The last decade has witnessed an exciting change in our understanding of the way in which the mind operates and the reasons behind a myriad of human behaviours. The traditional idea that nurture trumps nature in explanations of human behaviour has been supplanted by the evolutionary argument that human beings share evolved mental architectures that govern their behaviour.
This volume is an introduction to evolutionary approaches to psychology, bringing together seminal work in the field and exploring the ways in which evolutionary psychological research can illuminate our understanding of human behaviours and nature. Together, the chapters in this volume present a fresh perspective on evolutionary approaches to psychology, critically evaluating the extant literature while maintaining the need for evolutionary psychologies.
1 Evolutionary approaches to behaviour 1
A brief introduction to evolutionary theory 5
Fitness, sociobiology and life history theory 16
Evolutionary psychology 21
Conclusion 25
Acknowledgements 27
References 27
2 The evolution of cognition 31
Why are we so smart? 33
How did we get so smart? 38
What, exactly, are we so good at? And when did we 'get it'? 46
Conclusions 60
References 61
3 Cooperation as a classic problem in behavioural biology 73
Why has cooperation been such a biological puzzle? 74
Individual-level solutions to the puzzle: Selfish replicators, cooperative vehicles 76
Cooperation via genic self-favouritism (kin selection and greenbeard altruism) 77
Cooperation via return benefits (reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity and costly signalling) 82
Summary of individual-level theories of cooperation 86
Group selection 87
Complex human cooperation: Collective action 91
Conclusion 98
Acknowledgements 100
References 100
4 Mate choice and sexual selection 107
Sexual selection 108
Which human traits are sexually selected signals? 115
Sexual selection and within-sex differences 116
Time allocation 122
Conclusion 125
References 126
5 The evolutionary psychology of human beauty 131
Facial attractiveness 134
Bodily attractiveness 145
Conclusion and future directions 162
References 164
6 Life history theory and human reproductive behaviour 183
Trade-offs in human life history 185
The optimisation of family size in traditional societies 193
The optimisation of family size in modern societies 196
Conclusions and future directions 204
Acknowledgements 205
References 206
7 Parenting and families 215
What is parental investment? 216
Who invests in offspring? 217
Familial conflict 227
What is invested? 228
Who is invested in? 230
Conclusion 242
Acknowledgements 243
References 243
8 Personality and individual differences 251
The current state of differential psychology 254
Personality and the evolutionary imperative 257
A cost-benefit analysis of the Big Five 262
Authoritarianism 267
Ability and intelligence 268
'Dark-side' disorders 271
Conclusion 276
References 276
9 Evolution, cognition and mental illness: The imprinted brain theory 281
The illnesses that made us human 282
Antitheses of mentalism in autism and psychosis 288
The imprinted brain 294
Implications for evolutionary psychology 303
Acknowledgements 305
References 305
10 Interactions between cognition and culture 311
Social transmission 315
Gene-culture co-evolution of cognition and culture (mainly) in the hominid lineage 325
Conclusion: A niche construction framework of multimodal inheritance 333
References 334
11 The future of evolutionary psychology 343
A brief historical perspective 344
Can the EEA be made workable? 347
Universals and the challenge of explaining variation 351
Hypothesis testing: Alternative approaches 354
A vision of the future 359
Acknowledgements 361
References 362
Index 367
