PSY 544 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Incest, Homo Sapiens, Participaction
• Identify the evolved psychological mechanisms of the human mind.
There's evidence that the human mind has a sensitivity to the sight and cues that snakes
represent. Snakes are one of the adaptive prb that humans have had to solve through out
our history
• It's uncomfortable for us to watch something that moves in the manner that a snake does
• There's evidence to suggest that part of our mind is built to detect the signs of a snake ex.
If something moves like a snake it freaks us out something that looks like a snake draws
our attention and most time it produces fear but what we subsequently do about it may
be determined by decision rules
• If you see something that looks like a snake and its far away then theres a tendency to
freeze, the reason being that if its far enough then it might not stop you but because of
the decision rules the way you interpret this fear and the response you produce can
change - if something is coming towards you the instinct is to run and not to freeze so it
deepens on the context - if the thing is already so close that running isnt an option then
theres an instinct to pick something up and try and hit it - its an evolved adaptation, we're
sensitive to cues that theres a snake out there but what we with that information is based
on decision rules based on context and so they can change the way the adaptation plays
out
• Sets of procedures that take in specific information and, via decision rules, create output
(feelings, thoughts, actions) to help solve a specific adaptive problem.
•
• Your mind is a kludge of psychological adaptations
• There are a large number of specific, adaptive problems:
• Thermal regulation
• Avoiding predators and parasites
• Eating life-sustaining food
• Avoiding falls
• Avoiding dangerous strangers
• Selecting, attracting, keeping a good mate
• And so correspondingly, the argument goes that the mind is made up of a large number
of specific, psychological adaptations to them. There are certain features of the mind that
are designed to solve one of these prbs but not good at all at solving other prbs
• So the argument that evo psychologists make is that the mind is like a Swiss army knife,
the knife is designed to solve all sorts of diff prbs, the way it solves the diff prbs though is
find more resources at oneclass.com
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by having a diff tool for each prb and the argumet is that that’s ho the id is too, it's
not good at doing just one thing its good at lots of things
• Carvig the id at its joits
• A useful way to think about the body is in terms of function.
• What about the mind? By thiinking abt the specific things we're adapted to do we can
think abt how the mind is composed of diff parts just like the body is
•
• One controversy
One controversy within evo psych Is the extent to which psychological mechanisms are
problem-specific versus general-purpose - so most evo psychologists have the view of the
mind as: there are all sorts of adaptive prbs and there are specific adaptations designed to
solve specific prbs and the mind is like the swiss army knife
• To what extent are evolved psychological mechanisms problem-specific versus general-
purpose?
• One viewpoint (that your textbook favours) is that the mind has flexibility because of a
vast number of specific adaptations to solve specific problems.
• The alteratie a of thikig aout the Siss ar kife is that the id does’t hae
specific adaptations but its generally good at everything - argument: Can you imagine one
tool that has one shape, that solves every problem
• The argument is that the flexibility in the brain comes from the interaction of different
tools so the fact that there are these decision rules that give complexity based on context
for ex your reaction to a snake might always be fear but the context of the snake changes
how you act towards it - so it’s the iteratios of the adaptatios that eplai h
behviour is so flexible
• One controversy
He have a bunch of need in maslows hierarchy of needs and our behavior is so flexible
because its aiming to achieve so many goals
An alternative view point is that the mind doesn't have specific adaptations for solving
specific adaptations but instead there are some general domain mechanisms in the brain
and one idea is G (general intelligence) that people just have general intelligence where if
youre good at one thing youre good at everything or just a really powerful learning
mechanism like conditioning
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Identify the evolved psychological mechanisms of the human mind. There"s evidence that the human mind has a sensitivity to the sight and cues that snakes represent. Snakes are one of the adaptive prb that humans have had to solve through out our history. It"s uncomfortable for us to watch something that moves in the manner that a snake does: there"s evidence to suggest that part of our mind is built to detect the signs of a snake ex. If something moves like a snake it freaks us out something that looks like a snake draws our attention and most time it produces fear but what we subsequently do about it may be determined by decision rules. By thiinking abt the specific things we"re adapted to do we can think abt how the mind is composed of diff parts just like the body is: one controversy.
