PSYCH 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Natural Selection, Human Behavior, Psych
Document Summary
Consciousness focuses on complex thought and logical reasoning. Deliberate: slow, controllable, flexible, good at combining information. Automatic: fast, unintentional, outside of conscious control, The long road to social acceptance inflexible. One basic job of the human self: garner social acceptance. People learn to work within cultural bounds. In victorian era, cursing and picking your nose was unacceptable. Today, cursing is often accepted, but picking your nose is not. Social acceptance: people have to do a great deal of work to get along with others. Automatic processes prepare us for interactions with other groups. Culture needs us to resist and overcome selfish impulses. Consideration of what is best for society. Tradeoffs: when you can"t have it all. Tradeoffs: no choice that is clearly the best in every respect. Animals don"t do this (e. g. chimps fed once a day; they have no learned to store food away)
