Title: Evolutionary Theory and Psychology
Headings: Evolutionary Theory and Psychology
Science Briefs
Evolutionary Theory and Psychology
Darwin’s Influence on Modern Psychological Science
By David M. Buss
Reference
Evolutionary Psychology and the Evolution of Psychology
By Daniel J. Kruger
References
Darwinizing the Social Sciences
By Robert Kurzban
Darwinian Psychology: Where the Present Meets the Past
By Debra Lieberman and Martie Haselton
Reference
Psychology's Best Discovery Heuristic
By Edouard Machery
Reference
Survival of the Fittest?
Just what does Darwin tell us about the human mind?
By Gary Marcus
Reference
References
Evolution of Human Sex Differences
By Wendy Wood and Alice H. Eagly
References

Content: It also sheds light on common afflictions such as depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and sexual disorders. And it provides a framework for examining how mismatches between ancestral and modern environments can create psychological disorders. Personality psychology, historically refractory to evolutionary analysis, is finally beginning to discover adaptive individual differences. Hybrid disciplines too make use of the tools of evolutionary psychology. Cognitive and social neuroscientists, for example, use modern technologies such as fMRI to test hypotheses about social exclusion adaptations, emotions such as sexual jealousy, and kin recognition mechanisms. More generally, evolutionary psychology breaks down the barriers between the traditional sub-disciplines of psychology. A proper description of psychological adaptations must include identifying perceptual input, cognitive processing, and developmental emergence. Many mechanisms evolved to solve social adaptive problems, such as when social anxiety functions to motivate behavior that prevents an individual from losing status within a group. And all adaptations can malfunction, as when social anxiety becomes paralyzing rather than functional, making clinical psychology relevant. The key point is that organizing psychology around adaptive problems and evolved psychological solutions, rather than around the somewhat arbitrary sub-fields such as cognitive, social, and developmental, dissolves historically restrictive branch boundaries.