Psychology 3228 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Olduvai Gorge, Evolutionary Psychology, Reductionism

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3228
• Professor: Scott Mac Dougall- Shackleton

Document Summary

Comparison to the standard social science model (sssm) Assumptions of the sssm: the blank state (empiricism, irrelevance of biology, general laws of learning. Critique of the sssm (tooby and cosmides: misunderstands the nature of development, all environmental influences must act through genes, eg. Cultural relativists deny the existence of a human nature . Evolutionary psychology posits that evolution has shaped the nature of our minds, cognition and behaviour. Despite tremendous cultural diversity, there are many commonalities among different cultures. There are more potential cultures that could have existed than actual cultures that have existed; due to universality among our cultures. That is, fiction is more diverse than reality. We notice differences between cultures, but often ignore their similarities. Despite many differences (eg. dowries), human societies are most similar to each other (eg. gift exchange) than they are to any other species cultural phenomenon of gift exchange tied with marriage.