| Evolutionary Psychology |
| An integral part of the new synthesis |
| I am planning to study and teach Evolutionary Psychology in my professional career. Because of this, I feel that I should include a brief summary of what this new science of the mind is all about. |
| The following information is taken from this textbook by Dr. David Buss |
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| Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind by Dr. David M. Buss |
| Understanding the human mind/brain mechanisms in evolutionary perspective is the goal of the new scientific discipline called evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology focuses on four key questions: (1) Why is the mind designed the way it is--that is, what causal processes created, fashioned, or shaped the human mind into it's current form? (2) How in the human mind designed--what are it's mechanisms and component parts, and how are they organized? (3) What are the functions of the component parts and their organized structure--that is, what is the mind designed to do? (4) How does input from the current environment, especially the social environment, interact with the design of the human mind to produce observable behavior? Copyright 1999 Dr. David M. Buss |
| Here is another great and fairly concise definition of evolutionary psychology that I came across in a journal article by Pam Regan: "...evolutionary models focus on distal causal mechanisms that might influence partner preferences--evolved psychological heuristics that were selected because they overcame obstacles to reproduction located in the human ancestral past and therefore maximized gene replication and thus reproductive success." This quote applies specifically to the study of partner preferences but it can be easily modified to cover many other aspects of human behavior that may have been influenced by the forces of natural selection. |