Evolutionary Psychology

Essential Reads

The Four Moral Emotions

By Ilana Simons, Ph.D. on November 15, 2009 in The Literary Mind

Recent research on emotion has shifted the traditional focus away from the "basic" emotions to another set of emotions which are thought to be more distinctly human. Focus has turned to the "self-conscious" emotions, which are sometimes also referred to as "moral," "social," or "higher-order" emotions. These are the emotions that an organism can only feel if it has a highly developed sense of self-reflection. Usually, the "self-conscious" emotions are listed as these four: guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride. Read More

The Four Moral Emotions
by Ilana Simons, Ph.D.
How Much Should One Spend on An Engagement Ring?
by Gad Saad, Ph.D.
Why Do We Have Emotions?
by Ilana Simons, Ph.D.

The Latest

Do Dogs Laugh?

By Stanley Coren, Ph.D. on November 22, 2009 in Canine Corner

Dogs make laughing sounds when they are playing. These same sounds, whether recorded or imitated by a human being can be used to calm a dog or invite it to play. Read More
Humor and Poignancy

By Carole A. Travis-Henikoff on November 20, 2009 in All Things Human

On the day of the fire I begged for silvadene ointment for my burns. Read More
The Latest on the Littlest Brains in Human Evolution

By John S. Allen, Ph.D. on November 18, 2009 in Lives of the Brain

Last month (October 2009), Science magazine devoted an entire extraordinary issue to what may be our oldest ancestor: Ardipithecus ramidus. Ardipithecus ramidus, with its small cranial capacity and mix of primitive and derived traits, sits about where it should on the hominid family tree, in both time and space. The same cannot be said for the fossil known as the "Hobbit" (LB1), representing a putative new species, Homo floresiensis. Separated by almost 4 million years and thousands of miles, what do these species tell us about human brain evolution? Read More
Facing Up to the Other

By Michael Kaplan on November 16, 2009 in Bozo Sapiens

Why you are right to hate the Pirese. Read More
Who is the Most Violent Person in Your Family?

By Susan Newman, Ph.D. on November 15, 2009 in Singletons

You may be surprised.
Last week twenty-year-old Jim told his mother that he has always been leery of his younger, but larger brother, Andrew. Jim's cautiousness around Andrew dates back to the time Andrew shoved him off a dump truck breaking both of Jim's wrists. Read More
The Four Moral Emotions

By Ilana Simons, Ph.D. on November 15, 2009 in The Literary Mind

Recent research on emotion has shifted the traditional focus away from the "basic" emotions to another set of emotions which are thought to be more distinctly human. Focus has turned to the "self-conscious" emotions, which are sometimes also referred to as "moral," "social," or "higher-order" emotions. These are the emotions that an organism can only feel if it has a highly developed sense of self-reflection. Usually, the "self-conscious" emotions are listed as these four: guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride. Read More
"Everything happens for a reason": Simple phrase opens worm-can of wonder

By Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on November 15, 2009 in Ambigamy

It sounds so true. People seem to take such comfort from that phrase's wisdom. There's something proudly accepting and resolved in their tone when they declare it, as though they're sharing a hard-earned profound lesson.

What it means though is very much up in the air. And therein lies a tale of our era's confusion regarding causality, or what we mean by "a reason."
Read More
How Much Should One Spend on An Engagement Ring?

By Gad Saad, Ph.D. on November 15, 2009 in Homo Consumericus

The accepted wisdom regarding the amount of money that a man should spend on an engagement ring is that it should be equivalent to three months of his salary. A recent study published in Human Nature put this norm to the test, as well as explored factors that might affect the amount spent when purchasing an engagement ring. Read More
Why Do We Have Emotions?

By Ilana Simons, Ph.D. on November 14, 2009 in The Literary Mind

Mental illness often results from excess emotion. The overflow of emotion doesn't just drive mood disorders like Depression but fuels most psychological problems which are not strictly organic: phobias, anxiety, trauma, hoarding, obsessiveness, borderline personality disorder, and drug and alcohol abuse. Read More
Deep Rationality

By Douglas Kenrick on November 12, 2009 in Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life

Radical changes are in store when Charles Darwin and Daniel Kahneman are properly introduced to one another. On the evolutionary view, what seems irrational at the surface level may be, on closer examination, deeply rational. Read More
Our Capacity for Interruption or . . . How We Get Away with Daydreaming

By Amy Fries on November 12, 2009 in The Power of Daydreaming

At least the two Northwest Airlines pilots who flew 150 miles past their appointed runaway didn't claim "daydreaming" as a distraction. Instead, they asserted that they were caught up in doing business on their laptops. Read More
Is sport a religion?

By Nigel Barber, Ph.D. on November 11, 2009 in The Human Beast

Psychologists are closing in on the conclusion that sport has many of the same effects on spectators as religion does. Here is Daniel Wann [2001], a leading sport psychologist at Murray State University, and his co-authors: Read More
Some Lessons Taught by Informal Sports, Not Taught by Formal Sports

By Peter Gray on November 11, 2009 in Freedom to Learn

Imagine an old-fashioned sandlot game of baseball. A bunch of kids of various ages show up at the vacant lot. They've come on foot or by bicycle. Someone brought a bat and ball (which may or may not be an actual baseball), and several came with fielders' gloves. They decide to play a game. ... The lessons intrinsic to this kind of game are the lessons intrinsic to real life: (1) There is no real difference between your team and the other team. (2) To keep the game going, you have to keep everyone happy, including those on the other team. (3) You and the other players have to make the rules yourselves, and you have to change them as conditions change. (4) Conflicts are settled by argument, negotiation and compromise, not by appeal to a higher authority. (5) Playing well and having fun really ARE more important than winning. Read More
Lazy Gene theory: A whole new take on self-confidence, love, addiction and co-dependence

By Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on November 9, 2009 in Ambigamy

Evolutionary psychology generally focuses on the ways in which life's age old pursuit of biological reproductive success shapes our mind's activities. Evolution and behavior are related in another way as well. Evolutionary epistemologists like me are interested in how the minds activities are evolution by other means. Read More
Why Do People Vote? I

By Satoshi Kanazawa on November 8, 2009 in The Scientific Fundamentalist

Why millions of people turn out to vote in every national election in the United States and other large democracies is one of the persistent mysteries in the rational choice theory of politics. Why do people vote? Read More
What Does it Mean to Say "We'll Adapt" to Big Cities and to Little Nature?

By Peter H. Kahn, Jr., Ph.D. on November 8, 2009 in Human-Nature

A reader posted the following response to an earlier discussion of mine. He said, "We can't turn back time, we need to adapt." But adaptation is many things. Sometimes when we adapt it's good for us - biologically and psychologically. And sometimes it's bad for us. I'd like to discuss different types of adaptation. This discussion forms part of the argument for smaller cities, fewer people, and bigger nature. Read More
The Ft. Hood Killer - Guilty But Not Evil

By Dr. Mark Goulston on November 7, 2009 in Just Listen

The measure of a civilization is how it treats those who have hurt it.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan was not a bad person. He was even possibly a good person. But he was a very sick person who did a terrible thing.

If you are someone who disagrees with that, then I would suggest you stop reading now. Read More
Science of Speed Dating - Part IV

By Daniel R. Hawes on November 6, 2009 in Evolved Primate

Ask men and women what they look for in a partner, and they will tell you that they are basically looking for someone who matches well with them in terms of wealth and status, family commitment, attractiveness, health and of course general physical appearance. Take a closer look at who these same men and women end up actually pursuing as potential partners, however, and a quite different story ensues... Read More
Blending Out

By Steve Livingston on November 4, 2009 in Tinted Lenses

Why are we so resistant to the idea of "interracial" mating? Is it something deep within us, an elder prejudice from the days when we roamed the savannah? How valid is this aversion from a biological standpoint? In this post, I reflect on these issues within an evolutionary social psychological framework. Read More
Sexual Attraction, Health and Evolution: It's a Rocky Road

By Daniel R. Hawes on November 4, 2009 in Evolved Primate

Which physical characteristics make for attraction? From facial symmetry, to body-mass-indices, waist-hip-ratios, to sexual dimorphism and skin color, many popular science reports evoke evolutionary explanations that link sexual attraction to improved health attributes. As a careful review of the literature reminds us, this evolutionary rational is not always appropriate... Read More

Evolutionary Psychology Blogs

A Natural History of the Modern Mind
Cognition, relationships, and evolution.
By Kayla Causey and Aaron Goetz
All Things Human
An anthropologist explores the science of anomalous occurrences, death and dying, grief, and societal beliefs.
By Carole A. Travis-Henikoff
Basic Instincts
How basic instincts provide practical insights into the mind and religion, and how a special third basic instinct separates us from other animals.
By Alex S. Key
Bozo Sapiens
Exploring how our cognitive, logical, and romantic failures are a fair price for our extraordinary success as a species.
By Michael Kaplan
Cupid's Poisoned Arrow
Why does the honeymoon end--and what can we do?
By Marnia Robinson
Homo Consumericus
The Nature and Nurture of Consumption
By Gad Saad, Ph.D.
Kluge
The Clumsy Human Mind
By Gary Marcus, Ph.D.
Quirky Little Things
The science of the queer and the quotidian.
By Jesse Bering
Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life
Exploring the simple selfish biases that make us caring, creative, and complex.
By Douglas Kenrick
Smell Life
Discovering our enigmatic sense of smell.
By Rachel Herz, Ph.D.
The Blind Matchmaker
A discussion of our evolved psychology in the domains of mating, attraction, and romantic and sexual relationships.
By Andrew Galperin
The Human Beast
Why we do what we do.
By Nigel Barber, Ph.D.
The Scientific Fundamentalist
A Look at the Hard Truths About Human Nature
By Satoshi Kanazawa

Evolutionary Psychology Basics

Our bodies evolved over eons, slowly calibrating to the African savanna on which 98 percent of our ancestors lived and died. So, too, did our brains. Evolutionary psychology postulates that the mind is shaped by pressure to survive and reproduce. We jealously guard romantic partners and cherish our closest relatives above all others, lest we fail to pass on our genes.

Go to the Evolutionary Psychology Basics page for more on Evolutionary Psychology including:

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