Evolutionary psychology
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Evolutionary psychology (EP) attempts to
explain
psychological
traits—such
as
memory, perception, or language—as adapta-
tions, that is, as the functional products of
natural selection or sexual selection. Adapta-
tionist thinking about physiological mechan-
isms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune
system, is common in evolutionary biology.
Evolutionary psychology applies the same
thinking to psychology.
Evolutionary psychologists (see, for ex-
ample, Wilson, 1981; Buss, 2005; Durrant &
Ellis, 2003; Pinker, 2002; Tooby & Cosmides,
2005) argue that much of human behavior is
generated by psychological adaptations that
evolved to solve recurrent problems in hu-
man ancestral environments. They hypothes-
ize, for example, that humans have inherited
special mental capacities for acquiring lan-
guage, making it nearly automatic, while in-
heriting no capacity specifically for reading
and writing. Other adaptations, according to
EP, might include the abilities to infer others’
emotions, to discern kin from non-kin, to
identify and prefer healthier mates, to co-
operate with others, and so on. Consistent
with the theory of natural selection, evolu-
tionary psychology sees organisms as often in
conflict with others of their species, including
mates and relatives. For example, mother
mammals and their young offspring some-
times struggle over weaning, which benefits
the mother more than the child. Humans,
however, have a marked capacity for cooper-
ation under certain conditions as well.
Evolutionary psychologists see those beha-
viors and emotions that are nearly universal,
such as fear of spiders and snakes,