PSYC 3100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Naturalistic Fallacy, Nikolaas Tinbergen, Genetic Fallacy

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3100
• Professor: Hank Davis

Document Summary

Evolutionary psychology is different from other specialties within psychology because it uses evolutionary thinking to answer questions in all area"s of psychology: learning, perception, personality, and the rest. Evolution has had much less impact on psychology then on biology. The sssm, a term developed by tobby and cosmides, refers to the general set of beliefs held by psychologists that have a pervasive influence on their research and theories. The sssm dominates traditional psychology, but it conflicts with current evolutionary thought. The sssm has a long history that reaches back to the enlightenment philosophers, long before the founding of psychology. It rests on three interrelated assumptions: assumption1, the blank slate (aka tabula rasa, the blank slate is an analogy for a virgin mind with no initial content. According to this vie, the human mind is a neutral medium on which experience makes its mark. In the sssm view genes are considered to be very broad boundaries: assumption3, general-purpose learning mechanism.