SOCI 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Sociobiology, Status Quo, Evolutionary Psychology
3 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Biological Determinism, Sex, and Gender
- How do theories of biology and anatomy influence our understandings, expectations,
and explanations of gender, identity, roles, and outcomes?
- Sociobiology
- Evolutionary psychology
- Strongly influences how we think about gendered interactions and sex
Sociobiology
- Edward O. Wilson
- “The systematic study of the biological basis of all forms of social behaviour”
(1975)
- Biology determines
social behaviour
- Reproductive success as primary goal
- Derives from Darwinian natural selections
- Reproductive success and strategies as a subtype of natural selection
- Mechanism same for humans and animals
- Parallel explanations for behaviours
- Biology is destiny and determines all your social behaviour
- The most important/ primary determining factor in social behaviour and
interactions, individual choices as well
- Genetics is destiny!
- Used to explain/justify wide variety of human behaviours
- Sex-based division of labour
- Parental investment
- “Cheap sperm/ previous egg” theorizing
- Sexual behaviours
- Males/ females; men/ women - as natural division
- Males ‘naturally’ evolved to spread their seed
- Females evolved to promote infant survival
- Normal/ natural for women to be monogamous so these patterns we
see that women are monogamous and assume/ expected that men
are more promiscuous so dispersal of seed is more likely and women
are not too busy to take care of their eggs/ children as well
- Critiques
- Simplistic, reductionist
- Can’t account for rapid cultural change
- Different strategies under the same conditions in different parts of the
world
- Counter-evidence against these “natural” strategies
- Haven’t identified specific genes that accounts for specific behaviours
- Heritable or not
- Stability of the sex binary, sexual dimorphism (but not
as stable as we’ve always expected)
- Difficult to test empirically, requires many assumptions
- Not only of dimorphism but also generalizations of animals and
humans
Document Summary
Strongly influences how we think about gendered interactions and sex. The systematic study of the biological basis of all forms of social behaviour (1975) Reproductive success and strategies as a subtype of natural selection. Biology is destiny and determines all your social behaviour. The most important/ primary determining factor in social behaviour and interactions, individual choices as well. Used to explain/justify wide variety of human behaviours. Males/ females; men/ women - as natural division. Males naturally" evolved to spread their seed. Different strategies under the same conditions in different parts of the world. Haven"t identified specific genes that accounts for specific behaviours. Stability of the sex binary, sexual dimorphism (but not as stable as we"ve always expected) Difficult to test empirically, requires many assumptions. Not only of dimorphism but also generalizations of animals and humans. Humans and animals don"t think the same. Form and function is different, genetic inheritance presents some challenges.
