The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of CultureJerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby Although researchers have long been aware that the species-typical architecture of the human mind is the product of our evolutionary history, it has only been in the last three decades that advances in such fields as evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and paleoanthropology have made the fact of our evolution illuminating. Converging findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences. First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors--problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, cooperation, and sexual infidelity. Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture. The Adapted Mind explores this new approach--evolutionary psychology--and its implications for a new view of culture. |
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Page 8
... learning mechanisms , and so on . These differences in psychological design cause differences in behavior : Upon perceiving a rattlesnake , a coyote might run from it , but another rat- tlesnake might try to mate with it . Darwin ...
... learning mechanisms , and so on . These differences in psychological design cause differences in behavior : Upon perceiving a rattlesnake , a coyote might run from it , but another rat- tlesnake might try to mate with it . Darwin ...
Page 9
... learning mecha- nism . Let's say that this new design feature solves an adaptive problem better than designs that already exist in that species : The more sensitive retina allows one to see predators faster , the new digestive enzyme ...
... learning mecha- nism . Let's say that this new design feature solves an adaptive problem better than designs that already exist in that species : The more sensitive retina allows one to see predators faster , the new digestive enzyme ...
Page 12
... learning to accept with grace the irreplaceable intellectual gifts offered by other fields . To do this , one must accept the tenet of mutual consistency among disciplines , with its allied recognition that there are causal links ...
... learning to accept with grace the irreplaceable intellectual gifts offered by other fields . To do this , one must accept the tenet of mutual consistency among disciplines , with its allied recognition that there are causal links ...
Page 26
... learning ) . " [ C ] ultural phe- nomena ... are in no respect hereditary but are characteristically and without exception acquired " ( Murdock , 1932 . p . 200 ) . This line of reasoning is usually sup- ported by another traditional ...
... learning ) . " [ C ] ultural phe- nomena ... are in no respect hereditary but are characteristically and without exception acquired " ( Murdock , 1932 . p . 200 ) . This line of reasoning is usually sup- ported by another traditional ...
Page 29
... learning . The prerequisite that a psychological theory must meet to participate in the SSSM is that any evolved component , process , or mechanism must be equipotential . content - free , content - independent , general - purpose ...
... learning . The prerequisite that a psychological theory must meet to participate in the SSSM is that any evolved component , process , or mechanism must be equipotential . content - free , content - independent , general - purpose ...
Contents
| 19 | |
On the Use and Misuse of Darwinism in the Study | 137 |
COOPERATION | 161 |
Two Nonhuman Primate Models for the Evolution | 229 |
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MATING AND | 245 |
Evaluative | 267 |
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Chattel | 289 |
PARENTAL CARE AND CHILDREN | 323 |
Natural Language and Natural Selection | 451 |
An Adaptation | 495 |
Evolutionary Theory | 533 |
ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS | 551 |
Environmental Preference in a KnowledgeSeeking | 581 |
INTRAPSYCHIC PROCESSES | 599 |
NEW THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO CULTURAL | 625 |
Author Index | 639 |
Maternal Psychology | 367 |
Human Maternal Vocalizations to Infants as Biologically | 391 |
PERCEPTION AND LANGUAGE AS ADAPTATIONS | 445 |
Subject Index | 657 |
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Common terms and phrases
ability adaptationist adaptive problems algorithms animals anthropology architecture Barkow benefit Cambridge characteristics cheaters child chimpanzees cognitive color color constancy communication complex computational cues culture Daly Dawkins design features detection developmental effect emotional environment environmental Ethology evolution evolutionary biology evolutionary psychology evolved example exaptation explain females food sharing function genes genetic hominid human behavior hunter-gatherer hypothesis inclusive fitness individual infant information-processing interaction John Tooby Journal language learning logical males mate preferences maternal maternal behavior mental mind mothers natural selection offspring organization parental patterns perception phenomena physical Pinker Pleistocene polyandrous predictions pregnancy sickness primates psychological mechanisms reasoning reciprocal altruism relationships relative representation reproductive responses role rules selection pressures sex differences sexual signals social contract social exchange Sociobiology solve spatial species speech structure Symons teratogens theory tion Tooby & Cosmides toxic toxins University Press variable vocal Wason selection task wavelengths Wilson women York
Popular passages
Page 35 - Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select — doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.
Page 28 - The determining cause of a social fact should be sought among the social facts preceding it and not among the states of the individual consciousness...
Page 50 - It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so Complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.
Page 515 - ... it had never been conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there are few but will be of opinion that he can; and this may serve as a proof that the simple ideas are not always...
Page 124 - This paper was'partially prepared while the authors were Fellows at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. We are grateful for financial support from the John D.
Page 515 - Suppose, therefore, a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to have become perfectly well acquainted with colours of all kinds, excepting one particular shade of blue, for instance, which it never has been his fortune to meet with. Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest...
Page 180 - In its crackdown against drunk drivers, Massachusetts law enforcement officials are revoking liquor licenses left and right. You are a bouncer in a Boston bar, and you'll lose your job unless you enforce the following law: "If a person is drinking beer, then he must be over 20 years old.
Page 138 - The study of adaptation is not an optional preoccupation with fascinating fragments of natural history; it is the core of biological study.
Page 26 - Undirected by culture patterns — organized systems of significant symbols — man's behavior would be virtually ungovernable, a mere chaos of pointless acts and exploding emotions, his experience virtually shapeless.
Page 102 - If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.