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GLIM, Spring 1996, volume 2
Swarthmore College student publications (1874 - 2013)
1996-04-01
reformatted digital
12
volutionary —_ psychology
focuses on biological results
of the conditions and situa-
tions that defined our ancestors’
existence. It is a discipline that
seeks to explain how human psy-
chology is influenced by mecha-
nisms that evolved to deal with
factors our ancestors faced, and
many of which we have out-
grown as human life has
changed. Furthermore, evolu-
tionary psychology is the study
of how the brain turns informa-
tion into adaptive behavior.
The mind is the product of the
brain’s information processing
mechanisms, which in turn have
been naturally selected over
time because they made effective
sorts of adaptive behavior possi-
ble. Evolutionary psychology is
the study of the connection
between long-term adaptive
changes and the psychological
mechanisms that contribute to
human behavior.
Most present-day psychologi-
cal mechanisms, according to
the tenets of evolutionary psy-
chology, began existence as ran-
om variations in the psycholog-
ical structure of some of our
ancestors in the distant past.
Natural selection made the
mechanisms most beneficial to
our ancestors a part of our own
genetic makeup. Humans born
with certain psychological
mechanisms, like humans born
with other random attributes,
gained certain advantages; indi-
viduals endowed with successful
psychological mechanisms stood
a greater chance of survival and
of fruitful procreation than did
individuals not so endowed. On
average, those who possessed
beneficial mechanisms procreat-
ed more frequently, took better
care of themselves and their kin,
were attracted to more fertile
mates, and generally behaved in
ways that made their genes more
likely to survive than did other
humans. So the most successful
randomly evolved mechanisms
were passed on, through the
process of natural selection.
These cognitive psychological
mechanisms have shaped the
2 pe ents J een, O Prof. : Durant o) ean 1995
ABSTRACT
This paper is based on the definition and goals of Evolutionary Psychology. The
assignment for this particular piece was as follows: How is the concept of nat-
ural selection by adaption involved in the creation of cognitive psychological
mechanisms? What is your opinion of this enterprise? Support your position
with a brief “logical” explanation.
ways that we respond to information—organisms that can use informative
stimuli to further their own well being will live relatively long and pass their
genes on to the next generation, while organisms who cannot will eventually
die out and cease to have an impact on the gene pool. So the psychological
mechanisms that have survived over time have been those that helped
humans process information from their environment to accurately further
their biological interests. Of course, the situations and conditions which
many such mechanisms evolved to cope with have long ceased to be relevant
to human life in general. Since we have developed artificial methods—med-
icine, machinery, technology in general—to help us control many of the nat-
ural urges and problems for which adaptive cognitive mechanisms were natur-
al solutions, the original functions of many such mechanisms have become
obsolete. Our artificial developments have also interrupted natural selec-
tion—the overall human genetic structure does not change much from gener-
ation to generation, since it is no longer true that humans more genetically
“fit” tend to pass on their genes more successfully or often than do other
humans.
The present-day result of our cognitive mechanisms’ evolution is behavior.
Evolutionary psychology dictates that human behavior is in fact the collective
functioning of the psychological mechanisms that make up the human brain.
A wide variety of specialized cognitive mechanisms guide and influence our
behavior and response to stimuli from birth onward. The cognitive mecha-
nisms with which we are inherently endowed allow us to process information
and to extrapolate in certain ways without having to learn how—we have
inherent knowledge and inherent common ways of using it to gain further
knowledge. Each mechanism evolved in response to a different set of circum-
stances, and so each is responsible for a different aspect of the human
mind/behavior. Since these mechanisms are common to most modern
humans, we have a baseline of common behavior and psychological structure
that distinguishes us from other organisms. But the mechanisms manifest
themselves differently in each individual—we are endowed with very different
minds and personalities even though our brains have similar physical struc-
ture. Psychological mechanisms are, theoretically, what give us distinct indi-
vidual thought.
However, in spite of what evolutionary psychology preaches, I think the
concept of psychological mechanisms is unnecessary and perhaps misleading.
To think of the brain as a machine composed of many parts that have been
GLIM, Spring 1996, volume 2
Swarthmore College student publications (1874 - 2013)
1996-04-01
reformatted digital