PSY 101 Lecture 5: Lecture 5
12 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Evolution and psychology: what is evolution, evolutionary adaptations, cautions about evolutionary explanations. Evolution: not survival of the fittest, what happens when organisms reproduce. Differences in reproduction changes the characteristic of a species. Survival of the fittest: biological fitness. Greatest ability to reproduce: survival: not of individuals, but traits passed on. Human evolution: passing down of behaviors and traits. Example: getting hungry, holding a lit match and dropping/blowing it out. We feel pain: fear of heights, spiders, snakes, rather have a sure thing now than a chance of something later. Sexual desire: if there was no desire, we wouldn"t be here, bond with our offspring (more specific to mammals) Culture: patterns of thought and behavior learned from other people, often passed down from generation to generation, example: Cautions: evolutionary explanations don"t say anything about good and bad, right or wrong. Example: boys fighting each other for sex: way to easy to come up with evolutionary explanations that may not have evolved.
