Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind

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Finally, one of the criticisms with which I agree the most is the denial or downplaying of culture in shaping human behavior. After all, why would men give more in tips and charity when a woman is watching? Why would that be, if not because kindness and altruism (also) evolved thanks to sexual selection? Homicide is really interesting from an experimental perspective, because the data is so good. You can argue about whether somebody is abused or whether somebody is angry, or whether somebody is lying to you. But when you’ve got a murder, you’ve got a body; this definitely happened. And the police have got an incentive to find out who did it. So you’ve got really, really good data. The “coordinate group effect” -the famous “patriarchy”- happens because most men who cluster around the average share the same fears and needs. Most average men, struggling to secure a high-power, successful woman, rationally seek to limit the power of the women in their lives -not necessarily of all women and certainly not in a concerted effort with other men-. As many observers have pointed out, evolutionary psychology is largely based on assumptions rather than evidence, and as such it is debatable whether it should be referred to as a 'science' (since its hypotheses are generally unfalsifiable). 3. What is the best book on evolution?

Best Evolutionary Psychology Books - Power Dynamics™ Best Evolutionary Psychology Books - Power Dynamics™

The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter After the fact. This is a bit like what we were saying about whether the true motives for murder are explicitly understood by the murderer. SAGE Knowledge is the premier social sciences platform for SAGE and CQ Press book, reference and video content.

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Another chunk of the criticism applies to “pop evolutionary psychology”, such as the evolutionary psychology that people who read one or two books on the topic engage in. That’s the typical “after-the-facts storytelling”. Or, as Nassim Taleb said, “people who love a nice narrative but have no evidence”.

The Best Books on Evolutionary Psychology - Five Books

And from the same author, but slightly more focused on “ sexual conflict“, also see “ When Men Behave Badly“. This is both in the list of “best evolutionary psychology books” and in the list of “worst evolutionary psychology books”.For example, the standard model of courtship communication was that animals (and humans) communicate about themselves to facilitate mating. However, Dawkins and Krebs realized that communication is sometimes cooperative and sometimes about the deception of one’s true fitness and intentions ( Dawkins & Krebs, 1978). It’s Sapolsky’s Magnus opera, and the only reason it’s not higher than #9. is that “Behave” is not focused on evolutionary psychology but on human psychology and behavior in general. This introduction to one of the most exciting approaches to psychology is the best one out there—authoritative, lively, and balanced. It manages to be both theoretically sophisticated and accessible to a wide range of students interested in human nature and how it got that way."- Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, USA But “ The Evolution of Desire” is more practical, and it ranks higher because The Power Moves is focused on the practical applications of knowledge. The first one is a well-accepted and well-supported concept in evolutionary psychology -and by any intelligent person-, so it feels like making a case against a strawman. But overall… All good there.

Evolutionary Psychology Books of 2023 - FindThisBest Best Evolutionary Psychology Books of 2023 - FindThisBest

I think evolutionary psychology is one the most important discipline if not the most important discipline, to truly understand people -and ourselves-. The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human NatureIt’s all quite horrible stuff—you’re more likely to kill very young children, for example. But if you stripped away what everybody says about morality and how they would behave, how they care about their stepchildren, it’s a little bit like what you’d expect. Lions, when they take over a pride, kill the cubs. It happens to a much, much lesser extent in humans. But it’s still measurable. It’s the young cubs that get killed, and they get killed by stepparents. The data allows us to ask questions: Why do men kill more than women? When do they kill more? Under what circumstances? Is it rich people or poor people? And what are they killing for? It’s generally not to get rich. It’s often to do with new partners, relationships, and so on.

The SAGE Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology | SAGE

Evolutionary psychology is an important and rapidly expanding area in the life, social, and behavioral sciences, and this Handbook represents the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference text in the field today. Adapt and Plan for the New Abnormal of the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic: Adapt and Plan for the New Abnormal of the COVID-19 Coronavirus PandemicAnd of course, once you can gang up on people and punish them, all sorts of things become possible. If you start to trust people—because there’s this ultimate punishment—things like language become a lot more plausible, because you’ve got a reason to tell the truth. People can punish you if you don’t. If you look at animals, most animals, when they’re in groups they’re quite well connected. Wolves, chimps… there are odd exceptions, but mostly they’re groups of kin. In humans, that’s not how tribes work. And it’s not the way companies work. Evolutionary psychology authors should stop reacting to a biased worldview with more bias on their own. Fascinating. In terms of understanding homicide as a psychological phenomenon, this is not to suggest that murderers are actually making evolutionary calculations in an explicit way, right? The Illusion of Conscious Will is ostensibly a social psychology book, as opposed to an evolutionary psychology book. Wegner was at Harvard, and is one of the greatest ever psychologists. He argues that we are usually mistaken about this impression of conscious will; we usually infer an intention to do something from our actions, rather than from actually being able to consciously make something happen.