PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Physical Attractiveness, Meiosis, Fetus

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

After working through this lesson"s material, you should be able to: Describe some of the source of variability: define heritability and some of is misconceptions, differentiate between shared and nonshared (unique) environmental influences, define adaptation in the context of natural selection, describe some common misconceptions about natural selection. Explain the sociobiological approach to altruism: define inclusive fitness, define reciprocal altruism and the conditions under which it occurs. Explain the evolutionary role of jealousy: explain why men and women value different traits in a mate. The ultimate explanation is that singing serves to attract females and defend territory from other males. Over evolutionary time, males were selected for their singing. The proximate explanation is that increased daylight in the spring leads to increased testosterone production, which activates a brain center that controls singing. In this lesson, we will delve into evolutionary psychology, which is concerned with the evolutionary underpinnings of behaviour understanding their adaptive significance.