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Most researchers who apply evolutionary models to human behavior are not interested in the differences between members of different racial groups. There are two reasons for this:
One is the theoretical argument that there are unlikely to be major differences in psychological mechanisms that follow racial lines (Tooby & Cosmides, 1990). All members of a given species tend to share finely coordinated sets of psychological mechanisms that need to fit in with the rest of the set, this is true of Homo sapiens. Modern human groups only split apart within recent evolutionary history, and there has been a great deal of interbreeding between the different groups. In their scientific research, most evolutionary psychologists have been interested in digging beneath superficial differences between people from different societies, to discover human universals (e.g., Kenrick & Keefe, 1992).
A second reason may be that most evolutionary psychologists, like most psychologists in general, tend to hold a liberal set of political beliefs, one part of which includes an opposition to racial and ethnic discrimination.*
A minority of social scientists, who typically have not read much of modern evolutionary psychology, still cling to a false belief that thinking about human behavior in evolutionary terms is part of a right wing racist conspiracy. That belief was advanced during the 1970s sociobiology debate by the late Stephen Jay Gould and is still occasionally brought back to life (see Tybur, Miller, & Gangestad, 2007, for some quotes that might be humorous if they weren’t so falsely accusatory). As open-minded scientists, I would hope that those who have heard this claim will want to check it against the actual data. Consider an attitudinal study conducted by Josh Tybur, Geoffrey Miller, and Steve Gangestad. They compared a large group of graduate students in evolutionary psychology with graduate students as a whole. There were no differences on an array of beliefs, with both groups scoring very liberal on scales measuring both political compassion and economic liberalism. The only significant difference between the groups, in fact, was that evolutionary psychologists had more favorable attitudes toward science. I’ve admitted my own liberal biases in earlier blog postings, and I’m sensitive to the recent arguments that psychologists are prejudiced against conservatives. So I should point out that I do not mean to imply here that evolutionary psychologists are better people for their liberal political beliefs, only to make clear to outsiders that a typical evolutionary psychologist is not likely to be politically sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan.*
Harvard psychologist Jim Sidanius, one of a team now studying prejudice in evolutionary context
The evolutionary psychology of stereotypying and prejudice
There is an emerging body of research which asks whether we can better understand the psychology of stereotyping and prejudice by integrating ideas from evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology (e.g., Ackerman et al., 2006; Cosmides, Tooby, & Kurzban, 2003; Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005: Navarrete et al., 2009a, 2009b; Schaller & Neuberg, 2008). This work is part of a long-standing tradition in social psychology, which involves the scientific analysis prejudice and stereotyping in the hopes of reducing discrimination. I discuss this research in depth in my recently released book (Sex, murder, and the meaning of life), and will go into more depth in a later installment, but for now, I would implore those who are stereotyping “evolutionary psychologists” to withhold their condemnatory judgments until after they actually read this body of scientific literature. Stereotyping, as we see, can be dangerous and unfair.
Related posts
Why objections to irrationality and simple-mindedness shouldn't be same
Does psychology discriminate against political conservatives?
On being a politically biased psychology professor.
Evolutionary psychology is distinctly nonracist.
Satoshi Kanazawa does not speak for all evolutionary psychologists
References
Ackerman, J. M., Shapiro, J. R., Neuberg, S. L., Kenrick, D. T., Schaller, M., Becker, D. V., Griskevicius, V., & Maner, J. K. (2006). They all look the same to me (unless they're angry): From out-group homogeneity to out-group heterogeneity. Psychological Science, 17, 836-840.
Cottrell, C. A., & Neuberg, S. L. (2005). Different emotional reactions to different groups: A sociofunctional threat-based approach to ‘prejudice.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 770-789.
Cosmides, L., Tooby, J., & Kurzban, R. (2003). Perceptions of race. Trends in Cognitive Science, 7, 173-179.
Cottrell, C. A., & Neuberg, S. L. (2005). Different emotional reactions to different groups: A sociofunctional threat-based approach to ‘prejudice.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 770-789.
Kenrick, D.T. (2011). Sex, murder, and the meaning of life: A psychologist investigates how evolution, cognition, and complexity are revolutionizing our view of human nature. New York: Basic books.
Kenrick, D.T., & Keefe, R.C. (1992). Age preferences in mates reflect sex differences in mating strategies. (target article) Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 15, 75- 91.
Navarrete, C.D., Fessler, D.M.T. Santos Fleischman, D., & Geyer, J. (2009a). Race bias
tracks conception risk across the menstrual cycle. Psychological Science, 20(6): 661-
665.
Navarrete, C.D., Olsson, A., Ho, A., Mendes, W., Thomsen, L., & Sidanius, J. (2009b). Fear extinction to an out-group face: The role of target gender. Psychological Science, 20(2): 155-158.
Schaller, M., & Neuberg, S. L. (2008). Intergroup prejudices and intergroup conflicts. In C. Crawford and D. L. Krebs (Eds.), Foundations of evolutionary psychology: Ideas, applications, and applications (pp. 401-414). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1990). On the universality of human nature and the uniqueness of the individual – the role of genetics and adaptation. Journal of Personality, 58, 17- 67.
Tybur, J. M., Miller, G. F., & Gangestad, S. W. (2007). Testing the controversy: An empirical examination of adaptationists’ attitudes towards politics and science. Human Nature, 18, 313–328.
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*Speaking of overgeneralized stereotypes, I do not mean to imply here that anyone who labels him or herself as a conservative necessarily embraces racism and discrimination. I’m not a political scientist, so will advance the amateur speculation that the small minority of the population that is actually racist is generally averse to other features of the general liberal agenda, such as economic redistribution, social welfare, pacifism, and laissez faire attitudes about sexuality. Hence, I’m guessing that the economic and social conservatives get to inherit some racist groups by default, due to what may be spurious correlations.
