PSYC 3100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Encephalization, Intellectual Disability, Teratology

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

Document Summary

Evolutionary psychology is interested for the most part in those things people have in common, not their differences. We are interested in adaptations: mechanisms that evolved to solve problems for our ancestors in the eea. Those mechanisms are basically the same from one person to another because people who did not have them left few offspring. All humans have four-chambered hearts because variations from that design did not work as well in humans, if indeed they worked at all. Behavioural genetics focuses on the genetic basis of differences between people, whereas evolutionary psychology focuses on the. People differ on many dimensions, of course: height and weight, eye and hair colour, and so fourth. Some of the dimensions that we vary on are behavioural: musical ability, friendliness, and the like. (presumably genetic) mechanisms that are common to all people. The optimum value of a trait may vary over time.