate how well evolutionary theory provides a satisfactory explanation for human behavior By Sordidly Briefly outline evolutionary mechanisms. Drawing on the psychological literature from more than one topic area of research, evaluate how well evolutionary theory provides a satisfactory explanation tort human behavior. The aim to this essay is to assess whether Evolutionary theory presents an adequate explanation for human behavior. I will be drawing from different psychological literature, especially focusing on the research areas of sexual election and parental care and investment, Evolutionary theory assumes that every living organism is a commodity of random natural selection and variation and that faith each generation, natural selection selects the adaptations that are ideal for sustaining life and reproducing. Hellishly (2011) defined Evolutionary psychology as an approach to the study of the mind that is founded on Drawings theory of evolution by natural selection. It assumes that our mental abilities, emotions and preferences are adapted specifically for solving problems Of survival and reproduction in humanity ancestral environment, and derives stable predictions from this assumption Evolutionary theory believes that living organisms change over a long period of time. Despite Evolutionary psychology being a relatively new branch Of psychology, it has become increasingly popular over the last decade and a half. Evolutionary mechanisms form an important part of Evolutionary theorys argument for its explanation of human behavior as these mechanisms can be explored, studied and tested to provide evidence for its explanations of human behavior. An evolutionary mechanisms can be described as the processes that determine whether an adaptation occurs to elf an organism survive or reproduce (Commodes Toby, 1987) Examples of evolutionary mechanisms are natural selection, migration, mutation and gene flow. Natural selection is a key mechanism to Evolutionary theory and was originally proposed by Darwin, This mechanism is a slow process of evolution by which biological characteristics in a population become more or less prominent depending on an organisms differential reproduction success at adapting to their environment (Darwin, 1861). For Example Drawings finches (Grant et al, 1 976) shows how each different finch had passed on an adaptive biological harmonistic to aid in the long term survival of their future descendants, the beaks of the finches had evolved over a long period of time to gain an selective advantage of access to their limited food sources in their unique environments. Furthermore, Buss et al (1998) proposed 3 important components of natural selection that need to be present to impact biological characteristics, these are variation, inheritance and selection. Variation (genetic) occurs within an population even individuals are genetically different, this is due to natural random genetic mutations that happen over time or as a result Of are environmental effects. Furthermore its important that the biological characteristic in question is inheritable, so to allow the genetic component to be transmitted from ancestor to offspring. The final component is Selection. Buss et al (1998) identified that the individuals that were more desirable, would inevitably lead to producing more offspring than other individuals who were less desirable. Another mechanism of evolution is gene flow, this refers to the random movement of genes of a population from one pool of genes to another. This in turn boosts the biodiversity and increases the genetic similarity of both populations. An example of this is the gene flow between spring salamanders and cave salamanders resulting in a more homogeneous gene pool (Nosily, 2008). Migration is linked to gene flow as the migration of a species can lead to gene flow occurring, for example it all of the individuals with red hair in Scotland were to leave Scotland it would be plausible to believe that future generations would have a very small amount of people with this biological trait. The population of Scotland would have evolved accordingly, A good way to measure whether evolutionary theory provides a satisfactory explanation for human behavior s to compare the theory to other explanations such as the Social roles theory. Specifically focusing on drawing from psychological literature of sexual selection, it can be established Vichy theory provides the more superior explanation. Before critically evaluating and comparing the two theories, its important to briefly outline the theories beliefs on the origins Of sexual differences of human behavior. Evolutionary psychologists state that both males and females had to deal With different evolutionary pressures in prehistoric environments (Eagle and Wood, 1999). This resulted in different sex evolved mechanisms that evolutionary psychologists believe is the root reason for gender differentiated behavior. Although the explanation believes that conditions of the environment can affect the development of sex-differentiated behavior, it fails to acknowledge the situational and cultural conditions that might also affect sex difference behavior (Buss Generic, 1998; Archer, 1996). The Social roles theory believes that the circumstances faced by men and women vary across different periods of history and societies according to ecological and technological changes in social organizations (Eagle and Wood, 1999). The theory also believes that sex differentiated behavior is caused by the labor divisions of society and because both women and men usually have contrasting social roles, that may have led to both genders to develop deterrent psychological traits to help them to adjust these contrasting roles (Eagle Wood, 1999) The explanation also states that sex differences are effected by several cultural, individual and situational conditions (Addax Larance, 1998). However the Social roles theory does acknowledge the significance of genetic differences in gender, as mens greater physicality and trench and a womens ability to give birth and feed offspring are in alignment with universal cultural beliefs and social groups which in turn influence, psychological gender differences (Eagle Wood Gigs)_ When focusing on the origins of sex differences its important to look at the theory of sexual selection as its one of the area that evolutionary theory has most been applied to. Drawing on Appropriate Evidence Describe EssayIn an extension of the study carried out by Buss and Barnes (1986), Howard, Bluntness, Schwartz ( 1 987) found that the majority of predictions of both the evolutionary and social perspectives was supported by evidence from heterosexual pair studies but also concluded that their results were better explained by the social perspective of mate selection. They found that men also preferred an expressive partner. This holds no advantage from an evolutionary respective, however Howard et al (1987) suggested that being an expressive mate can help to be a better mother which would make a male have a stronger preference for a more expressive mate. The social roles theory states that women have been socialized to conduct themselves in a more expressive manner than men therefore making them more desirable. This weakens the credibility Of the evolutionary perspective as it cannot explain the preference. On the other hand, the social role theory proposed that male mate selection was a reflection of a mans effort to enhance their chances of mating with a desirable attention partner within the bounds of martial and societal gender roles. Social roles theory suggests that men will have a preferences for a partner who has characteristics of being a good mother, a good cooker, and the capabilities to carry out domestic work (Howard, Bluntness, Schwartz, 1987) which is in accordance with martial and societys perception of gender roles with men providing and women managing the house and the children. Another important feature of the theory of sexual selection is that men werent able to fully establish whether their child was conceived trot their sperm or not, because a womans retaliation period is hidden, This may have led to an evolved psychological mechanism such as sexual jealousy to counter the uncertainty of whether they were the biological father of the child and limit the advances of other males (Buss, 2013). This idea is the supported by evidence from the study Sugaring et al (2003), who found that there was a sex difference between opposite ?gender infidelity as men had reported greater discomfort in reaction to sexual infidelity than women. Interestingly Sugaring et al (2003)it was also reported that the sex difference from opposite-sex infidelity vanished when the infidelity involved name-sex lovers and that males and females felt less jealousy towards same- sex infidelity or in other words infidelity where conception is impossible, these findings substantiate these claims as a males greater distress to infidelity than women disappears when the possibility of cuckoldry is impossible, therefore indicating that the evolved psychological mechanism of sexual jealousy for males may indeed be used as a function to protect and improve their chance of fertilizing their mate. This increases the reliability of the theory of sexual selection and evolutionary theory. Parental care and investment is also an important topic area for evolutionary theory. More often than not, females invest much more into their offspring, males usually supply a small direct investment into the health and protection of their outstripping although humans are the exception (Cotton-rock, 1989). Parents will usually devote an enormous amount of their resources, attention and time to the look after their children, as well as potentially suffering life-threatening risks to protect them (Daly Wilson, 2005), Prom an evolutionary standpoint this could be a result of natural selection as the parents that invested more time and are into their offspring would have given them an advantage and therefore had a better chance of surviving, reproducing and passing on their genes. For this reason it would make sense for parents to favor their own genetic offspring, this idea is explained in theory of Inclusive fitness (Hamilton, 1964). The theoretical concept of inclusive fitness is that main purpose of a species is to pass on its genes and that a species will exhibit altruistic behavior to those with the same or similar genes to help ensure that they survive to reproduce and pass on their genes to other generations (Hamilton, 1964). The concept of inclusive fitness is supported by the study by Leverage, gauzier, Raymond (2009) Who reported that paternal investment was related to similarities in facial features and Dour. Paternal investment was also related to childrens wellbeing and health, this suggests that fathers would invest more in children that resembled them more and this in turn would benefit the childs nourishment and growth. Correspondingly, if you looked at the theory of inclusive fitness from a different angle it could be suggested that children with non-biological parent would e at risk from less parental investment and even harm due to them being of no relation. This notion was derived trot the Cinderella effect (Daly Wilson, 2005), the concept behind this idea was that stepparents living with children of no relation were more likely to abuse their step children than genetic parents. Evidence for this statement comes from the study by Daly and Wilson (1994). They found that from Evidence taken from the Canadian and British national archives of homicides, that children under the age of five were more likely to have been killed by a stepfather than their Genetic fathers. Other similar studies found that young children were OIC times more likely to be lethally abused by step-fathers than genetic fathers (from IIS Data) (Daley Wilson, 1388). This suggests that step-fathers might not hue the parental love, evolutionary motivation to invest and be patient with step children, leading them to be aggressive or even violent. This strengthens the credibility of the evolutionary approach. In conclusion, evidence from evolutionary psychological literature suggests that evolutionary theory does provide a fairly satisfactory explanation or human behavior but the theory is not without its flaws. For example Evolutionary psychology provides a solid explanation for sexual selection, mate preference and parental care and investment.