Examples of evolutionary biology in the following topics:
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- For instance, evolutionary biology researches the human body (such as the heart, lungs, or immune system) and how it adapts over time.
- Proponents of evolutionary psychology suggest that it seeks to bridge the division between the human social sciences (such as psychology and sociology) and the natural sciences (such as biology, chemistry, and physics).
- They argue that the psychology of human beings should be understood as a branch of biology, since humans are living organisms.
- Evolutionary biology emerged as an academic discipline in the 1930s and 1940s, along with the study of animal behavior (ethology), both of which heavily influence the development of evolutionary psychology.
- The field also draws on cognitive psychology, behavioral ecology, artificial intelligence, genetics, anthropology, archaeology, biology, and zoology.
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- Evolutionary psychology examines psychological traits—such as memory, perception, and language—from a modern evolutionary perspective.
- Evolutionary psychologists seek to identify which of these traits are evolved adaptions: in other words, how they are the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection.
- Health psychology concerns itself with understanding how biology, behavior, and social context influence health and illness; health psychologists generally work alongside other medical professionals in clinical settings, although many also teach and conduct research.
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- The evolutionary approach emphasizes the importance of adaptation in explaining behavior.
- For example, evolutionary psychologists ask the question – which human traits are evolved modifications of either natural or sexual selection?
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- According to evolutionary psychology, individuals are motivated to engage in behaviors that maximize their genetic fitness.
- The basic idea of evolutionary psychology is that genetic mutations are capable of altering an organism's behavioral traits as well as its physical traits.
- From an evolutionary point of view, behaviors are not made consciously: they are instinctual, and based on what is most advantageous in terms of passing one's genes on to the next generation.
- Optimization theory is related to evolutionary theory, and is concerned with assessing the success of a behavior.
- Evolutionary psychology suggests that individuals are motivated to engage in behaviors that maximize their genetic fitness.
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- Instead of taking a strictly biological approach to the development of personality (as Freud did in his focus on individual evolutionary drives), they focused more holistically on how the social environment and culture influence personality development.
- Erik Erikson is influential for having proposed the psychosocial theory of development, which suggests that an individual’s personality develops throughout the lifespan based on a series of social relationships—a departure from Freud’s more biology-oriented view.
- According to Horney, any jealousy is most likely due to the greater privileges that males are often given, meaning that the differences between men’s and women’s personalities are due to the dynamics of culture rather than biology.
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- Dreams are thought to provide an evolutionary advantage because of their capacity to repeatedly simulate potential threatening events.
- However, given the vast documentation of the realistic aspects of human dreaming, as well as indirect experimental evidence that other mammals such as cats also dream, evolutionary psychologists have theorized that dreaming does indeed serve a purpose.
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- Researchers in evolutionary medicine believe this adaptation allows humans to recognize a potential threat and act accordingly in order to ensure safety.
- The fact that specific phobias tend to be directed disproportionately at certain objects (such as snakes and spiders) may have evolutionary explanations as well.
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- Biopsychology is the application of the principles of biology to the study of mental processes and physical behavior.
- Biopsychology—also known as biological psychology or psychobiology—is the application of the principles of biology to the study of mental processes and behavior.
- In The Principles of Psychology (1890), William James argued that the scientific study of psychology should be grounded in an understanding of biology.
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- Evolutionary constraints on skull size brought about this development; it allowed for the cortex to become larger without our brains (and therefore craniums) becoming disadvantageously large.