Confer, Jaime C., Judith A. Easton, Diana S. Fleischman, Cari D. Goetz, David M. G. Lewis, Carin Perilloux, and David M. Buss (2010) Evolutionary Psychology Controversies, Questions, Prospects, and Limitations. American Psychologist 65 (2): 110–126 DOI: 10.1037/a0018413
Evolutionary psychology has emerged over the past 15 years as a major theoretical perspective, generating an increasing volume of empirical studies and assuming a larger presence within psychological science. At the same time, it has generated critiques and remains controversial among some psychologists. Some of the controversy stems from hypotheses that go against traditional psychological theories; some from empirical findings that may have disturbing implications; some from misunderstandings about the logic of evolutionary psychology; and some from reasonable scientific concerns about its underlying framework. This article identifies some of the most common concerns and attempts to elucidate evolutionary psychology’s stance pertaining to them. These include issues of testability and falsifiability; the domain specificity versus domain generality of psychological mechanisms; the role of novel environments as they interact with evolved psychological circuits; the role of genes in the conceptual structure of evolutionary psychology; the roles of learning, socialization, and culture in evolutionary psychology; and the practical value of applied evolutionary psychology. The article concludes with a discussion of the limitations of current evolutionary psychology.
Evolutionary psychology has emerged over the past 15 years as a major theoretical perspective, generating an increasing volume of empirical studies and assuming a larger presence within psychological science. At the same time, it has generated critiques and remains controversial among some psychologists. Some of the controversy stems from hypotheses that go against traditional psychological theories; some from empirical findings that may have disturbing implications; some from misunderstandings about the logic of evolutionary psychology; and some from reasonable scientific concerns about its underlying framework. This article identifies some of the most common concerns and attempts to elucidate evolutionary psychology’s stance pertaining to them. These include issues of testability and falsifiability; the domain specificity versus domain generality of psychological mechanisms; the role of novel environments as they interact with evolved psychological circuits; the role of genes in the conceptual structure of evolutionary psychology; the roles of learning, socialization, and culture in evolutionary psychology; and the practical value of applied evolutionary psychology. The article concludes with a discussion of the limitations of current evolutionary psychology.
Commenting on the mindreading and anthropomorphisation which is discussed in the YouTube lecture: I'm not sure how valuable this is, as it's not immediately evident to me how falsifiable or verifiable our ideas are. At the very least, we need to be very cautious with our projections. As an example, roommate's dog is lying on his mat in the living room. I assume he is doing so because he's bored - no one is playing or interacting with him at the moment.
ReplyDeleteIf I was to ask my roommate, he might say that Wallace (the doggie) is lying there because he's tired.
Someone further might say it's because Wallace has a positive association with the carpet he's on, or that he likes daydreaming in that spot, or he is expecting the sun's rays to break through the clouds any minute, and is simply waiting for that..
All of these are cases of mindreading, and anthropomorphisation, but there is no way to tell which is accurate, if any of the theories are at all.
And if there is such uncertainty, without any means of verification, why is there benefit in guessing his motives? Nor do I see any need to - for me it doesn't matter why the doggie is "affectionate" and "friendly". (Admittedly, interpreting some of his behaviors as affectionate/friendly is also anthropomorphisation.) But I can appreciate it regardless of his motives.
As for the article on evolutionary psychology by Buss and his colleagues.
I've read a lot of evolutionary psychology in the past, starting with the introductory Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. It was fascinating to me, however I stopped following evolutionary psychology as I came to see most of the explanations as post hoc 'just so' explanations. I saw many hypotheses that seemingly made sense given an evolutionary paradigm, but without any real way of method of verification. It just didn't seem scientific, or even attempting to be. In the lecture, Harnard mentions the hypothesis of men smooth talking women as indicating their intelligence and mating value. This seems like it could make sense, but would one prove this? Or the hypothesis that lighter coloured eyes are more attractive because they more clearly indicate that individual with them is attracted to the individual they are looking at. (As pupil dilation occurs when one looks at another individual they like, and this phenomena is easier to observe in individuals with blue or green eyes.)
In hearing about these sorts of hypotheses, I've become skeptical about the "science" of evolutionary psychology. Overall, these sorts of claims need to be made more cautiously, and methodically investigated. I'm glad the authors touched on many of this.
I do think that evolutionary psychology has immense value, even outside of science. Many of the principles, such as the Savanah Principle (that we are adapted for life on the planes of a Savanah, 10000 years ago) are particularly useful to keep in mind. Ideas like this can help inform effective policy decisions, and clarify much of the ongoing and seemingly irrational behavior which occurs. Looking at female fertility, and hormone levels allow us to make better sense of male mate preference for younger females, even if neither partner wishes to have children, or as the article discussed, why males (or anyone) would look at pornography.
As a final comment, I've seen many criticisms of evolutionary psychology because of the supposed implications of the hypothesis, which they may be sensitive to. For example, a hypothesis might suggest females prefer more financially affluent males, because this suggests they are capable of more paternal investment in the offspring. Both men and women may resent this this claim, not on scientific grounds, but simply because they might not like what it suggests about human nature.
Why a dog is lying down is not a deep question, so anthropomorphism is unlikely to give a deep answer.
DeleteBut if you want an example of where anthroporphism is important -- indeed of life and death and agony importance, have a look at this article (which argues against anthropomorphism). (Needless to say, I deeply disagree with this paper, but I haven't published a critique, because I'm inviting the author to do a position paper in the new journal I'm editing, Animal Sentience):
Key, B. (2014). Fish do not feel pain and its implications for understanding phenomenal consciousness. Biology & Philosophy, 1-17.
As to Evolutionary Psychology, the trick is to find the fuzzy category boundary between where it makes sense (mostly when it's close to reproductive traits) and when it turns into abject nonsense.
Conflating Innate and Universal Behaviours;
ReplyDeleteMy goal is argue a minimal number of traits as being truly innate. I’m going to focus on one supposedly innate fear brought up by the paper: a fear of heights. Studies have shown that, when a setup has babies crawling on a glass covering over a height to get to a caregiver, very young infants generally have no problem crossing what looked like a steep drop when encouraged; it was only the older children who, presumably having learned of the dangers of falling from heights by experiencing gravity first-hand, hesitated (reference term: “Visual Cliff”). Moreover, newborns are less likely to be harmed by being dropped than older children because they remain limp and relaxed even as they are falling through the air; only older babies anticipate pain and hence tense up. So I find the premises of evolutionary psychology, namely that a great many off our behaviours, preferences, and fears are innate, conflates innateness with universality due to experience. We really don't need an evolutionary explanation for why people are afraid of heights when the common-sense realization that people fear heights because heights are quite simply dangerous serves us just fine. Why do we learn that heights are dangerous more quickly than that cars are dangerous? Consider the frequency with which one encounters gravity vs. a car on a path of collision and the ‘specific adaptive mechanism to learning heights are dangerous’ argument seems very shaky indeed; frequency and salience serve us just fine. Finally, though this is a weaker point, the paper admits about genes only being able to code proteins, and though its inability to give a satisfactory explanation that links this admitted limit of DNA to a truly evolved, specific mechanism is not in itself evidence against evolutionary psychology, the fact that other mechanisms are able to explain what evolutionary psychology cannot begs the question of “what reason have we to go for the unsupported conclusion?”
Similar logic can be applied to the other so-called examples such as selecting nutritious food (we learn which food is edible), friendship (we learn that treating other people well generally means that we will be treated well), coalitional cooperation (we learn that free riders add no value to a hierarchy), sexual dimorphism in jealousy (differential socialization between males and females and anthropological evidence that the dimorphism is anything but universal), the example brought up above regarding preferring financially well-endowed individuals as mates (they can buy us nice things and we know it), etcetera.
It's hard to draw the line between what is an evolved disposition and what is just a result of learning. But it is probably not reasonable to deny any Darwinian influence on sexual dispositions. And fear of heights seem to come naturally in many people even if they have not been very high, very often, whereas few seem to have have that same terror on the edge of a busy street,
DeleteI believe that in order to test the fear of heights one would have to examine people who have spent roughly the same amount of time at high heights as they have near the side of the road (e.g., people who build skyscrapers, skydiving instructors, etc) and develop an experiment to see whether or not they exhibit greater symptoms of fear at high heights vs. by the side of the road.
DeleteI have to agree with Dia on the point that I found the evolutionary perspective on fear of heights to be quite weak. However, I would also like to point out that an evolved fear of heights would not necessarily appear at birth due to the ways in which human neural circuitry develop over the course of childhood.
My main issue with evolutionary psychology is its implications for psychiatry and the idea of genetically encoded behavioral adaptations. The article claims that "all adaptations, by definition, must have a genetic basis. If they did not, they could not have evolved by the process of natural selection." This implies that all our psychological, psychiatric problems stem from a "genetic" difference. So why haven't we found anything yet for disorders such as depression? Evolutionary psychology claims that depressive behavior was once beneficial, so that means it was once an adaptation. However, now that the environment has changed, the modern context has made depressive behaviors lose their use, they are now maladaptive. But we have found no genetic correlates to depression. Besides that issue, how can we even test the hypothesis that these behaviors evolved as an adaptation? Even if this were the case, how does it help psychiatry in treating this disorder?
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I find the reasons for adaptations lacking under the framework of evolutionary psychology. The claim that "the human eye is indisputably an adaptation designed for vision..." If we look at all adaptations in this design specific way, how can we possibly understand it? There is no little person inside the brains of each organism saying, "hey, we need some vision, let's design something to solve this problem". This claim just seems ridiculous, there is no such a thing as vision if it cannot be detected. Why should the function precede the mechanism? Rather, it seems to me that the parts needed for vision perception evolved before they were functionally utilize for vision. Perhaps mutations or random variations created these parts that the organism has learned to use for a purpose.
Lastly, I would like to say that the idea of adapting to our environment is not exactly accurately anymore. With the advance of all this technology, we are actively changing the environment around us. The idea of evolution driving us to better adapt us to NATURE is no longer valid, our environment is what we make it. Look at the cities we have built around us to create protection from nature. It seems like what we actually have to adapt to is the changes that we, as humans, have created.
Note: These "adaptations" should be seen as spandrels of evolution.
DeleteIt was mentioned however that evolutionary psychology “rejects a genetic determinism stance and instead is organized around a crisply formulated interactionist framework that invokes the role of the environment at every step of the causal process” (Confer et. al. 2010). In this sense genetic basis play a role in a given psychopathology, however it is not the only factor of its development. It is very possible for two people to have the exact same gene, however the environment they were raised in played a fundamental impact on the behavioural phenotype that would become present.
DeleteAn example of this interaction is in Ellis and Boyce (2008) study. They coded two alleles in a gene: high versus low ΔPMW. The latter proving to be a risk allele (in terms of developmental issues). What was shown was that the risk allele proved to be detrimental to the child’s health when the child was raised with high stressful life events. However, this allele proved to be beneficial to the child’s health if they were raised with low stressful life events. The latter condition even proved more beneficial in terms of the child’s health compared to the children who had the non risk allele.
Their main argument is to support this idea of adaptive phenotypic plasticity with environmental interaction. Positive psychology is a relatively new field, and I believe psychiatry will be able to flourish with a better understanding of the upside of certain psychological conditions, including genetical bases and their potential with environmental interactions.
Furthermore, depression does have roots in genetic factors because this type of psychopathology tends to run throughout family trees and genetically identical twins, however it’s genetic localisation has been an ongoing disputed topic. So the question would be (following along with the study that was mentioned above), what if localization of this gene were to occur, what would be the results of the quest to finding the opposite derivative of a more favourable environment? What about the interaction then? And would you give adaption a more credible role in this case? A very important aspect stated by Willams is mentioned in Confer et. al. (2010) “adaptions are typically defined by the complexity, economy, and efficiency of their design and their precision in effecting specific functional outcomes, not by the ability of scientists to identify their complex genetic bases”. Therefore adaption is actually a much more complex, and holistic picture which would need even more information than I have provided above, to account for something as being adapted. But I do believe such an example is definitely an extra step.
The argument made about the eye being “indisputably an adaption designed for vision, based on the design features for solving the particular adaptive problems”, I don’t think they are arguing that function comes before the mechanism I think they are just talking about the eye already having been there. So whether or not the development of the first pair of eyes to ever exist on a creature is not actually touched upon; instead it’s taken for granted. However what they are arguing, I believe is the complexity of the eye across so many different species. The way the human eye is so complex in being able to detect things such as motion, edges, colours, contrasts, where as a frog detects much less than that, and a bat which relies on echolocation uses their eyes much less as well. Therefore the function of the eye is being discussed here on the multiple levels of its “complexity, economy, and efficiency of [its] design and [its] precision in effecting specific functional outcomes” (Willams as cited in Confer et. al. 2010). And I believe the complexity, economy and efficiency of eyes is very well portrayed through its multiple forms of existence.
On your last argument, I think that you are onto something by asking about the adaption of our genetical feature in accordance with our current environment. However it is important to keep in mind that the environment is our nature, whether that consists of an open plain with trees around, or skyscrapers with cement around. Adaption could take an long time, and we need to keep in mind that humans have been living for about 2.5 million years ago, with civilization only taking place about 10 thousand years ago, very modern city states with train lines starting in the 16th century, and modern technology such as computers in the 20th century. So our nature/environment since civilization has increasingly advanced at such a fast pace. Adaptions will only be able to show at a much later date. So following the lines of evolution 2.5 million years ago and the genetic traits that have adapted since then, I think it becomes important to recognize that the past 2.5 million + years of adaption will have greater precedence in our traits that the 10 thousand or so years of modernity. I mean all of this on the level of our genes. Of course we as humans have been adapting to life socially as well, but the scope of evolutionary psychology is to address matters of why the human became the way the human became in terms of their behaviour, and cognition in relation to the environment that took precedence during the past 2.5 + (taking into consideration primates about 65million years ago) million years. Also I found the two approaches given by evolutionary psychologists to explain how our adaptions (which have taken so many years to evolve) are dealing with the new environment (that arose so quickly) pretty convincing (on page 119-Question 5).
DeleteI do believe that evolutionary psychology has it’s sets of limitations just as Confer et. al. (2010) mention at the end of their paper and Bolhuis et. al (2011) who make evident in their paper that it is unable to explain causation and development but only function and evolution. However I believe evolutionary psychology shouldn’t be as easily dismissed.
On this last note, I find it very interesting that you consider adaptions as spandrels, and that they have simply been around for so long as if it so happened. Another big debate is whether noetic consciousness arose accidentally as a spandrel, rather than something that adaptively arose to deal with the environment.
These ideas of what is a spandrel and what is not I believe comes down to a problem that will never be able to be resolved.
Reference outside of class content
Ellis, B.J., & Boyce, W.T. (2008). “Biological sensitivity to context”. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(3), 183-187.
Jocelyn, there is no doubt that Buss et al go over the top with evolutionary psychology. But let's leave them the usual mechanisms of variation and selection, for the evolution of the eye. The adaptive value of depression is much more speculative. But the fact that humans (and other organisms) alter their environments does not mean evolution has stopped. (If we pollute enough, the ones with sensitive lungs will die out and the ones with less sensitive lungs will multiply, inasmuch as the sensitivity is genetically coded.)
DeleteDemi, the real trick is sorting out what in our current dispositions can plausibly be attributed to evolved tendencies rather than learned ones. It is not an easy distinction to make, and can lead to absurd conclusions in both directions (attributing inborn tendencies to learning, and attributing learned tendencies to genes).
DeleteDemi:
Delete"Furthermore, depression does have roots in genetic factors because this type of psychopathology tends to run throughout family trees and genetically identical twins, however it’s genetic localisation has been an ongoing disputed topic."
I would like to point out that this is weak evidence for the genetic basis of depression. Generally speaking, families are more socially connected than most social circles. They typically have their own internal culture and social norms that could easily be passed down among generations. For all we know, depression could be passed down in an entirely social manner. In particular, children watch how their parents react to adversity, and traumatic/abusive scenes frequently reappear across generations. This is even more true for twins who come into the world at the same time and are more likely to encounter similar experiences and socialization.
Alternatively, one could examine family members that have never been in contact with one another. This type of study would face serious limitations unless they are able to control for the other factors that typically come with growing up in a family that is disconnected. Even children adopted at birth are more likely to face adversity while coming to terms with their identity and learning to form attachments than their peers, and biological parents rarely, if ever, put their children up for adoption "just because I felt like it it". There is a certain degree of adversity faced by both the parents and the children in these scenarios and I believe it is fair to say that depression is frequently linked with adversity.
“A final limitation of evolutionary psychology centers on a current relative deficiency in explaining cultural and individual difference. Evolutionary psychology has been far more successful in predicting and explaining species-typical and sex-differentiated psychological adaptions than explaining variation within species or within the sexes” (Buss as cited in Confer et. al. 2010)
ReplyDeleteI think this is very interesting limitation of evolutionary psychology. As previously mentioned in the paper (page 118-Question 4) there are two ways to study cultural effects:
1) evoked culture which are ever present circumstantial differences (ex: ecology) amongst different groups of people which effect their cognition (ex: mate preference differences according to the different levels of pathogens prevalence)
2) transmitted culture which are differences in ways of being and doing things amongst different groups (ex: adaption of digestion for a dairy products from the cultural invention of farming)
I think these two distinctions are very well made and both had, have, and can have an effect on human adaptions. Like Buss I definitely agree that evolutionary psychology is incomplete if there is not a big picture of how humans around the world differently adapted based on their location and their practices customs.
However I still don’t seem to be quite understanding something:
If we are trying to study cognition, how do humans what they do, I have been assuming this whole time that we want to get at studying cognition on the level of its cognitive architecture- on a level of cognitive impenetrability. So how would studying culture, or evolutionary psychology help us get at this? To me these seem as extra pieces to our cognition, not the fundamentals of our cognition. Unless perhaps, what they are trying to get at is the fundamentals through the differences, and the things that stay constant across different groups of humans around the world.
Demi,
DeleteI was also a little unsure why and to what extent evolutionary psychology has to do with cognitive science or any of the topics we've covered so far, like symbol grounding, categorization, etc. I'm excited to see what direction the class takes on Wednesday when Professor Harnad introduces the topic. For now, I think my takeaway will be that if evolutionary psychology has any credibility, then something important that it teaches us is that the way we think is susceptible to changes over time, likely via a "detailed interactionist framework." Particularly salient to cognitive science were the examples of auditory looming bias, the descent illusion hypothesis, commitment skepticism bias, and the finding that "women consistently judge a variety of acts to be more sexually harassing than do men, and women experience greater levels of fear than do men in response to specific acts of being stalked." On some level you could connect all of these to categorization - e.g., we categorize certain heights as "dangerously high" or certain actions as "dangerously stalker-ish", and our cognitive decision to do so may be informed by evolutionary psychology.
Our cognitive capacities (for example, language) are clearly evolved capacities: Other species lack them. We learn categories and skills, using our inborn capacities; we don't learn the capacities themselves. And it's our cognitive capacities that shaped culture. The big question, then, in the evolution of cognition, is: What adaptive pressures in the environments of our ancestors shaped our current capacities (especially language)?
DeleteI enjoyed reading these arguments for evolutionary psychology and thought it was an interesting way to view human behavior. I’m surprised at how little I know about evolutionary psychology, despite having a focus on psychology as part of my Cognitive Sciences major. The discussion about heights and how we avoid them was of particular interest to me, as I am the type of person who will stand on the edge and stare down, just to experience an adrenaline rush. Is evolutionary psychology able to explain what drives people to participate in life-risking activities? The paper had discussed that it was difficult to put suicide in terms of evolutionary psychology, but what about “extreme” sports, in which death is not certain but it certainly is a factor in participation. Skydiving doesn’t increase anyone’s chances of finding a mate or reproducing, yet there are those that seek out the activity. I can certainly say that if someone were to offer me an opportunity to jump again, I would take it without hesitation – there is no benefit other than the pure love for that adrenaline rush. The rush comes with anticipated dangers to enable an individual to react in the most effective manner in a life-or-death situation; it is definitely a situation that, from an evolutionary standpoint, one would not want to be in, yet some choose to elicit that reaction for pleasure. It seems to me that evolutionary psychology is sort of “choosy” in the theories it explains, in that it selects for certain aspects that work well within its framework, and brushes the rest aside.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not much of a thrill-seeker myself, but maybe in our species' earlier, more challenging environment, some risk-taking was adaptive, and cowards like me would not do so well! (Then again, maybe if I had had a riskier childhood, I would have become more of a thrill-seeker.) There is a genetic component to thrill-seeking, and it can even be linked to pathology. (Timidity too, no doubt...
DeleteIn addition to my response to Demi's post, my other main interest in this article was the section on applications of evolutionary psychology to the law. The idea of the "reasonable person standard" was particularly jarring to me because we've spent so long discussing how the most impenetrable aspect of thinking is the fact that we can't feel what others are feeling; and thus can never know for certain whether they are actually thinking because we can't know if they feel like they are thinking. So putting aside the problems that thinking computers pose, it's interesting to consider how other humans - specifically, a jury of your peers - has the potential to decide on a major aspect of your life based on how they feel, if they are trying to put themselves in your shoes and channel their thoughts as a "reasonable person." Studies have shown that the way we think differs based on our situation (judging height from the top or bottom of a building, for example) or our gender. It just seems crazy that we use this "reasonable person standard" to make judgments when there are such distinct differences in cognition even among "normal" people, so it really will be interesting moving forward to see how scientifically-informed scholars and policymakers try to create policies that better recognize and account for these types of discrepancies to make for more effective laws.
ReplyDeleteEster, I entirely agree with you, and I found the "practical value of evolutionary psychology" particularly baffling.
DeleteEvolutionary psychology is just a by-product, or a post hoc rationalization in my opinion. It may bring SOME sort of insight, but it don't see how it will SOLVE any problems regarding law.
(Or perhaps evolutionary psychology may solves issues, but if it really is the case, the authors did not present it in a convincing fashion)
Yes, people vary in their judgment depending on their gender, age, social status. But I'm sure we can study these differences without evolutionary stuff coming in. If there's a male/female discrepancy for X way of thinking, let's try to make regulations more contingent on these differences to accommodate (e.g. a guy who impregnates a women and run will still have to provide financially for the baby). But would evolutionary psychology really be relevant regarding the PRODUCTION of these laws, or rather simply as a post hoc rationalization?
Evolution may give us a better idea about the origins of some of our dispositions, but it certainly won't teach us how to legislate right and wrong, because evolution fits the classical definition of sociopathy: Biology only "cares" about survival and reproduction, not right and wrong. (I am not saying that all animals are sociopaths; on the contrary, mammals especially, have many of our empathic and humane dispositions, especially towards their own young and their mates, but also toward individuals of other species -- as we see in those wonderful cross-species love videos -- probably because we have no genetic kin-detector, so those dispositions depend on context rather than kinship.)
Delete"Biology only "cares" about survival and reproduction, not right and wrong"
DeleteI think the reason that mammals are especially empathic towards its kin is because that ethnocentrism is the most advantageous strategy for survival and reproduction. While it is true that Darwinism is about survival of the fitness. But being a sociopath and not caring about right and wrong is sometimes on the opposite side of benefiting survival and reproduction. Especially when it comes to the level of large group.
In a computer simulation that we did in another class, we programmed "species" that exhibit 4 different behaviors: 1. Selfish: take advantage of all species (including their own) 2. Traitor: take advantage of own kin while providing benefit for other species 3. Ethnocentrism: benefit own kin while taking advantages of other species. 4. Humanitarian: benefit all species.
After many "life cycles", the ethnocentric species wins in population, by a huge amount. This is not too surprising because while selfish genes benefit an individual the most, it does not help the whole species to grow while ethnocentric species does. In the end, selfish would not be able to take advantage from ethnocentric species and would fail to grow in population.
Regardless my opinion of the relevance of evolutionary psychology studies, I did not found this article very convincing. I was disappointed that all of authors’ arguments consisted mainly in throwing studies after studies in the reader’s face. How can we ever validate that these studies were actually measuring evolution and adaption?
ReplyDeleteEven worst: the article relied way too much on sex-related topics in my opinion. Humans are more than just mating behaviors. What about studies on friendship? Love? Intelligence? Emotions? Attachment? (some of them were covered in the paper, but not extensively).
In a sense, it is logic for authors to rely extensively on sex studies; because that is probably about the only thing you will ever be able to explain with evolutionary psychology (maybe along with phobias).
(Even then, I think that sex is much more driven by social factors than what authors asserted. Otherwise, why would the prevalence of erectile dysfunction be increasing in young men (caused by pornography which distorts normal expectations)? Why are Japanese couples having less and less intercourse (again, Japanese animated pornography is changing expectations and norms regarding sexuality)? Why do people engage in a conundrum of non-reproductive-oriented behaviors, like masturbation, paraphilias, anal sexual intercourse, etc?)
Cognition, which is the main topic of this course, is, I believe, a process that is way too complex to simply be driven by evolutionary forces (especially if we were to concepts like arts, abstract thinking, creativity, etc). As the authors admitted, evolutionary psychology cannot explain cultural and individual variation, which is much more prevalent in cognition than in sex. Besides, would evolutionary psychology really bring important answers regarding our cognitive power? Yes, we are most likely categorizing and using language because it promotes survival. So what?
This line of thinking won’t help us discovery HOW the brain orchestrates all of his cognitive capacities, which is what this course is about. Regardless whether it promotes survival or not, we have to deal with X process and we need to know how it works.
*I made a typo: especially if we were to explore concepts like arts, abstract thinking ...
DeleteIs our interest in pornography cognitive? And what about the "super-stimulus" for the stickleback and for us?
DeleteFlorence, I agree that cognition encompasses way more than just sexual drives, but I think that you can't discount sex as being part of cognition. Just look around you to see how much time is spent thinking, talking, or feeling (in the emotional sense of the word) things related to sex. Clearly, all these things are cognitive, so by extension sex must be part of cognition too. Even while engaging in intercourse, while there are some dynamic, reflexive aspects, there is a lot of mental activity that occurs as well.
Delete“Although burdensomeness to kin provides a plausible explanation for some suicides among the elderly, it strains credulity to argue that it would be beneficial to a healthy adolescent’s reproductive success to end his or her life permanently, regardless of the current mating prospects.” (122)
ReplyDeleteThis problem is one that I fully agree with, why would there be any need for suicide or even human emotion for that matter in an evolutionary sense. From Plato as one of the first scholars to consider this issue, he considered that regimentation is the best way to moderate the “logical and rational” away from the “illogical and irrational” parts of oneself ie emotions. He did not dispute that such things like fear, love, and happiness were not essential piece of being a human, he just found them to be useful to the scholar. One of weakness was also one who let their emotions dictate their behaviour, one who committed suicide did not necessarily need to be a wasteful death depending on the reasons behind it. While I find evolutionary psychology and psychiatry interesting, and can understand pieces of it to be valid, I find it hard to agree with for the same reason that I struggle to accept pure computational psychology or Fodor’s all kinds-type of thinking, or the idea of a universal grammar.
…Nature vs Nurture, Adaptive vs Non adaptive, Socialization vs Evolutionary change, Culture Vs. Social, Genetic Interaction Vs Practical Empirical Theories….
These are all axes of evaluation discussed in the paper. To me, they are all saying the same thing “1+1=2” or that one of these two things won out at this point in our adaptive history to create the organisms that we are now. The binary is where I have the trouble, there is no wiggle room when things are as restrictively defined. I think that the answer to the question – what makes cognition what it is and why/how – lies within the wiggle room. There is a serious need for open thought in cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology is just as big as a culprit as pure computational psychology for being extremely closed. The question I have is, how do we open it without doing a total overhaul of either theories or theorists?
Evolution shaped our cognitive capacities, and then our cognitive capacities and experiences shaped our culture. Today, it's hard to sort out their separate influences. Evolutionary psychologists tend to attribute too much to evolution; but you can be just as wrong in the other direction too. (And that they are both influencing us -- "1+1=2" -- certainly does not solve the problem...
Delete
ReplyDelete"The researchers concluded that “survival processing is one of the best encoding procedures yet identified in human memory research” (Nairne & Pan-deirada, 2008, p. 242). Had the results failed to confirm the predictions about specialized sensitivity to survival-rele-vant content, Nairne’s adaptive memory hypothesis would have been falsified. A second example of a coll
"Had the results failed to confirm the predictions about specialized sensitivity to survival-rele-vant content, Nairne’s adaptive memory hypothesis would have been falsified.
[…]
In the social realm, Hasel-ton and Buss (2000) confirmed the existence of a commitment skepticism bias in women, such that they underinfer levels of romantic commitment (compared with men) that are based on cues such as declarations of love. The important point is that had any of the empirical tests failed, they would have falsified the descent illusion hypothesis, the auditory looming hypothesis, or the commitment skepticism hypothesis."
s"
i found the argument that null results would have falsified the theory to be rather unconvincing. given how difficult null results or results that go against one's own theory are difficult to publish it could easily be the case that the necessary evidence for falsification is simply not out there to be read (even if it were actually existing). not that this is not an issue with any other theory but rather than it shouldn't be relied on heavily as proof that the theory is valid...
You are right. This is simplistic evolutionary psychologizing at its worst...
Delete“Genes do not code directly for particular physiological or behavioural characteristics; rather, they code for specific proteins” (Confer et al., 2010).
ReplyDeleteI found this quote by Confer and colleagues to be the most significant point made in the entire article, particularly because the media is constantly generating articles that make the error of ascribing certain genes to certain behaviours. In my experience, if you tell a layperson that genes produce proteins and not behaviours, they are often surprised. As research in psychology has integrated more and more genetic analyses, the media has exploited this by publishing articles that are misleading and sometimes blatantly incorrect. I appreciate that Confer and colleagues made an effort to explain that most characteristics are in fact polygenic, and that they are also informed by environmental input. It’s actually surprising how some Psychology students at McGill make the “Gene for…” error; this is not a phenomenon that is limited to the media. Also, because many laypeople get their understanding of psychology from such articles, it is especially problematic that this still happens. Also, because of the revolution in genetic science over the past few years, many people believe that genetic evidence is the superior form of evidence in verifying the validity of certain behaviours and psychophysical processes. If something is “in your genes,” it seems to be more believable to the general population because then it is supposedly unchangeable and “biological.” Thus, I think that psychologists and other scientists should exert more energy in specifically addressing the issue of the media’s repeatedly erroneous depictions of studies that involve genetic analyses.
But even with multiple genes, Confer et al manage to get a lot of things oversimplified and wrong -- even on their home turf of sexual behaviour...
DeleteThis article’s central goal was to identify the common concerns that people have with evolutionary psychology and to defend it from these concerns. However, in identifying them, I found that even more of my concerns dealing with evolutionary psychology were raised to the surface. The majority of the article’s defenses were based on studies on mating preference and survival instincts and even then they were not able to provide a complete explanation of common limitations. For example, when explaining the Darwinian paradox (that evolutionary psychology cannot explain homosexual orientation), they simply explained that it is a limitation without providing even a hypothesis as to what adaptation could explain it. To expand on this limitation, it seems like a very valid question to wonder why men of homosexual orientation show jealousy. The point raised on sexual jealousy is that men experience it because of paternal uncertainty –but how does this apply to homosexual men if they are not engaging in child-producing sexual behaviours?
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, they hypothesized that the reason men watch pornography in modern society is because “modern cues that mimic ancestral cues can artificially hijack evolved psychological adaptations in ways that may not be currently adaptive” –essentially saying that in ancestral times when a woman was presented unclothed she was reciprocal for mating so that whenever a man in modern times sees a picture of a naked woman he believes the same thing. Since this is not an adaptive function and men have realized that they cannot mate with a picture of a woman then shouldn’t pornography become obsolete over time? This does not seem to be the case as the pornography industry seems to be a growing industry. How does evolutionary psychology explain this?
To add to my above comment, I thought of some more concerns I have for this article. Most of them deal with the mating preferences and survival instincts highlighted by studies in evolutionary psychology. Firstly, it was shown in a study by Low that girls across cultures are taught to be more sexually restrained than boys; this was called the daughter-guarding hypothesis. I have a problem with the inference from the results that evolution has taught parents to be more protective of their daughter’s mating in order to have a higher change of offspring. I do not think a girl’s parents simply think of her as a reproducing machine so that their genetic pool can exist in the future. Parents are more protective of their daughters because in general women are weaker than men and require more protection as a whole. The reason parents are more concerned about their daughters sexual choices, compared to their sons, is because they realize that their daughters can be more easily harmed than their sons by the partner –not because they worry solely about their daughters reputation. Therefore I believe this study has some fundamental flaws in the way they interpreted the results.
DeleteSecondly, I wonder how evolutionary psychology is able to explain behaviours that we enjoy but that are not adaptive for us e.g drinking? It was never an advantage to us in the past to drink so how come it has gained such popularity? How can anything that is not advantageous to our evolution be explained by evolutionary psychology? Many things that are bad for our reproduction and survival chances have increased in popularity since ancestral times and evolutionary psychology cannot explain this.
Thirdly, in the study where survival relevant words were subsequently remembered more than words for control scenarios, I think it can be argued that this does not prove evolutionary adaptation but more that humans have been taught since birth to pay more attention to survival cues. It cannot be proven that this results from adaptation rather than from environmental learning behaviours. And how can evolutionary psychology differentiate the two?
Danielle, I also took issue with many of these hypotheses and chose to focus on the "daughter-guarding hypothesis" in my critique.
DeleteEvolutionary psychology posits that humans share some degree of mental architecture that is shaped by a drive towards adaptation. This could take many forms, but this article presents the “daughter-guarding” hypothesis as one example. The daughter-guarding hypothesis attempts to explain why parents are more protective of their daughters’ sexualities than their sons’. My first read on it left a bad taste in my mouth, so I decided to investigate further through the 2008 paper of Carin Parilloux, The Daughter-Guarding Hypothesis: Parental Influence on and Emotional Reactions to Offspring’s Mating Behavior.
Why, according to evolutionary theory, would one individual care about another individual’s mating decisions? In this situation, evolutionary psychology posits that parents hold stake in the reproductive success of their children, because of a high degree of genetic relatedness. Furthermore, this hypothesis holds that sex differences in reproduction render females vulnerable to a wider range of risks that could affect their reproductive success.
In the case of daughter-guarding, parents are said to react to threats to their daughter’s mate-value in predictable ways. These output behaviours include, control, disapproval and emotional upset over sexual activity, increased importance placed on mate approval for daughters than for sons, and strict curfews and dress codes. This input-output relationship functionally characterizes daughter-guarding as a distinct and innate module within the mind. Evolutionary psychology proposes the existence of countless other mental modules, governing a range cognitive process from incest avoidance to syntax production. These mental models are systematically selected for generation after generation, even after the initial conditions requiring the adaptation have changed.
Evolutionary psychology speaks of innate mental algorithms that govern behaviour, however, through what units are these frameworks heritable? From what I’ve read, it seems that genes are the underlying “neutral substrate” that evolutionary psychologists would argue are shaped and passed down the lineage. Theories like the daughter-guarding hypothesis seem to rest on the notion that genes are capable of constructing mental frameworks. However, we have overwhelming evidence today that genes do not have this power. Rather, genes and the environment exert influence bidirectionally such that genes do not have deterministic power over anything from phenotype to psychology.
@Danielle Krukowski
DeleteIn your second paragraph you questioned whether or not pornography should become obsolete over time and if so, how would evolutionary psychology explain this?
Confer stated that, “extremely novel recent environments, of course, have not had enough time to influence the evolution of psychological adaptations” (119). Thus, as it is quite a modern invention, I would assume that pornography is still activating older evolved psychological mechanisms that were created to react favourably when a heterosexual male sees a naked female. Pornography still exists because these adaptations have not yet been able to differentiate a naked woman in real life from a naked woman in a different type of medium. If our psychological mechanisms were able to distinguish the two, then perhaps pornography would eventually disappear as it provides no reproductive value.
On the other hand, there are other reasons to believe that pornography may not ever be obsolete. Viewing pornography activates pleasure pathways in the brain (for example dopamine can be released in the ventral striatum). Thus, humans may continue to view pornography simply for pleasure. Even if it has no reproductive value, it has some other type of value. Another example of this type of behaviour is when individuals take drugs such as amphetamines. Using drugs such as MDMA do not have any reproductive value. In addition, the repeated use of these types of drugs may interfere with the dopaminergic circuits in the brain and come with a host of other side effects (such as insomnia or weight loss) that are detrimental to the person. However, humans continue to use these types of drugs as they activate the same mechanisms as when they participate in other pleasurable activates. So, I think that over time, humans will continue to view pornography and use drugs until our psychological mechanisms can differentiate these types of inputs and determine costs and benefits of such activities.
Danielle, why can't paternity uncertainty be the origin of homosexual jealousy? Do you think heterosexuals have sex to reproduce?
DeleteFor pornography, see the super-stimulus link above.
Sexual protectiveness toward daughters could come from either source, evolution or cognition, but I agree cognition is more likely.
Addictive behaviours are probably caused by substances (or activities) that were not available in our ancestral environment. Similarly for medicines we've discovered.
Lila, yes, (some) genes have huge power. -- But there are no genes for daughter protection. Just maybe a tendency for female mammals to be more selective about mates than males. And then that carries over into the cognition and culture of child-rearing.
Reginald, addictions and sensation seeking are good examples of "spandrels" (old structures being put to new tricks), though, as usual, Buss et al vastly overdo it...
DeleteI can understand why evolutionary psychology can be useful to explain certain behaviors or over-reactions (like arachnophobia) but Danielle, you have given a good example of where evolutionary psychology might not have it’s place. You wrote: “I have a problem with the inference from the results that evolution has taught parents to be more protective of their daughter’s mating in order to have a higher change of offspring.” I completely agree with you. One thing I want to add is the female is the one that carries the child, therefore parents can be more protective of their daughters for the reasons you listed but as also because if the daughter gets pregnant, the parents have a greater responsibility. I think that evolutionary psychology overdoes many of the examples in this article such as this one. As Harnad states, I think that cognition may have a bigger role than evolutionary psychology, as in this example.
DeleteAs for addictive behaviors, Harnad states: “Addictive behaviours are probably caused by substances (or activities) that were not available in our ancestral environment” Yet in many aboriginal tribes, plants such as Ayahuasca were used and gave psychedelic reactions. Other substances did exist that could possibly be integrated in evolutionary psychology. Through an evolutionary psychology standpoint, I wonder if the euphoric feeling alcohol brings could be a way to explain it ?
On the topic of paternity uncertainty in gay men:
DeleteGiven the (unfortunate) legacy of evolutionary psychology as a tool of sexist and heterosexist oppression, I would argue that it is an affront to good science and morally repugnant for the authors to lump the gay men in with straight men and make claims about gay sexuality based off the sexualities and reasonings of straight populations without strong evidence to support such claims. This hypothesis is little more than speculation, with very weak evidence to support it but there is a very real and violent social impact that occurs when speculations such as these are published in high impact journals. This is a post-hoc explanation for a social phenomenon observed primarily in heterosexuals. Moreover, it is a heterosexual explanation picked from a wide array of plausible explanations (e.g., avoidance of any number of STIs that could have killed our ancestors). I would also argue that these types of speculations, which are frequently given more societal weight than they deserve, serve to keep gay men out of evolutionary psychology such that balanced/reasonable explanations for experimental observations are less likely to reach the literature.
I would also like to note that similar reasoning on sex based traits has historically put a rift between evolutionary psychologists and feminists and is indicative of a similar pathology within the field of evolutionary psychology (and that is a shame because the field deserves better).
With respect to claims of evolution and gay men, it would be wise for the authors to keep their opinions to themselves until such a point where they have substantial evidence to support their claims that their claims have been additionally vetted by gay men with expertise in evolutionary psychology.
Catherine & Ethan: Both on alcohol addiction and on gay vs. straight "traits" would it not be better to check first whether the "trait" in question is a genetic one or a learned/cognitive/cultural one? If the latter, then all evolutionary bets are off.
DeleteIf the former, then alcohol addiction research as well as gay/straight differences research faces the problem of determining what were the distal conditions in the ancestral environment that made what traits more adaptive than what traits, and how. (Reproductive success will have to play some role in explaining that adaptive advantage -- and reproduction is necessarily heterosexual... That doesn't mean that there are no candidates; one classical one is the avunculate: Under certain conditions of high paternity uncertainty, it may make more sense for my genes to be gay and for me to invest all my resources in my sister's progeny: At least I can be sure they contain a quarter of my genes, whereas, with all the competition, if I am straight I may be investing my resources in none of my genes... But I am sure we can tell better Just-So Stories than that... Once you've had a go with the adaptive advantage of being gay, have a go at the adaptive advantage of being left-handed... But remember that outcomes can also be accidents or recombinants of DNA...)
I found the paper to be an adequate defense of EP. Having said that, I find EP in general to be a valuable tool for uncovering clues as to the the WHYs of behaviors that tend to not be instantiated through conscious rationalizations. The general premise behind EP, that behaviors are dictated to a certain extent by our evolutionary history, seems absolutely uncontroversial. The controversy stems from different people's interpretations of what can be understood through recourse to its evolutionary adaptive value and to what extent is the behavior fixed regardless of environmental input.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the WHAT question, I'd suggest that food, danger and reproduction are the realms in which it's reasonable to make post hoc rationalizations based on patterns (and then hopefully some testable predictions). Environments change, but other humans (as allies, enemies or sexual partners) are always around. Mating strategies, in particular, will always be relevant to natural selection. But the strategies mustn't be understood as conscious strategies... in fact, it's the opposite.
To borrow Florence Dupuis' example above: "(Even then, I think that sex is much more driven by social factors than what authors asserted. Otherwise, why would the prevalence of erectile dysfunction be increasing in young men (caused by pornography which distorts normal expectations)? Why are Japanese couples having less and less intercourse (again, Japanese animated pornography is changing expectations and norms regarding sexuality)? Why do people engage in a conundrum of non-reproductive-oriented behaviors, like masturbation, paraphilias, anal sexual intercourse, etc?)"
In my opinion, EP would help explain this, rather than be somehow at odds with cultural factors. The presence of pornography might explain changes in people in regards to their sexuality, but why pornography works needs to be accounted for in terms of EP to a certain extent. Males who are attracted to marks of fertility, health, etc tend to have more offspring, and pornography is a cultural creation used to hijack our natural drives. Making sense of pornography isn't too interesting since it is kind of obvious why it works, but its a good example of how culture and heuristics programmed by evolution aren't always at odds when looking for an adequate explanation.
(CONTINUED IN REPLY)
Of course, these are "just so stories" until they successfully make surprising predictions... but I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss them because we have some kind of cultural explanation. All of our behavior isn't dictated by culture mixed with our rationality/reason (whatever the hell that really is). Think of people attempting to quit cigarettes. One could not summon a good reason to continue smoking, but one will continue to do so regardless. Often, we have to trick our heuristic behaviors into doing the work for us. So, instead of quitting smoking because I know its the right thing to do, I'll tell people that I know will hold me accountable that I'm quitting, knowing that my need to not embarrass myself might overcome my need to inhale nicotine. I can't run on a treadmill to save my life, but split 10 people into 2 teams with an arbitrary goal (like putting the ball in the hoop more than the other team) and I'll run til I pass out because I'm summoning my competitive drive.
DeleteHaving said that, EP provides us with distal causes for certain patterns of behavior, but doesn't really help us with the HOW question in any direct way. The best it does is help sort out what patterns are part of human nature and, unlike some other people here, I'd suggest there is such a thing. Aside from our obvious ability to acquire, use and think in language, I'd suggest humor to be a part of human nature. There is a sense in which things are funny and sometimes we don't even know why. Aside from contagious laughter, it seems like the feeling of something being funny seems to always coincide with a surprise (whether it’s someone confidently walking and tripping or a punchline to a joke). These are aspects of human cognition that I think can be valuable clues, and even though there's no good framework in which these elements fit neatly, I can't help believing that what needs to be accounted for will help clue us in to what will do the accounting.
In essence, I see any clue as potentially valuable when making sense of such a complex dynamical system. It seems like, as evolved organisms, we won't understand ourselves without making sense of our evolutionary history and the adaptations we've acquired (distal explanations). These adaptations should eventually fit in well with models of development and the underlying mechanism or mechanisms which development is contingent upon (proximate explanations).
Marc, you are right that evolution won't answer the "how" question for cognition (but it can help answer the "why").
DeleteThere's a lot of speculation on the evolution of laughter -- which is not necessarily the same as humour, either in tickling or in mocking and derision.
As I was doing this reading on evolutionary psychology I wondered how it fits into the subjects we have been talking about so far. I extracted some ideas from the text that I believe to be important for our discussions. “Psychological adaptations” which the article defines as “ information processing circuits that take in delimited units of information and transform that information into functional output designed to solve a particular adaptive problem” (computationalism?). “Domain general mechanisms” is another idea intensely debated in the article, one type of domain general mechanism is rationality and the authors dismiss most of the domain general mechanisms on the basis of adaptation-dependent examples and/or relevant studies, they hypothesize on the basis of past selection pressures humans were exposed to. They argue particularly against rationality, saying that it is not independent of the adaptive domain and hence “fails to provide plausible alternative explanations for psychological phenomena” (115). Evolutionary psychology offers an “interactionist framework,” between the evolved mechanisms within us and the environmental input. In the case of learning, they argue that “evolved learning adaptations have at least some specialized design features, rather than a single all-purpose general learning adaptation,” in other words our (evolved) general learning must bear particularities with “some content-specialized attribute” (content meaning: learned incest avoidance, food aversions, prestige criteria, etc.). Also EP argues that “all adaptations, by definition, must have a genetic basis” nonetheless it rejects (correctly) genetic determinism and asserts that the environment takes part at every level.
ReplyDeleteSome key points may be connected to what we have discussed so far, for example could we argue that categorization and categorical perception evolved as a “psychological adaptation”? Perhaps categorization capacity is an adaptation to the survival need of being able to distinguish between edible and non-edible mushrooms, still this does not explain how we do it, (what in the article they refer to as “proximate explanation.”). I believe though domain general mechanisms would be more applicable to issues of categorization, it’s hard to imagine that different adaptive mechanisms (which according to EP would have to be content-specialized) for categorization have evolved for each and every situation a human being may encounter. I have no issues with the interactionist framework EP suggests, as we have seen in class, sensorimotor dynamic interaction is required for the T3 model we wish to explain, and I think this interactionist framework is applicable in many if not most of scientific realms, in the same manner this applies to the relationship between genes and the environment. Regarding specialized learning versus general learning, one could hypothesize that the “very first learning” might have been particular but I do not see how this first “particular learning” could have not extrapolated or crossed modalities to be applicable in other situations, to eventually replace the mechanisms of the very first content-specialized “learning”. The examples given by the authors against human behaviors being learned, fit well with the idea of “solving different adaptive problems” but they do not succeed at invalidating a general learning mechanism for explaining human behaviors.
At first, I would have rather say that adaptation results from categorization. It is because snakes were categorized as dangerous things that fear of snakes emerged. However, what I understand from evolution is that a random mutation that happens to give an advantage to individuals is transmitted and thus conserved from one generation to another. I don’t see how we could reconcile awareness that something is dangerous with random mutations.
DeleteThe adaptation in the example where one can distinguish between edible and non-edible mushrooms is for instance the fear of non-edible mushroom you can have, the sweating it could trigger or all the physiological responses the sight of non-edible mushrooms could lead to.
And categorization results from these feelings. (The right kind of thing to do with a mushroom you ‘fear’ is to not eat it.)
Moreover, I don’t think categorization can be adaptation because I can’t imagine any organism not categorizing at some level, consciously (with language) or not (the frog detecting a fly).
“[E]volutionary psychologists all share the view that understanding the evolved functions of psychological adaptations--the problems they were “designed” by a prior history of selection to solve (no forward-looking intent implied)--is an indispensable, not an optional, ingredient for a mature psychological science.”
ReplyDeleteThis view that the driving principle of evolution is adaptation in response to selective pressures may be too narrow to account for diversity encountered in nature. There is no denying that there are structures which are ill-suited for survival and reproduction; they will die out. But it is quite different to assume that organisms are constantly under pressure and that evolution is about problem-solving. The contribution of random drift and noise in evolution may be underestimated in this picture: instead of “climbing Mount Fitness”, perhaps evolution is more akin to “avoiding pitfalls of fitness”. This would move the metaphors of evolution from competition and engineering to free play and creativity. (c.f. Varela et al. (1993)) In particular, the limitations mentioned in #8 (homosexuality, suicide) are not problems anymore when viewed from this alternative perspective.
“the descent illusion hypothesis … was used to predict that people would make asymmetric distance estimations when judging from the top versus the bottom of a tall structure, owing to the dangers associated with falling from heights.”
This and other examples given of falsifiable claims have little to say, in my opinion, about the plausibility of evolutionary explanations. Simply put, it is dishonest to say that their theory predicted asymmetric estimations, because this phenomenon is something we all have a direct experience of. What their experiment achieved was to confirm that this phenomenon is indeed widespread. This way of taking an impression, a common sense belief, a stereotype or a prejudice and turning it into a prediction of a scientific theory can lead to fixating said stereotypes and prejudices. If we are told that being a certain way (e.g. selfish, ethnocentric, etc.) allowed our ancestors to survive then we might be lead to assume that being those things will allow us to survive too.
Evolutionary psychology makes essentialist claims with potentially very important political consequences. Whether it is plausible or not, EP does not operate in a vacuum and its questionable assumptions (e.g. focusing on selective pressures instead of drift) put it in a position to do much more harm than good.
Varela, Francisco J., Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch. "Chapter 9: Evolutionary Path Making and Natural Drift." The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1991. N. pag. Print.
DeleteThe same quote as well as the repeated use of the word design throughout the paper also struck me. I see that in evolutionary terms, the notion of design is often mistakenly used interchangeably with the term adaptation. A design is a premeditated plan that aligns structure and function optimally. Evolutionary psychology seems to rest on the assumption that all of evolution is driven by a “design” process of the optimal organism. In this view, the psychology of an organism can be explained by evolutionary roots. Any given psychological phenomena has been designed for survival and gene spreading.
DeleteReally all that adaptation means is, “the good fit of organisms to their environment” (Gould and Lewontin, 1979, p. 158). This definition leaves room for multiple causes of adaptation and many levels on which an organism can fit its environment. An adaptation can be phenotypic, cultural, or genetic and come about for multiple reasons. Viewing the adaptive purpose of traits in isolation can result in misleading accounts of the evolutionary story. For example, the bridge of one’s nose can be said to serve as a glasses holder, however noses did not evolve to their current structure so as to serve that purpose (Gould and Lewontin, 1979, p. 149). Rather a holistic approach reveals aspects of evolution that are not driven by natural selection.
Evolutionary psychology looks for the ultimate explanations of aspects of psychology in isolation. It holds natural selection on a pedestal as though it has the power to design not just evolve. Natural selection adopts the role of an all-knowing God, capable of foresight and intelligent design. This approach doesn’t take into account the realities of adaptation.
Gould, S. J. & Lewontin, R. (1979). The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme. Proc. R. Soc Lond, 205, 581-598.
Lila... unless I'm mistaken, people use the word "design" in evolutionary biology with the implicit assumption that there is no premeditated plan, hence "natural selection" vs "artificial selection".
Delete"It holds natural selection on a pedestal as though it has the power to design not just evolve. Natural selection adopts the role of an all-knowing God, capable of foresight and intelligent design. This approach doesn’t take into account the realities of adaptation. "
I'm curious what you mean by this. As far as I understand it, [mutations + natural selection] can give rise to seemingly designed complex organisms without any need for foresight. Do you find the language imprecise (the use of "design" for example) or is natural selection (+mutations of course) not capable of evolving more complex organisms from less complex organisms?
For me it is a combination of imprecise language and a faulty notion that adaptation is the driving force of evolution. The evolution of organisms is not a predictable process. This is because chance plays a role in how organisms develop and because organisms and their environment mutually influence each other. Accordingly, not every outcome in evolution came about because it was the best possible trait/psychological mechanism. The example I cited of nose bridges is one such case, where a given trait was not "designed" to serve its role. Rather, the bridge of your nose is a by-product of other adaptations, such as the specific architecture of your eye. Adaptation did not drive the evolution of nose bridges as glasses holders directly.
DeleteAccording to the article, evolutionary psychology's work is to unearth "the problems [psychological adaptations] were “designed” by a prior history of selection to solve ". I take issue with the idea that our psychology underwent a process driven by adaptation. Any given aspect of human psychology does not necessarily have a tidy backstory/ultimate explanation that links it to survival dilemnas of our past. Our psychology did not come about as a best possible fit to the environment. In this way, we can't say that our psychology was designed optimally and can't always come up with evolutionary explanations, especially when looking at traits in isolation (i.e. the nose-bridge outside the context of the whole face).
I agree that natural selection can evolve more complex organisms, but I reject the idea that it takes on the role of a "designer".
Thanks for the thoughtful answer. Sorry if I'm asking too many questions. I find disagreements to be the most interesting (funnest) part of this course.
Delete"I agree that natural selection can evolve more complex organisms, but I reject the idea that it takes on the role of a "designer"."
That's interesting, because, though I agree that EP can be too narrow in its perspective depending on the context, I can't help but think natural selection is the only mechanism we have for "designing" anything. It's the only bottom-up natural process that seems to be able to account for the illusion of design (if "design" is imputing planning).
"a faulty notion that adaptation is the driving force of evolution"
Isn't adaptation the product with the driving force being natural selection?
"The evolution of organisms is not a predictable process. This is because chance plays a role in how organisms develop and because organisms and their environment mutually influence each other."
Right, it is unpredictable and chance plays a huge role (genetic drift and mutation), but when making sense of how complex "design" features (eyes, organs, limbs, language ability, etc) came to be, isn't the non-randomness of natural selection the only available answer?
I'd agree with you that our psychology as a whole seems much too broad to be captured as a design feature of natural selection, not only because most things we might call features might in fact be spandrels like your nose example, but because there is no story that explains our psychology without taking recourse to our cultural environment and cultural evolution. But having said that, are there not features of our psychology that necessitate some kind of "designing"? The obvious example (to me anyways) is language. Is not our ability to acquire, use, understand and create language innate? Or to take the other example I brought up in my initial comment: humor. Don't we need an account for why we've evolved to laugh at specific types of stimuli? Or what about emotions? Is there any way to resolve these without natural selection? I guess what I'm asking is "What's the alternative to natural selection?".
In the paper Evolutionary Psychology: Controversies, Questions, Prospects and Limitations, the authors use quite a few examples in evolutionary psychology trying to explain its strengths and limits. I will summarize a few points that I think are accentuated in the paper or are relevant to the materials we discussed in class.
ReplyDeleteEvolutionary psychology is a branch of psychology that agrees with the interaction of nature and nurture. It does not think nature alone or nurture alone can explain everything about human beings, but their interaction. However, evolutionary psychology puts more emphasis on nurture instead of nature. It focuses more on how environmental factors have impacts on human beings over a very long period of time (e.g. thousands of years and tens of generations of human beings). Also, from my personal point of view, I think evolutionary psychology cares about human beings as a whole or a single subject and kind of diminishes individual differences.
I agree mostly with what this paper says, and thinks that evolutionary psychology is an alternative for us to look at human development and account for changes that happen during human history. But at the same time, I do believe evolutionary psychology should not be the only explanation for us because of its limitations. Evolutionary psychology fails to look at individual differences (I do not think I need to illustrate this point). Secondly, although the authors explain the relationship between evolutionary psychology and learning, I do believe that learning occurs in a broader way that not everything about learning can be explained by evolutionary psychology. Yes, we learned that we should not eat food that has toxins in it and we learned that we should not have sex with our close relatives, but these kinds of learning either do not change over a long period of time (in many years later we still should not eat food that has toxins in it) or will have irreversible negative effects to human kind (imagine what will happen to human generations if we only have sex with our close relatives and raise unhealthy babies), while learning can be much more broader than these. Learning can occur through exposure, through feedback, and by being told, and some kinds of learning will have an impact on human generation, while at the same time, some may not, and evolutionary psychology will fail to account for those. I think this is also relevant to what the authors mean by "cannot be explained by mismatches with, or hijacking of, our psychological mechanisms by modern- day novel environmental inputs " when they talk about limitations of evolutionary psychology.
At the same time, I also hold doubts regarding to the methodology that is used in evolutionary psychology. Although the authors say evolutionary psychology use scientific methods instead of descriptions like what we use when we try to explain learning and culture influences and that they can use a lot of methods including analysis, experiments, questionnaires, etc., and I can kind of get that, I still do not know how they can use scientific methods to conduct experiments regarding to changes that occur over such a long period of time. Meanwhile, I do not think when we talk about learning, we just use descriptions. Scientists use a lot of methods trying to explain learning.
The author does concede that evolutionary psychology is limited in its capacity to explain individual differences "evolutionary psychology has been far more successful in predicting and explaining species-typical and sex-differentiated psychological adaptions than explain variation within species or within the sexes" (p. 122-123). In this way they look at the human species as a “category” and then in further subcategories, such as sex differences. I wouldn’t say that evolutionary psychologists necessarily care less about individual differences, but moreso that it is impossible to look at the differences between individuals as we do not individual records of humans across time. I would go so far as to say that no branch of psychology or science can account for individual differences. Part of getting valid and accurate results is being able to obtain the same results is being able to replicate the results for a certain population of people or animals. In this specific regard, is evolutionary psychology really any different than any other type of science?
DeleteYou mentioned that learning is much broader than the simple examples of learning to avoid toxins and not to have sex with our relatives. You mentioned things like feedback and learning through transmission of messages through language. I would have to say that evolutionary psychology would be able to account for these types of learning. Learning not to eat toxic substances is part of feedback learning and language itself likely developed to facilitate communication. Individuals who have language can communicate better and are able to survive better. If something is not transmitted to the next generation, I feel like evolutionary psychologists would argue that these functions/learned information was not as necessary to the survival of the (human) race, and thus not transmitted.
With that being said, I would have to agree that the methods used and conclusions drawn from evolutionary psychology, at least in the paper presented, are not really tenable. Take for example the example of the sex differences between men and women when it comes to romantic: particularly that males are more jealous when it comes to sexual infidelity because of paternal uncertainty. While there seems to be a clear sex difference, I don’t understand how they can specifically point to paternal uncertainty as the main reason for this adaptation. True, it could be part of the selection pressure, but there is no way to control for other factors involved (such as socialization of social appropriateness…men traditionally being more dominant than women and the presence of cultures that accept polygamy).
In your second paragraph, you are assuming that language emerged thanks to natural selection.
DeleteI can conceive why once language is used in a community, it is better for each individual to have the capacity to use language too. A simple example would be how more difficult it is for an individual to live in country whose language he does not speak at all. Therefore, people born in a community using language have to learn how to use this language. However, why would people have required language at some point when they did not have it? What problem did they need to solve? Communication can be an answer, but why would have communication by other means (gestures…) suddenly become insufficient? I think the problem people had to adapt to was not communicating per se, but communicating in a community where people use language once language was there. Therefore, language is not the solution to the problem, but being able to learn language itself is the solution to the problem.
Language probably was not born at a specific time point. Rather, some individuals have probably started speaking, it constituted an advantage for them and other individuals probably learned it by imitation. I can imagine that a random mutation led to changes in their vocal apparatus and it was conserved as an adaptation to be able to use language. However, how can we account for things like universal grammar? If it does exist, the fact that it is inborn probably means that it has a genetic basis, but how can it be genetic?
This article's attempt to convince that evolutionary psychology's quantifiability is equivalent to that of other psychological perspectives, experimental psychology for example, is unconvincing. The experimental design features explained in this article are inherently different from those of other, more quantifiable, psychological perspectives because the research hypothesis and the conclusion itself are not mere statements of pure objective data. In evolutionary psychology they couple the resulting data with an existing unproven theory. For example, in the standard memory paradigm, they conclude that '…survival scenario produced better recall performance than did any of the other well-known memory-enhancing techniques. The researchers concluded that “survival processing is one of the best encoding procedures yet identified in human memory research” (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008, p. 242).' Although this is an extremely interesting conclusion, it does not necessarily follow from whatever results were found (the specifics of which were unprovided). There are other factors in this study which I do not beleive were taken into account, for example when describing 'intentional learning in which subjects were instructed to remember the words for a later test' as a 'well-documented powerful encoding technique'. There is in fact an enormous amount of research concluding that one has inferior recall when expecting evaluation. Unfortunately, I believe Nairne's adaptive memory hypothesis is not much more than mere speculation, similar to all other unquantifiable theories which rely more on inference than on simple face-value observation. Error management theory is also extremely interesting and coherent with darwin's theory of adaptation, however despite the fact there is (I assume) significant data in favour of the auditory looming bias, and despite the fact that there are several other studies that make similar inferences, there is no 100% relation to any grander conclusion. Further, the example of evolved sex differences in romantic jealousy as a function of survival of our genes is not 100% valid, although I do not question that there is overwhelming evidence that women and men differ in this aspect (generally at least).
ReplyDelete'In order to explain sex differences in motivational concerns, the “rationality” mechanism must be coupled with auxiliary hypotheses that specify the origins of the sex differences in motivational priorities. Because it requires the postulation of additional post hoc explanatory clauses for each new empirical phenomenon, “rationality” itself acquires the “lack of parsimony” problem sometimes erroneously leveled against specific evolutionary hypotheses.'
ReplyDeleteI believe that this statement, equalizing domain general theories of rationality to evolutionary theories, in another attempt to convince the reader of the quantifiability of evolutionary psychology, uses circular reasoning. Just because both lack parsimony (not erroneously in my opinion) it doesn't mean that they are both more valid. In discussing 'The context-specific rationality problem', once again they are using their own theories of evolutionary rationality to try to prove that there is no domain-general criterion of rationality (securing multiple mates would be rational for an attractive high-status man man in our ancestral past but not for a woman.)
Are they attempting to put all of psychology within a category which necessarily needs additional post hoc explanatory clauses? I believe that empirical results need not be more than what they are at face value. I understand that each research study is making an inference about the population, however some hypotheses, the ones that I can accept, are those that simply report the results as their are with no further speculation. I suppose it is the ultimate explanations of evolutionary psychology which I have trouble with. (for example: in tightly controlled pain studies using the cold-pressor task, there is overwhelming evidence that women have less tolerance, and therefore more sensitivity to pain. That is an objective statement of pure, quantifiable data.)
However, I can't help but wonder, is it also a large portion of the field of psychology that I am having trouble accepting?
What is evolutionary psychology? The authors of this article write that “[t]he goal of the evolutionary psychology is to study human behaviour as the product of evolved psychological mechanisms that depend on internal and environmental input for their development, activation, and expression in manifest behaviour.” Basically, evolutionary psychology says that (at least some of) our psychological mechanisms can be explained by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. His theory went something like this: throughout history, organisms that were well adapted to their environment survived and had babies. So, if you were a human in an environment where the only thing to drink was milk and you were lactose intolerant, you would probably die. But if you weren’t lactose intolerant, you could reproduce with another human who could digest lactose, and the gene that allowed you to pass on lactose was passed on. This means that the genetic traits that allow you to survive and reproduce in an environment are passed on a lot more than those that do not.
ReplyDeleteEvolutionary psychology asserts that natural selection can explain “origin of psychological, strategic, and behavioural adaptations in non-human animals as well as humans.” In other words, natural selection can help us understand human psychology. Evolutionary psychologists formulate hypotheses about which psychological traits natural selection would favour and test these hypotheses. For example, researchers working on “adaptive memory” hypothesized that humans should be really good at remembering things that are essential to survival (ex: food, shelter, predators) and reproduction. Presumably, humans who were really good at remembering their predators would survive and pass on the gene that had them be awesome at remembering that. They can test this by testing whether we are in fact better at remembering our predators than we are, say, at remembering what we dreamed last night. But if the hypothesis is proved wrong by the experiment, the evolutionary psychologist won’t throw up her hands and cry, “Alas! Darwin has lied!” It is much more likely that she will infer that their hypothesis is wrong, that natural selection favoured remembering dreams for some important reason that she just hasn’t figured out yet.
Does this mean that evolutionary psychologists think that we are entirely determined by our genetics? That it is all nature, and no nurture? No! they assert, writing that “all evolved mechanisms require some environmental input for their activation.” The genetic predisposition for evolved psychological mechanisms require certain environmental conditions to come into play. For example, some evolutionary psychologists posit that married men have lower testosterone levels because this allows them to redirect energy towards raising kids. But there testosterone level would never decrease if the environmental condition of getting married never arose…
Evolutionary psychology reminds me of behaviourism. Behaviourism says that we do what we do because we were rewarded for doing that and punished for not doing that. Evolutionary psychology says we do what we do because natural selection predisposed us to. But, honestly, neither approach is really providing a causal mechanism for human behaviour. Just as the behaviourists didn’t care how operant conditioning worked step by step (that is the domain of physiologists! They cried), evolutionary psychologists don’t really care how genes predispose us to do what we do. "Identifying the genetic basis of a trait is neither necessary nor sufficient for demonstrating that the trait is an adaptation."
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ReplyDeleteWhile I don't find evolutionary arguments to be as thoroughly vacuous as classmates above do, there is a lot to be said about the folly of taking the indisputable Darwinian claim that we exist as a result of evolution and trying to explain all of our properties through it.
ReplyDelete"Domain general
rational thought, as it has been used as an explanation,
is typically invoked post hoc to account for new
empirical findings discovered as a consequence of novel
evolutionary psychological hypotheses "
This quote I think exemplifies how the bias of evolutionary psychologists plays into their judgment of frameworks. The whole enterprise is post-hoc in nature, as it attempts to find evolutionary explanations to observed phenomena, and yet the authors seek disqualify Domain general relative thought on that very metric.
Furthermore, there is a sense of circularity in the empirical evidence the authors use to test hypothesis. Let us examine the parental investment Hypothesis. After observing differential attitudes towards infidelity in the sexes, what evolutionary psychology (evo. psyc.) did was essentially formalize conventional wisdom into a hypothesis that cannot be directly proven or disproven. Once formed, they tested the hypothesis by measuring what was already conventional wisdom, and claiming it validated thereafter. To be fair, I think it is a very believable hypothesis, and certainly sounds logical, but the problem with evo. psyc. hypotheses in general is that mental functions are fundamentally underdetermined. There is no way of verifying whether evolutionary psychologists are having genuine insights or just seeing faces in clouds.
"Understanding the evolved function of a psychological mechanism, or why it
exists (often referred to as an ultimate explanation) provides
a complementary level of analysis to that of understanding
the details of how the mechanism works (often
referred to as a proximate explanation). "
As stated above, there are a lot of conceptual difficulties with addressing why we can do what we do. However, even if those problems are overcome, cognitive science is primarily concerned with HOW we function, so evo. psyc. could only provide peripheral help.
"The sometimes reflexive charge that evolutionary psychological hypotheses as a rule are mere “just-so stories,” however, is simply erroneous, as the examples above demonstrate."
ReplyDeleteI find this stance to be worryingly reductive of the critics of evolutionary psychology, just as those within the field accuse those very critics of being towards EP itself. Merely asserting that hypotheses have undergone evaluation via the scientific method, instead of requesting to be taken at face value, should not be grounds for validity and good standing of those hypotheses. With regards to the descent illusion hypothesis, the "A and B because C" argument fails to convince me simply because A (the view from the top) and B (the view from the bottom, 32% less) may hold true—and did, presumably, to validate this experiment—and be unaffected by the truth-value of C; it can be said there is some psychological, or even physiological effect on perception that makes A and B so, but in this case the "ultimate function" C owes itself solely to ascription of purpose and intent to the mechanism behind the particular perception. The commitment skepticism bias seems to present itself here particularly shoddily by citing its existence as the reason for its existence. The fact that the kin altruism hypothesis, grounded in the evolutionary psychology framework, was refuted, merely shows one such "just-so story" that was consequently rejected—and not proof of EP's validity at all.
In much the same tone, the paper states shortly thereafter: "Although dozens of studies had been conducted on romantic jealousy, it was not until evolutionary psychologists hypothesized sex differences in evolved design features that such differences were discovered." Barring the fact that the "discovery" of presumably biological differences in the cultural sphere that is romance had to wait for evolutionary psychologists seems wildly improbably to me, I find it once again to be lacking in establishing a satisfying causal relationship; identifying a phenomenon and then certifying its existence through factors that are arbitrarily ascribed by a particular hypothesis, and taking that as proof of validity of said hypothesis, seems to be circular reasoning and nothing more.
Although the authors propose that Evolutionary Psychology hypotheses can be tested and falsified, I’m not entirely convinced. I generally agree with evolutionary psychology, however I understand the problems people may have with it. I believe its main downfall is its lack of falsifiability.
ReplyDeleteEvolutionary psychology aims to provide explanations for behaviour in an evolutionary context. Anthropologists and archaeologists try to accurately represent our ancestral environment, and they reach a close approximation. However, there is no way we can know exactly what types of challenges were faced. As a result, whenever a hypothesis of evolutionary psychology is supported (i.e. subjects rapidly develop negative feelings towards different groups after researchers make them seem dissimilar), we assume that this phenomenon occurred because of a particular challenge in the environment (i.e. people who were dissimilar were more threatening).
However if the opposite case was found (i.e. positive feelings towards dissimilar groups), we would assume the opposite was true (i.e. people who were similar were more threatening). Therefore, the lack of falsifiability in evolutionary psychology leaves me rather doubtful.
opposed to other traits of humanity. I find this an issue because I think sex and sexual dynamics in humans is one of the most prominent and “obvious” example of evolutionary explanation. I find it difficult to truly give evolutionary psychology a chance based on this article alone when most of the examples are based on things that have been proven before to have some evolutionary backstory behind them. Like I mentioned in my earlier skywriting, I don’t believe that evolutionary psychology can really explain why or how things came to be in regards to much. Even in terms of sexuality I feel like social factors can seriously change the way sex is viewed and performed by some in society. However, I can’t help but feel like evolutionary psychology does have a place in the world and definitely does need to be improved beyond “sex” and “phobias” because its contributions will be very helpful if we ever want to understand “why.”
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