PSYC 3100 Lecture 7: PSYC3100 - September 25, 2015
3 Oct 2015
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Document Summary
Evolutionary psychology: genes provide us with evolved psychological mechanisms designed biologically ground adaptations to solve speci c adaptive problems in an ancestral environment (culture is biased by psychological adaptations) Preferences that turn up in a culture will be the preferences we have as a consequence of. Culture is on a bit of a leash - we are biased in our preferences. Behavioural ecology: genes provide us with exibility to adapt to our environment in optimal ways (focuses on differential responses to environment: no real interest in culture-biology issues) Impressed by the fact that animals were adapted optimally (ex. clutch size in birds) More interested in the current era (ce) than they are in the ancestral environment. Think evolution has equipped us with ability to optimize relative to our environment, relative to certain kinds of tradeoffs (optimal is always relative to doable in an environment) Cultural evolution: there are distinct mechanisms of cultural change, some analogous to biological mechanisms, some not.
