Evolutionary Psychology Assignment

Evolutionary psychology has had a significant influence on the discipline of psychology but
some take issue with its foundational assumptions.
 Describe your worldview. Some of the constructs from the BWVI are relevant and may
help you think through your worldview.
 Is evolutionary psychology compatible with your worldview?
 What are the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary psychology?

ANSWER

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary psychology examines or studies human feelings, thoughts, and characters in line with evolutionary biology. Several evolutionary psychologists assert that all human characteristics reveal the control of psychological and physical tendencies significant for human ancestors’ reproduction and survival. An evolutionary view states that all animals’ brains and bodies are made up of active mechanisms working collectively to increase success within different environments generally encountered by animals’ ancestors (Tooby, 2018). A good example is a killer whale and a cow; even though they are distantly related, the whale cannot function with a cow’s brain because the whale requires a brain designed to control a body that attracts prey in the ocean rather than the whale feeding on grass. Similarly, a bat, also a mammal, requires a brain to fly its small body catching insects at high speeds in the dark.

Personal Worldview of Evolutionary Psychology

There are numerous areas where the theory of evolution must be applied or used for different species to develop in human life. The first one engages simple survival techniques, ranging from motivation and learning to respond to stimuli and consciousness. Human beings’ languages are still grouped as survival skills within psychology’s evolutionary scale (Lewis et al., 2017). Evolutionary psychology is still dominant in species propagation, where people will look for specific traits in a partner. As opposed to other class in the normal surroundings, evolutionary psychology in human mating is dependent on the thought that females are more discriminatory in their partners than males.

This is evident in modern society, where a man is expected to have material wealth, among other qualities, to fit in a given societal environment. The other central area where evolutionary psychology is necessary engages research centers where people interact frequently. These researches are focused on parenting, relations within families, and conversations with people who are not related. Influence and emotions hinder these interactions because it is proven that interactions occur more frequently among people living within a similar region. This eventually creates a specific culture around immigration and emigration in the area.

Compatibility with the Worldview

Evolutionary psychology matches my worldview because of its relationship with macroevolution and microevolution. Linking the discipline of psychology to the perspective of evolution through biology has always been the aim of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary theory was created under different fundamental standards, which merge a conventional perceptive of psychology with the evolutionary biology opinions of how the brain operates. It has helped study the human brain and how it has evolved over the past several years. Different sections in the brain control multiple sectors of human nature and the psychology of the body (Al-Shawaf et al., 2019). The brain will constantly evolve according to the existing problem which needs to be solved. This is a good view of how the human brain operates.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Evolutionary Psychology

The use of evolutionary psychology has diverse advantages and weaknesses. One of the advantages is that the theory allows human beings to learn more data or information from what the human instincts fail to evaluate. Buss, D. M. (2020) also states that through the ideas of the adaptation approach, psychologists and other evolutionary biologists can discover factual information and solutions to the issues that are likely to emerge behind the study of human structure. On the other hand, one of the limitations of this theory is that it is not in line with mutations and tries to hinder the responsibility of evolution.

References

Al-Shawaf, L., Lewis, D. M., Wehbe, Y. S., & Buss, D. M. (2019). Context, environment, and learning in evolutionary psychology. Encyclopedia of evolutionary psychological science, 1-12.

Buss, D. M. (2020). Evolutionary psychology is a scientific revolution. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 14(4), 316.

Lewis, D. M., Al-Shawaf, L., Conroy-Beam, D., Asao, K., & Buss, D. M. (2017). Evolutionary psychology: A how-to guide. American Psychologist, 72(4), 353.

Tooby, J. (2018). The emergence of evolutionary psychology. In Emerging syntheses in science (pp. 67-76). CRC Press.