PSY351H5 Chapter 12: CHAPTER 12.docx
Document Summary
Evolutionary psychology: attempts to apply the principles of adaptation and selection to human behavior. Historical theory of evolution can be summed up by three terms; variation, inheritance, and differential reproduction. Darwin suggested that the mechanism underlying these changes was natural selection: requires that all individuals are unique and that characteristics that give an animal a reproductive advantage will result in the magnification of these traits in the population. Adaptation: when a trait results in a reproductive advantage and is selected for. For a trait to be an adaptation it must be inherited from one generation to the next. Sexual selection: it is competition among individuals for survival to reproduce that determines which genes remain in the gene pool and which genes disappear from the face of the planet. We now know traits are passed down by genes and that the original source of variation is the random mutation of these genes.
