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I’m sure that the old Nina Simone song “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” must resonate with many evolutionary psychologists. As someone who has focused an awful lot of time and energy into this field (see my textbook, Evolutionary Psychology 101), it sure does resonate with me! So many times when I hear people who know little about the field talk about the field, mischaracterizations abound! While many such mischaracterizations exist (e.g., it’s not based on science; it’s inherently sexist; it’s a politically conservative approach to society, and more …), the mischaracterizations I’d like to address here are the following:
A. The mischaracterization that the evolutionary psychological perspective has zero focus on the environment as having a role in shaping human behavior.
and
B. The mischaracterization that that evolutionary psychology is all about genes controlling all behavior – that it is “genetically deterministic.”
Uggh – these things kill me! And I feel like I spend a lot of time carefully addressing how the evolutionary psychology approach does explain behavior – and how it, quite importantly, is not a “genetically deterministic” doctrine and how it provides very large roles for culture, learning, and environment.
The Evolutionary Psychology (EP) perspective, in fact, sees humans as organisms like any other organisms – as shaped by evolutionary forces. Does this mean that genes have something to do with us? Well yeah – absolutely. I wouldn’t be typing right now if there were no genes in my cells! However, the EP perspective is VERY MUCH focused on human behavior as conditional or ecologically sensitive. That is, the EP perspective is largely based on the fact that an evolutionarily optimal behavioral approach so often depends on the environment. And a well-designed organism’s behavioral system will probably reflect this fact!
Evolutionary Psychology Focuses Importantly on the Environment
In humans, conditional evolved behavioral patterns or strategies abound. Consider, as an example, males’ purported tendency to be short-term mating strategists (see Buss & Schmitt, 1993). Under many conditions, males will be more likely to seek short-term mates and focus on short-term relationships compared with females. But this can change as a function of ecology in evolutionarily predictable ways. For instance, David Schmitt (2005) showed that in societies with very few males at a given time (often due to wartime conditions that were very demanding), males are more likely to show promiscuity. In such an environment, heterosexual females have less choice in the mate-selection domain – and this fact shapes the nature of male mating behavior. Males who do not change their behavioral strategies as a function of such ecological conditions are actually less likely to obtain mates and reproduce.
The EP perspective is, actually, VERY focused on human behavior as ecologically sensitive. Without question, this tendency for human behavior to be highly sensitive to the details of particular environments is a significant result of our evolutionary heritage.
Evolutionary Psychology as Behavior for Genes
And one more thing. Under some conditions, evolutionary psychologists, often collaborating with behavioral geneticists, have documented specific genes that underlie specific behavioral tendencies (such as the DRD4 gene which plays a role in tendencies toward infidelity – see Eisenberg, Apicella, Campbell, Dreber, Garcia, & Lum, 2010). However, under most conditions, evolutionary psychologists progress not from the perspective of genes for behavior but, rather, from the perspective of behaviors for genes!
The EP perspective is largely adaptationist, meaning that there is a large focus on behavioral patterns that ultimately serve the function of facilitating survival and/or reproduction. For instance, the common human fear of spiders, which killed a lot of people under ancestral conditions (see Ohman & Mineka, 2001), btw, is seen as an evolved adaptation – but specific genes for this fear have not been documented. The adaptationist reasoning, in fact, is often based on behavioral data (such as strong human reactions to spiders compared with other stimuli) and an examination of ancestral (and ancestral-like) environments, which included higher proportions of deadly spiders in immediate human environments.
In this case of the EP of spider phobia, then, the work is not based on genes for behaviors - it’s not about specific genes that lead to spider phobia. Rather, it is about behavior for genes – that is, adaptive behavioral patterns (staying free of spiders!) to help facilitate reproductive success (and ultimately, allow one’s genes to survive another day). The behavioral pattern, here, is all about ultimately facilitating gene replication. It’s not genes for behavior – it’s behavior for genes!
EP is awesome and has so much to offer us in understanding who we are. Mischaracterizations of EP are often very obstructionisitic and are not always helpful. Hopefully this article helps clear up some mischaracterizations related to the field – to help at least some others see, as I do, that evolutionary psychology truly is an awesome approach to understanding who we are!
References
Buss, D. M., & Schmitt D. P, (1993). Sexual Strategies Theory: An evolutionary
perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100(2), 204-232.
DTA Eisenberg, CL Apicella, BC Campbell, A Dreber, JR Garcia, & JK Lum. (2010). Assortative human pair-bonding for partner ancestry and allelic variation of the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2-3), 194-202.
Geher, G. (2014). Evolutionary Psychology 101. New York: Springer.
