Week 2 (lectures) Flashcards
1
Q
How can we understand human behavioural diversity and where does it come from?
A
By looking at the emerging theoretical perspectives:
human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, ecology.
2
Q
Did Darwin, Wallace or both think that human mental faculties evolved?
A
Wallace thought the mind was specially created which is a dualistic view. Whereas, Darwin believed it evolved from an earlier form.
3
Q
The challenge of understanding behavior
i.e., the Genotype → Phenotype relationship
> what does this require us to do? > what is a geneotype? allele > what is a phenotype? behaviour > what were the two flamingo examples?
A
Understanding behaviour from an evolutionary perspective requires us to balance multiple perspectives. We have genetic information and phenotypic behaviour (the expression of the gene which is triggered by environmental factors). Geneotype (the stuff I’m made from) Phenotype (the stuff that I do) The relationship between genotype and phenotype can be quite complex. Flamingos are not naturally pink! They’re white and become pink through their food source which triggers the expression of the genotype for pink colour. There are melanistic flamingos which have a specific genotype that means regardless of environmental influence they will never be pink (phenotype). Over the past few years this has been debated. People questioning how much of people's personality or the range of personality traits they express (phenotype) due to their genetics? How are different personality traits related and interrelated? Can you be a neurotic extrovert (are the polarized traits that cannot be both expressed or not).
4
Q
What are the three sources of influence on behavior:
How do these three sources of influence produce variation in behavior?
A
- Genes (fisher and mendail)
- Environment (flamingo and
colour) - Culture (socialization)
What is the size of the relationship between genotype and phenotype? What percentage of it is influenced by genes, environment or culture? The answer to this question will vary depending on what perspective of human diversity you take! For example, in resource inequality and body height are related and change in relation to economic development and is an example of how environment hinders genotypic expression. How the different schools of thought view the relationship between genotype and phenotype and the level of important they place on genes, environment and culture.
5
Q
The beginning of modern psychology:
Who are the (6) important figures?
A
- Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
- William James (1842-1910)
- Alfred Binet (1857-1911)
- Lewis Terman (1877-1956)
- Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
- John B. Watson (1878-1958)
6
Q
What was William Wundt known for in psychology?
A
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
§ Built the foundation for experimental work in psychology. § He tried to make philosophical claims about the mind and test them in the lab. He developed structuralism which uses the method of introspection to identify the basic elements of psychological experience. § He opened the first psychology laboratory. § He had a tendency to ramble and believed that his thought was unassailable to people outside of himself. § A lot of his work on mental faculties was written in German and never translated into English
7
Q
What was William James known for in psychology?
A
Wrote a book called the psychologist against himself. He hated research and teaching. He wrote a very important book called the introduction to the principles of psychology; massive work on psychology, he wrote the first textbook on psychology. He drifted away from psychology as he aged and referred to psychology as the nasty little science. He drifted into astrocathies into his book the moral equivalent of war. He is the first person to use the term evolutionary psychology and was strongly influenced by Darwin. He had strong beliefs in how human behaviour is grounded in human nature. The idea that humans are drawn to the spectacle of war, the romanticism, sacrifice and war will always appeal to us and produce people more inclined to war; yet he still claims that we should replace the draft with a civil draft- to help with natural struggles like, war, famine, disease by channeling our innate inclination of war into positive appeals.
8
Q
What was Alfred Binet known for in psychology?
A
He is the first person to develop an IQ test designed to develop a tool to allow us to determine which school children needed additional help at school. A more positive version than others eugenicist views.
9
Q
What was Lewis Terman known for in psychology?
A
Took Binet’s scales that were written in French and translated them and exported them into the US. He started applying it to children and then during the world war he used it on soldiers where people with a private education or higher IQ were drafted for the war as an attempt to lower their casualty rates and find leaders (generals etc.). Terman’s work on intelligence overtime became blended with his eugenics views and tried to uses his data obtained to make claims about some ethnicities being less intelligent than others. As reflected in his book called the bell curve where he poses that social class or SES and ethnic influences intelligence.- the differences he found do not hold up to statistical scrutiny! Every year there will still be interesting paper that make interesting claims about religiosity. This one was redacted in 2020. It claimed that intelligence, violent crime and religiosity in countries were interrelated but was subject to poor statistical analysis. A train of thought that is a common pit fall in psychology over the years, eugenic elements. Terman’s quote. How he translated Binet’s work reflects his inclination to link intelligence to morality- eugenics- and are inherited traits. The debate that intelligence is linked to morality is a claim still made today as seen in this 2020 work. Hamilton Gregory wrote McNamara’s Folly: the use of low-IQ troops in the Vietnam war. They lowered the IQ criteria for recruitment from 80. He worked with people who didn’t know what state they’re from or how to tie their own shoes so were kept away from everyone else because they became a danger to themselves and others with high casualty rates.
10
Q
What was Ivan Pavlov known for in psychology?
A
Pavlovian conditioning or classical conditioning and is referred to as one of the grand daddies of behaviorism.
11
Q
What was John B. Watson known for in psychology?
A
He wrote a paper called psychology as the behaviorist views it which argued that mental processes are not directly observable and thereby not directly measurable. He believed psychology should focus on measuring observable behaviour. Another granddaddy of behavioralist and kick started the behavioural revolution.
12
Q
What is the Ethology perspective and who are two important figures?
A
Ecologist perspective on evolution and animal behaviour.
The two main authors from this branch are:
1. Nickolaas Tinbergen (1907- 1988) - He was imprisoned in a German prisoner of war camp and developed PTSD to German language.
- Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989)
- He got swept up in the Nazi
movement and got imprisoned
in a prisoner of war camp in
Russia.
- The man with the goslings,
goslings imprint on the first
thing they see.
- They both started talking
about animal behaviour and
were very controversial at the
time because the speculated
that the same
behaviour/theories could be
applied to human behaviour.
- Konrad Lorenz on aggression
claimed that humans are
predisposed to violence and
therefore war occurs so
frequently in human history
and murder; an innate
tendency to solve problems
with violence.
- The Seville (group of Spanish
psychologists) published a
statement where they
rejected his theory on
violence.
13
Q
Which three ethology authors won a Nobel prize in 1973?
A
Konrad Lorenz, Nickolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch: - Collectively won a noble prize on their work on animal behaviour in 1973. - Karl von Frisch (translated to night of fresh) was famous for his work on the dance of the bees, which identified that bee’s fly in a particular pattern to signal to other bees where the food source is.
14
Q
Who is David Sloan Wilson: within ethology?
A
- Brought a lot of the three ecologists work on human behaviour into psychology post behaviorism. - He recently published a book called this view of life: completing the Darwinian revolution which dugout “the four Tinbergen questions”. - he wrote the "The Four Tinbergen Questions"
15
Q
What are “The Four Tinbergen Questions” and what is its main probelm?
Ethology
A
There are a number of things to consider when looking a at a trait in its current form and development: o Proximal: - On a Developmental level: Ontogeny; How does this trait develop in individual's lifetime (communication, social norm, fear of snakes etc.). - On a static level: Mechanism; How does this trait work (structure, physiology, triggers… behavioralists focus on this). o Distal: - On a developmental level: Phylogeny; what is the traits evolutionary history (what we will focus on) - On a static level: Function; how does the trait enhance reproductive success (what we will focus on)
Problem: o Proximal developmental causes and distal static causes are hard to distinguish apart. Behaviours that help me in my lifetime now surely also help me in the long run because it allows me to stay alive and reproduce.
