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The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture
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The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
An important introduction to evolutionary psychology
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This is one of the earliest texts in the field called Evolutionary Psychology (EP). This specialization evolved from what Edward O. Wilson termed "Sociobiology" in the mid-1970s. EP applies the logic of sociobiology to human psychology. That is, how has natural selection shaped how humans think and make decisions? As editors Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, and Jerome Barkow put it (page 7): "Evolutionary psychology is psychology informed by the fact that the inherited architecture of the human mind is the product of the evolutionary process." The book, in their conceptualization, has two goals (page 3): "The first is to introduce the newly crystallizing field of evolutionary psychology to a wider audience. . .The second goal of this volume is to clarify how this new field. . .supplies the necessary connection between evolutionary biology and the complex, irreducible social and cultural phenomena studied by anthropologists, economists, and historians."
They locate their perspective by juxtaposing evolutionary psychology with what the term "the standard social scientific model." The chapter by Tooby and Cosmides (Chapter 1) outlines this model in much more detail.
As we know, the SSSM insists that, for all practical purposes, human nature - and thus human behavior - is shaped by culture. Put less laconically, the SSSM rests on three cardinal tenets - two of them explicit, the third usually implicit. These are: (1) that humans have no innate behavioral tendencies; (2) that, consequently, human nature is solely the product of learning and socialization (in short, of "nurture"); from which it follows (3) that human nature (and consequently human behavior) is essentially quite malleable (my rendering of the perspective). Of course, evolutionary psychology moves in a different direction, emphasizing the effects of the evolutionary process on human behavior and thinking.
This edited volume includes a series of chapters exploring different aspects of human behavior. The section titles illustrate the variety of topics covered: Section II focuses on cooperation and social exchange, noting that these have evolutionary bases; III examines the psychology of mating and sex; IV looks at parental care and children; V considers perception and language as evolutionary adaptations; VI takes a look at environmental aesthetics (such as evolved responses to landscapes); VII has only one chapter--looking at the evolution of psychodynamic mechanisms. The volume closes with an essay by Jerome Barkow.
Not all readers will be convinced by the arguments raised in this volume. However, it serves an important purpose by unapologetically claiming that we cannot understand much of human psychology (and other social behaviors) without considering human evolution. Indeed, it is hard to complain about this overarching perspective. However, readers may well dispute specific applications of the perspective. In the end, this is a rich volume and will prod the reader to think differently about "human nature."
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