PSYC 3402 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Natural Selection, Determinism, Freaked

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3402
• Professor: Shelley Brown

Document Summary

Natural selection works through the genetic transmission of material adaptation appears randomly (by chance: step 2. Decide the fate of whether or not a potential adaptation transformed into a successful adaptation meaning it became part of the human genome over time (selection pressures and successful adaptation: environmental characteristics, predators, food shortages, mate scarcity. Reproductive success: how good an organism is at having children and keeping them alive so the offspring procreate and pass the successful adaptation into the next gene pool. Selection pressures: environmental pressures found within niches that determine whether or not a random mutation gives an organism a reproductive edge, finding food, safe haven, avoiding predators, finding a mate. Successful adaptations: characteristics of an organism that enhanced reproductive success in the ancestral environment. Evolutionary psychology: principles of evolution to human behaviour, who we are because our emotions (fear, anger, phobias, impulse behaviour, risk taking, etc. ) evolved because they are successful adaptations (on average) in an ancestral environment.