PSYC3011 Final: PSYC3011 Full Summary
Document Summary
Early theories of evolution of behaviour: lamarck, there are three main postulates , environmental changes can produce new habits, these new habits lead to physical changes, the physical changes are heritable, e. g. giraffe(cid:495)s neck, natural selection, darwin. In any population, there is variation amongst individuals: some of these variations are better fitted to survive in the environment. These individuals thus have more reproductive advantage over others: as a result, these traits are more likely to be passed on between species, environmental changes and geographical isolation promote divergence. Whilst natural selection works against the individual to select for those who can more readily adapt to an environment, sexual selection seeks to enhance secondary sexual characteristics for the purpose of mating. In this sense, the latter can potentially result in maladaptive traits. This can be seen through reasoning in apes, speech in parrots and moral sense, such as altruism. Therefore, the human mind evolved as a result of natural selection.
