PSYCO104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Paul Ekman, Parental Investment, Evolutionary Psychology

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: Eric Legge

Document Summary

Psych 104 lecture #12 genes, evolution and behaviour pt. ii. Evolutionary psychology (based on evolution): focuses on role of evolutionary processes (especially natural selection) in development of adaptive psychological mechanisms and social behaviour in humans. Natural selection: evolutionary process through which characteristics increasing likelihood of survival are preserved in gene pool and become more common over time. Evolutionary noise: neutral variations that neither facilitate nor impede fitness. Adaptations: product of natural selection allowing organisms to meet recurring environmental challenges to their survival, increasing their reproductive ability. Evolution of human brain: greatest growth in areas concerned with higher mental processes (attention, memory, thought and language, culture is important to evolution of behaviour as well, brains seemed to increase in volume and number of folds. Learn language, reason logically: better with social structures. For large scale adaptations: significant advantage over others with many problems (aka domains) that lots of them can be dealt with. Not for generalists nor individualists: domain-specific.