Human Behaviour and Evolution

Question 1

What is the environment of evolutionary adaption?

Answer 1

EEA - idea that we have evolved our current behaviour from past environments, and so cannot look to the current state of things for behavioural explanation

Question 2

Adaptionist approach to human evolution?

Answer 2

Behaviour reflects environmental selective pressure, usually from our African origins/stone age dispersals.

Question 3

Phylogenetic inertia?

Answer 3

We may now be post-evolutionary, and exhibit many behaviours with no actual advantage

Question 4

How can we measure human fitness? (3)

Answer 4

Counting babies - not very applicable anymore
Attractiveness/preference surveys, not very realistic
Questionnaires - hypothetical so also not very realistic

Question 5

What are the tenets of evolutionary biology? (4)

Answer 5

Adaptionist environments (EEA)
Gradualism
Modularity and cognition (task-specific traits)
Universal psychological mechanisms

Question 6

Gradualism?

Answer 6

Due to weak selection over time, there is a temporal mismatch between acquired behaviours and the factors that caused them

Question 7

What is the modular mind?

Answer 7

Idea that our brains have evolved to solve modern issues with some locational specificity i.e. certain regions for certain tasks

Question 8

Fodor modules?

Answer 8

Sensory input systems argued to be modular, as they are specific to their tasks and localised to one area

Question 9

Evidence for modularity? (4)

Answer 9

Perceptual systems e.g. facial recognition even when images are distorted
Dedicated areas (Broca’s, Wernickes)
Reflexes and relic behaviours in newborns
Rapid language acquisition suggests instinctive

Question 10

What functions are suggested have adapted modules? (5)

Answer 10

Cheater-detection
Incest avoidance
Self recognition
Predator detection
WHR detection (waist hip ratio for fertility)

Question 11

What is WEIRD science?

Answer 11

Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic bias in research, also dominated by US studies

Question 12

Culturally labile traits?

Answer 12

Those that vary between locations e.g. WHR preferences, specific in US, may be different e.g. in places with food scarcity

Question 13

What are behavioural signatures?

Answer 13

Certain traits that can be mapped to a cause e.g. lactose tolerance mapped to history of livestock rearing and milk-drinking

Question 14

Stages of demographic transition?

Answer 14

1. High stationary (pre industrial-revolution)
2. Early expanding (death rates down)
3. Late expanding (growth slows as birth rates drop)
4. Low stationary (both low)
5. Declining (theoretical, birth rate below death)

Question 15

How can we identify human adaptation?

Answer 15

EEA
Punctuated vs gradual change
Universality

Question 16

Human behavioural ecology?

Answer 16

Looking from an ecological perspective: foraging, life history, marriage/inheritance

Question 17

Evolutionary psychology?

Answer 17

Looking from adaptationist/sexual selection perspective: mate choice, attractiveness, modularity

Question 18

How do social relationships affect health?

Answer 18

White Hall Study - like Sapolski’s baboons, lower ranking civil servants had poorest health due to uncertainty and lack of skill utilisation

Question 19

What is culture?

Answer 19

Inheritance of acquired behaviour

Question 20

Key aspect of cultural transmission?

Answer 20

Social learning - through copying others

Question 21

What is cumulative culture?

Answer 21

Acquisition of information that is then modified - unique to humans, it requires high transmission rates in large populations to retain the modifications

Question 22

Cultural evolution?

Answer 22

Change in traits in a population due to social learning

Question 23

Horizontal transmission?

Answer 23

Within a generation/ non-parental

Question 24

Meme?

Answer 24

Cultural entity (analogous to a gene) replicated and transmitted

Question 25

Replicator?

Answer 25

Something that can be replicated (e.g. DNA sequence) and manipulate its chances of replication

Question 26

Vertical transmission?

Answer 26

Genetic or non-genetic info transfer from parent to offspring

Question 27

Examples of cultural behaviour in animals?

3

Answer 27

Learned behaviours like nest building, tool use, innovations

Question 28

How can we study animal culture? What is the most common animal?

Answer 28

Usually via ethnographic descriptions - behaviours in a population not observed in another
Fish are the best method for this; easy to identify different environmental backgrounds

Question 29

Chimp vs human learning?

Answer 29

Chimps emulate, understanding the aim of the behaviour

Children imitate i.e. copy irrelevant actions, with high fidelity so-we do not need to understand the mechanism

Question 30

Dual inheritance theory?

Answer 30

Human evolution centred on balance between biological and cultural processes

Question 31

Examples of dual inheritance? (2)

Answer 31

Lactose intolerance - cultural driver (milk farming or not) of biological trait (enzymes)

Fire (cultural) meant our eating changed, causing changes to teeth/guts

Question 32

Features of evolutionary memes? (4)

Answer 32

Cultural replicators:
High mutation rate
Rapid evolution 
Spread independent of accuracy (unlike biology)
Neutral, functionless units

Question 33

Stepwise evolution?

Answer 33

Has led to stable societies in primates - ancestral behaviours e.g. language can be tracked along out evolutionary history

Question 34

Rate of language evolution depends on? (2)

Answer 34

Word length

Frequency of use

Question 35

Phonemic diversity and importance?

Answer 35

Number of sounds in a language - this is greatest in Africa, supporting the idea that language expanded from here with our migration