Title: Evolutionary psychology | Psychology Wiki | Fandom
Headings: Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Overview
Principles
General evolutionary theory
Natural selection
Sexual selection
Inclusive fitness
Foundations
Middle-level evolutionary theories
Evolved psychological mechanisms
Environment of evolutionary adaptedness
Definition
Human EEA
Mismatches
Research methods
Controversies
Criticisms
Journals
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Academic societies
Journals
Important publications
Videos

Content: Sequential vs. Static Perspective
Historical/ Developmental
Explanation of current form in terms of a historical sequence
Current Form
Explanation of the current form of species
Proximate
How organisms’ structures function
Ontogeny
Developmental explanations for changes in individuals, from DNA to their current form
Mechanism
Mechanistic explanations for how an organism’s structures work
Evolutionary
Why organisms evolved the structures (adaptations) they have
Phylogeny
The history of the evolution of sequential changes in a species over many generations
Adaptation
A species trait that evolved to solve a reproductive or survival problem in the ancestral environment
The species-level categories (often called “ultimate explanations”) are
the function (i.e., adaptation) that a behavior serves and
the evolutionary process (i.e., phylogeny) that resulted in the adaptation (functionality). The individual-level categories are
the development of the individual (i.e., ontogeny) and
the proximate mechanism (e.g., brain anatomy and hormones). Evolutionary psychology mostly focuses on the adaptation (functional) category. Principles
Evolutionary psychology is a hybrid discipline that draws insights from modern evolutionary theory, biology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, economics, computer science, and paleoarchaeology. The discipline rests on a foundation of core premises. According to evolutionary psychologist David Buss, these include: Manifest behavior depends on underlying psychological mechanisms, information processing devices housed in the brain, in conjunction with the external and internal inputs that trigger their activation. Evolution by selection is the only known causal process capable of creating such complex organic mechanisms. Evolved psychological mechanisms are functionally specialized to solve adaptive problems that recurred for humans over deep evolutionary time. Selection designed the information processing of many evolved psychological mechanisms to be adaptively influenced by specific classes of information from the environment.