Title: Evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia
Headings: Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Contents
Scope
Principles
Premises
History
Theoretical foundations
Evolved psychological mechanisms
Historical topics
Products of evolution: adaptations, exaptations, byproducts, and random variation
Obligate and facultative adaptations
Cultural universals
Environment of evolutionary adaptedness
Mismatches
Research methods
Main areas of research
Survival and individual-level psychological adaptations
Consciousness
Sensation and perception
Learning and facultative adaptations
Emotion and motivation
Cognition
Personality
Language
Mating
Parenting
Family and kin
Interactions with non-kin / reciprocity
Strong reciprocity (or "tribal reciprocity")
Evolutionary psychology and culture
In psychology sub-fields
Developmental psychology
Social psychology
Abnormal psychology
Antisocial and criminal behavior
Psychology of religion
Coalitional psychology
Reception and criticism
Ethical implications
Contradictions in models
Standard social science model
Reductionism and determinism
Testability of hypotheses
Modularity of mind
Cultural rather than genetic development of cognitive tools
Response by evolutionary psychologists
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Academic societies
Journals
Videos

Content: Criticism of evolutionary psychology involves questions of testability, cognitive and evolutionary assumptions (such as modular functioning of the brain, and large uncertainty about the ancestral environment), importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, as well as political and ethical issues due to interpretations of research results. Contents
1 Scope
1.1 Principles
1.2 Premises
2 History
3 Theoretical foundations
4 Evolved psychological mechanisms
4.1 Historical topics
4.2 Products of evolution: adaptations, exaptations, byproducts, and random variation
4.3 Obligate and facultative adaptations
4.4 Cultural universals
5 Environment of evolutionary adaptedness
5.1 Mismatches
6 Research methods
7 Main areas of research
7.1 Survival and individual-level psychological adaptations
7.1.1 Consciousness
7.1.2 Sensation and perception
7.1.3 Learning and facultative adaptations
7.1.4 Emotion and motivation
7.1.5 Cognition
7.1.6 Personality
7.1.7 Language
7.2 Mating
7.3 Parenting
7.4 Family and kin
7.5 Interactions with non-kin / reciprocity
7.6 Strong reciprocity (or "tribal reciprocity")
8 Evolutionary psychology and culture
9 In psychology sub-fields
9.1 Developmental psychology
9.2 Social psychology
9.3 Abnormal psychology
9.4 Antisocial and criminal behavior
9.5 Psychology of religion
9.6 Coalitional psychology
10 Reception and criticism
10.1 Ethical implications
10.2 Contradictions in models
10.3 Standard social science model
10.4 Reductionism and determinism
10.5 Testability of hypotheses
10.6 Modularity of mind
10.7 Cultural rather than genetic development of cognitive tools
10.8 Response by evolutionary psychologists
11 See also
12 Notes
13 References
14 Further reading
15 External links
15.1 Academic societies
15.2 Journals
15.3 Videos
Scope
Principles
Evolutionary psychology is an approach that views human nature as the product of a universal set of evolved psychological adaptations to recurring problems in the ancestral environment. Proponents suggest that it seeks to integrate psychology into the other natural sciences, rooting it in the organizing theory of biology ( evolutionary theory ), and thus understanding psychology as a branch of biology. Anthropologist John Tooby and psychologist Leda Cosmides note: Evolutionary psychology is the long-forestalled scientific attempt to assemble out of the disjointed, fragmentary, and mutually contradictory human disciplines a single, logically integrated research framework for the psychological, social, and behavioral sciences – a framework that not only incorporates the evolutionary sciences on a full and equal basis, but that systematically works out all of the revisions in existing belief and research practice that such a synthesis requires. Just as human physiology and evolutionary physiology have worked to identify physical adaptations of the body that represent "human physiological nature," the purpose of evolutionary psychology is to identify evolved emotional and cognitive adaptations that represent "human psychological nature." According to Steven Pinker, it is "not a single theory but a large set of hypotheses" and a term that "has also come to refer to a particular way of applying evolutionary theory to the mind, with an emphasis on adaptation, gene-level selection, and modularity." Evolutionary psychology adopts an understanding of the mind that is based on the computational theory of mind. It describes mental processes as computational operations, so that, for example, a fear response is described as arising from a neurological computation that inputs the perceptional data, e.g. a visual image of a spider, and outputs the appropriate reaction, e.g. fear of possibly dangerous animals.