Chapter 15 o Why is the human mind

designed the way it is, and

Buss: Evolutionary Theory of Personality
how did it come to take its
• Artificial selection (otherwise known current form?
as “breeding”) - occurs when humans o How is the human mind
select particular desirable traits in a designed; that is, what are its
breeding species. parts and current structure?
• Natural selection - is simply a more o What function do the parts of
general form of artificial selection in the mind have, and what is it
which nature rather than people designed to do?
select the traits o How do the evolved mind and
o it occurs when traits become current environment interact
either more or less common to shape human behavior?
in a species over long periods Evolutionary Theory of Personality
of time because they do or do
not lead to greater • Evolutionary theory, however,
survivability assumes that the true origins of these
o not conscious with a plan or traits reach far back in ancestral
foresight in mind, but rather times.
are blind (nonconscious) • The true origin of personality is
• Sexual selection - operates when evolution, meaning that it is caused
members of the opposite sex find by an interaction between an ever-
certain traits more appealing and changing environment and a changing
attractive than others and thereby body and brain.
produce offspring with those traits.
The Nature and Nurture of Personality
Evolutionary Process Outcomes
• fundamental situational error - or the
• Adaptations - are evolved strategies tendency to assume that the
that solve important survival and/or environment alone can produce
reproductive problems behavior void of a stable internal
o Products of natural/sexual mechanism
selection o “Without internal
• By-products - are traits that happen mechanisms there can be no
as a result of adaptations but are not behavior”
part of the functional design • fundamental attribution error - to
• Noise - also known as “random describe our tendency to ignore
effects,” occurs when evolution situational and environmental forces
produces random changes in design when explaining the behavior of other
that do not affect function. people and instead focus on internal
dispositions
Principles of Evolutionary Psychology
• The two must be involved and
• evolutionary psychology - can be interact in any behavior.
defined as the scientific study of Adaptive Problems and Their Solution
human thought and behavior from an
evolutionary perspective and focuses Two fundamental problems of adaptation,
on four big questions: namely survival (food, danger, predation,
etc.) and reproduction.
 • Mechanisms - the process of Five Personality Dimensions
evolution by natural selection has
• Surgency/extraversion/dominance -
produced solutions to these two basic
involves the disposition to experience
problems of life
positive emotional states and to
• More specifically, mechanisms
engage in one’s environment and to
o operate according to
be sociable and self-confident.
principles in different
o driven to achieve and often
adaptive domains
tends to dominate and lead
o number in the dozens or
others
hundreds (maybe even
• agreeableness/hostility - is marked
thousands)
by a person’s willingness and capacity
o are complex solutions to
to cooperate and help the group on
specific adaptive problems
the one hand or to be hostile and
(survival, reproduction)
aggressive on the other
Two specific main classes of mechanism o marks a person’s willingness
to cooperate
• Physical mechanisms - are
• emotional stability/neuroticism -
physiological organs and systems
response to danger and threat
that evolved to solve problems of
o Emotional stability involves
survival
one’s ability to handle stress
• Psychological mechanisms - are
or not.
internal and specific cognitive,
• Conscientiousness - one’s capacity
motivational, and personality systems
and commitment to work
that solve specific survival and
o careful and detail-oriented
reproduction problems.
o Conscientiousness signals to
Evolved Mechanisms others whom we can trust
with tasks and responsibilities
Psychological mechanisms three main and whom we can depend on
categories: in times of need
• goals/drives/motives • Openness - involves one’s propensity
• emotions for innovation and ability to solve
• personality trait problems

Motivation and Emotion as Evolved Origins of Individual Differences

Mechanisms • Environmental Sources
• emotions are adaptations because o early experiential calibration
they directly alert the individual to - childhood experiences make
situations that are either harmful or some behavioral strategies
beneficial to his or her well-being more likely than others.
o alternative niche
Personality Traits as Evolved Mechanisms specialization - different
people find what makes them
• being sensitive to and aware of these
stand out from others in
differences in personality affords
order to gain attention from
reproductive advantages in the
parents or potential mates
perceiver
▪ ex. birth order
 • Heritable Genetic Sources - Common Misunderstandings in Evolutionary
heritability is the extent to which a Theory
trait is under genetic influence
• Evolution Implies Genetic
o Body type, facial morphology,
Determinism (behavior as set in stone
and degree of physical
and void of influence from the
attractiveness
environment) – a “nature and
• Nonadaptive Sources - some sources
nurture” interaction perspective
of individuals do not benefit survival
o Epigenetics - is change in
or reproductive success
gene function that does not
o neutral genetic variations -
involve changes in DNA
which most often take the
• Executing Adaptations Requires
form of genetic mutations
Conscious Mechanisms - evolution
▪ neither harmful nor
has shaped our preferences for mates
beneficial
based on the fact that we are
• Maladaptive Sources – maladaptive
attracted to those who produce
traits are those that actively harm
healthy and fit offspring and ideally
one’s chance for survival or decrease
continue to provide for them.
one’s sexual attractiveness.
• Mechanisms are Optimally Designed
o Genetic defect - the mutation
- Evolutionary change occurs over
is harmful to the person
hundreds of generations and there is
o environmental trauma - such
always a lag between adaptation and
as brain or spinal cord injury,
environment.
which can also lead to
maladaptive individual
differences.

Neo-Bussian Evolutionary Theories of

Personality

• MacDonald “viable alternative

strategies for maximizing fitness” - it
is adaptive for a species to produce
individuals that vary along a
continuum in their responses to
important problems because
changing environments require
different responses.
• evolution favors individual differences
because one can never predict what
the future holds and which qualities
will best match changes in the
environment