Evolutionary Psychology Textbook
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Course Introduction
Evolutionary Psychology explores the ways in which human psychological traits and behaviors have been shaped by evolutionary processes over time. The course examines the adaptive functions of mental and emotional mechanisms, investigating how natural selection, sexual selection, and other evolutionary forces have influenced cognition, emotion, motivation, social interaction, and culture. Students will analyze both theoretical frameworks and empirical findings, considering topics such as mating strategies, parental investment, cooperation, aggression, and the evolution of language. Through critical evaluation of research and contemporary debates, the course encourages an understanding of human behavior within the broader context of evolutionary biology.
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Evolutionary Psychology Neuroscience Perspectives concerning Human Behavior and Experience
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Chapter 1: Introduction to an Evolutionary Perspective
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Q1) The _____ combines the study of evolution by natural selection as developed by Darwin with the study of genetics as developed by Mendel.
Answer: modern synthesis
Q2) Which of the following is NOT true of a fixed action pattern?
A) It can be modified to the situation.
B) It is characteristic of a species.
C) It requires no learning.
D) It is released by a stimulus.
Answer: A
Q3) According to Eibl-Eibesfeldt, adaptations reflect features of the _____ relevant to survival
A) behavior.
B) environment.
C) organism.
D) species.
Answer: B
Q4) Imprinting involves both the characteristic behavior of the mother and the innate brain pattern or the hatchling; Lorenz suggested imprinting worked like a _____ and _____.
Answer: lock, key
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Chapter 2: What Is Evolution
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Q1) Jung's idea of the collective unconscious reflects the manner in which the expressive predispositions of current-day humans are the result of
A) evolutionary pressures on our ancestors.
B) multiple interactions in modern society.
C) repeated exposure to mass media.
D) sympathetic and empathetic processes.
Answer: A
Q2) _____ is a process that results in heritable changes in a population over many generations.
Answer: Evolution
Q3) Evolution by natural selection can only work when there is _____, giving some organisms a survival and reproductive advantage over others.
Answer: variation
Q4) What amazed Darwin about the Galápagos Islands was the A) number of new plant and animal species.
B) similar of species there to those in Europe.
C) wide variety of fish species.
D) white cliffs created by small volcanic eruptions.
Answer: A
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Chapter 3: Evolution and Genetics
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Q1) Using twin studies, personality factors such as extraversion have been shown to have a _____% contribution of genetic factors.
A) 10
B) 25
C) 50
D) 75
Answer: C
Q2) The complete set of human genes is referred to as the _____.
Answer: genome
Q3) Research suggests that fathers who smoked early in life are more likely to have sons with heavier weight at age 9. This is an example of _____ inheritance.
A) epigenetic
B) Lamarckian
C) Mendelian
D) mitochondrial
Answer: A
Q4) Sperm cells and egg cells are collectively known as _____.
Answer: gametes
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Chapter 4: Evolution of Brain and Function
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Q1) Both bats and birds inherited forelimbs from a common ancestor, but each developed wings separately; thus, the forelimbs are _____ similarities, whereas the wings are _____ similarities.
A) homologous, analogous
B)inherited, acquired
C) primitive, derived
D) true, false
Q2) Discuss hominin evolution.
Q3) Discuss Hughling Jackson's two principles, hierarchical integration and encephalization. What are the implications of these for modern humans?
Q4) The third level of the triune brain is the _____ brain, which includes the neocortex and thalamic structures; this level is generally associated with problem solving, executive control, and an orientation toward the external world with an emphasis on linguistic functions.
Q5) Discuss the factors that drove the evolution of larger brains in mammals. What is the relationship between brain size and intelligence?
Q6) If an observed similarity between two species is due to a shared evolutionary history, it is called a _____ similarity.
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Chapter 5: Developmental Processes
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Q1) Simon Baron-Cohen's model of the developmental aspects of inferring mental states in another person does NOT include which of the following?
A) Emotion detector.
B) Eye direction detector.
C) Intentionality detector.
D) False-belief detector.
Q2) What is the role of play in humans and other mammal species? Discuss Burghardt's (2004) five criteria for characterizing play.
Q3) Longitudinal studies on aggression show that A) aggression is largely genetically based. B) boys become aggressive to dominate others. C) children learn to inhibit aggressive impulses.
D) males and females are equally aggressive.
Q4) Research suggests that newborns come into the world with mechanisms that predispose them to look at A) colors. B) faces.
C) shapes. D) women.
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Chapter 6: Emotionality
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Q1) Panksepp's approach to understanding emotionality and brain processes is to look for core processes across species. Which of the following is NOT one of the core processes he proposes?
A) maternal care
B) problem solving
C) separation distress
D) sexual lust
Q2) Ekman (2009) suggested that Darwin made five important contributions to our study of emotion. Explain each.
Q3) Darwin interpreted the universality of emotional response as support for the idea that all humans are decended from a "single parent stock"; by this, he meant that emotions developed
A) early in our evolutionary history.
B)from mating and parenting behaviors.
C) out of a single physiological state.
D) through early mother-infant interactions.
Q4) The _____ is one of the main structures involved in emotion; it is an almond-shaped structure found in the frontal part of the temporal lobe.
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Chapter 7: Language
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Q1) Ann and David Premack worked with a chimpanzee named Sarah; they were particularly interested in three questions. Which of the following was NOT one of their research questions?
A) How many words Sarah could learn to understand and use.
B) How Sarah learned rules for relating words to one another.
C) How Sarah learned such concepts as "name of" and "color of."
D) How word meaning was related to existing knowledge.
Q2) The actual spoken sentence is called the _____, whereas the meaning of the sentence is called the _____.
A) external process, internal process
B) free morpheme, bound morpheme
C) overarching meaning, underlying meaning
D) surface structure, deep structure
Q3) In both songbirds and humans, there is a ______ after which vocal learning becomes more difficult.
Q4) One distinctive feature of language is that it is regular and has rules, which we call a _____.
Q5) Describe some examples of animal communication systems. In what way is human language unlike any of these systems?
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Chapter 8: Sex and Gender
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Q1) In the 1970s, Geoff Parker suggested that if two or more males mate with the same female, their sperm could compete with one another to fertilize the egg; this process has been referred to as _____
Q2) There are gender differences in actual sexual behavior, with males seeking sex more often than females; this is true for _____ couples.
A) both heterosexual and homosexual
B) heterosexual and lesbian but not gay
C) heterosexual but not homosexual
D) some but not all
Q3) Gender differences found in sexual desire or behavior cannot be related to satisfaction of the experience because
A) ratings of satisfaction are generally considered unreliable.
B) researchers controlled for differences in level of satisfaction.
C) satisfaction of experience was not a factor that was considered.
D) studies find no differences between males and females in level of satisfaction.
Q4) The term _____ is used to describe the situation in which one male mates with multiple females.
Q5) What is the Red Queen hypothesis? In what way is sex like a lottery?
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Chapter 9: Sexual Selection
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Q1) The concept of _____ suggests that if a female is more willing to mate with a male with a certain trait, then that trait will be favored and passed on to the next generation; the outcome of such a process could eventually be an exaggeration, as in the case of the peacock's tail.
Q2) Synchrony in menstrual cycles is a way for the dominant female to make sure she will be receptive _____ other females, so she can mate with the male of her choice.
A) after B) at the same time as C) before D) for a longer time than
Q3) In a woman's menstrual cycle, the _____ phase is when the egg is being developed, and the _____ phase is just after the egg is released.
A) follicular, ovulatory
B) hormone, pheromone
C) nonreceptive, receptive
D) premenstrual, postmenstrual
Q4) One of the indicators of sexual availability in primate females is _____, which is often accompanied by changes in color.
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Chapter 10: Kin and Family Relationships
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Q1) The dimension of the characteristic closeness of kinship categories is always _____ correlated with the characteristic number of genealogical links defining them; in other words, the degree of genetic relationship parallels the expectation of closeness. A) negatively
B) positively
C) strongly
D) weakly
Q2) Mothers typically wean their children before the children want to be weaned. This is an example of A) cooperative breeding
B) kin selection
C) parental investment
D) parent-offspring conflict
Q3) The _____ is a cognitive phenomenon in which there is a nonlogical reversal in a decision depending on whether the potential outcome is described in positive or negative terms.
Q4) According to Hamilton's theory, _____ will increase as relatedness increases between kin; that is to say, family members will help each other in relation to their genetic relatedness.
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Chapter 11: Social Relations
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Q1) In the _____ game, one of two anonymous players is given a sum of money and the choice to give a portion to the other player; the other player receives double that amount and is given the choice to return some of the money to the first person.
A) banker's dilemma
B) equality matching
C) tit-for-tat
D) trust
Q2) Through its connections to other areas, the _____ can influence memory, attention, and decision making; overall, these areas help us to know the emotional context of our perceptions and what we need to do about them.
Q3) Discuss the types of altruism presented in this chapter. Illustrate with examples.
Q4) Discuss how the prisoner's dilemma is used to study human cooperative behavior. What is the best strategy for the iterative version of the game, and why?
Q5) Fiske calls "tit-for-tat" relationships _____. "If you invite me to your house, then I should invite you to mine" would be one common manifestation of this type of relationship.
Q6) Discuss the social brain hypothesis and the evidence to support it.
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Chapter 12: Making Social Decisions
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Q1) When a graphic version of the Wason card selection task was presented to the Shiwiar, an isolated group inhabiting the Ecadorian Amazon, they performed _____ Harvard undergraduates in their ability to detect violations of social requirements, that is, to detect cheaters.
A) not nearly as well as B) quite differently from C) similarly to D) twice as well as
Q2) In an experiment, pigeons were given the opportunity to press one button that would immediately give 2 seconds of access to a grain hopper or another button that would provide 4 seconds of access after a 4-second delay. The result was that almost all of the pigeons
A) alternated between the two keys.
B) chose the key that gave immediate access.
C) chose the key that gave more access after a delay. D) learned to press both buttons simultaneously.
Q3) In one version of the trolley problem, most people say it is OK to kill one person if that meant five people would be saved. This type of scenario is generally classified as _____ because most people agree with the moral decision.
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Chapter 13: Health and Disease
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Q1) Our physiological structures have developed over a long period of evolutionary time; new structures are simply added to old ones, and thus these newer structures are _____ by what was there previously.
A) constrained
B) developed
C) guided
D) supported
Q2) Fever clearly serves a purpose, namely to _____, and reducing the fever through available medications may actually lengthen the time one is sick.
A) kill germs
B) produce antigens
C) remove pathogens
D) warm the body
Q3) The cumulative wear and tear on the body as a result of responding to stressful conditions is called _____.
Q4) Explain the thrifty genotype hypothesis and the thrifty phenotype hypothesis. Discuss the evidence supporting them.
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Chapter 14: Psychopathology
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Q1) Discuss the six critical questions concerning psychopathology that relate to other evolutionary processes.
Q2) An important question for evolutionary psychologists is why schizophrenia _____, given that the disorder does not appear to have any reproductive advantage. A) appears at the same rate in all cultures B) has not disappeared over time C) involves both positive and negative symptoms D) is more prevalent now than in the past
Q3) _____ symptoms of schizophrenia include lack of affect in situations that call for it, poor motivation, and social withdrawal.
Q4) _____ symptoms of schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions, and bizarre thoughts.
Q5) _____ reflect a rigid, manipulative approach to dealing with social relationships, two common types being psychopaths and hysterics; from an evolutionary perspective, these people clearly qualify as "cheaters."
Q6) Studies on fear of snakes among wild-reared and lab-reared monkeys show that fear can be learned through _____, but only in relation to evolutionary important objects.
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Chapter 15: Culture
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Q1) The theory of _____ suggests that competition among social groups could favor the spread of fitness-enhancing cultural beliefs and prosocial behavior.
A) cultural group selection
B) enhanced cultural fitness
C) prosocial adaptation
D) social group enhancement
Q2) Culture can produce durable changes in human behavior, which in turn can influence evolutionary changes. Therefore, Richerson and Boyd (2005) suggest that genes and culture
A) coevolve.
B) coexist.
C) collaborate.
D) cooperate.
Q3) What is the Standard Social Science Model? Explain how Tooby and Cosmides' (1992) concepts of metaculture, evoked culture, and transmitted culture help us move beyond the limitations of the SSSM.
Q4) _____ is the process of understanding what mechanisms underlie the differences in cultural mapping.
Q5) Discuss the seven characteristics of culture as determined by Flinn (2005).
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