By: Celine Chin
Nowadays, humans perform many behaviors and have psychological abilities that seem to be innate. For example, we are able to read the intentions of others, acquire language, and use survival-specific skills in activities like hunting. The question is, how exactly do we develop these skills without getting taught? Researchers believe that this is due to evolution and adaptation, and theorize that innate instincts like these helped our ancestors survive.
Evolutionary psychology proposes that survival-related mechanisms in the brain were psychological adaptations and that they helped our ancestors survive long enough to reproduce and pass on these adaptive characteristics to later populations. This underlying theory of natural selection was first proposed by Charles Darwin, who made observations that suggested that human characteristics like facial expressions are adaptations, as they help play a major role in communication. For instance, an animal expressing anger on their face indicates that they’re willing to fight and allows the other animal to back away without either getting hurt.
Generally, there are five main/major principles in evolutionary psychology, with the first being that the brain instructs us to respond appropriately in different environmental circumstances. The second principle is that the way our brains are designed assists us in problem-solving in situations we face because of natural selection, which occurs over many generations. Additionally, we are unaware of most psychological traits due to the fact that they happen subconsciously. This is because most of the decisions we make in our day-to-day lives are made consciously, leaving us oblivious to the complex neural processes in our brain that help lead our decision-making. Another principle is that we have specialized neural circuits within our brains that solve specific problems or carry out specific processes. For example, the neural circuitry required to see is different from the circuitry needed for a function such as vomiting. The last principle is that our brains are derived from adaptive changes that occurred around the Ice Age. Because our ancestors lived so long in a constant lifestyle of hunting and gathering, our minds are designed to better suit the problems our ancestors had, rather than the modern problems we may have with things like the internet or technology.
So what other psychological traits do we develop as a result of evolution? One example is phobias, which are irrational and often go past the point of protecting you from dangerous situations. For instance, some studies reveal that we often fear smaller creatures like snakes and spiders more than predatory ones like lions. An evolutionary perspective would see this irrational fear as a result of smaller creatures being seemingly less harmful but also potentially capable of doing a lot of harm even though predatory animals may better fit the idea of being dangerous. Additionally, our ancestors most likely examined bushes and woodpiles closely for poisonous critters before putting their hands into them. However, these fears have led us to inherit the ability to respond quickly to them, which is evolutionarily advantageous for us in the present day. Another kind of psychological adaptation that we have developed is a desire for foods that contain fats and sugars, as those nutrients allow us to survive longer when there is a shortage of food.
Overall, the human mind is a lot more complex than it might appear, with many inherited factors coming into play, such as inherited behaviors and thought processes. These behaviors and thought processes were what allowed our ancestors to survive and successfully produce offspring. Individuals without the genes encoding for those characteristics died, and so those genes died along with them (weren’t passed on). Eventually, our own developed behaviors and ideas will be inherited by our children and will also benefit later generations far in the future.
Questions
Q: What are some examples of psychological traits we develop from evolution and adaptation?
A: Some things we may have inherited from our ancestors include phobias, cravings for foods that contain a large amount of fats and sugars, emotional expressions, and language acquisition. Phobias allowed our ancestors to stay away from potentially dangerous situations while eating foods rich in nutrients like fats and sugars allowed them to survive without food for long periods of time. Facial expressions could have also allowed our ancestors to communicate and convey emotions, with language acquisition being a skill that let our ancestors further communicate complex thoughts.
Q: What are the five principles of evolutionary psychology?
A: The first principle is that our brains tell us how to react appropriately in different circumstances; secondly, the wiring of our brains allows them to help us solve problems in different situations because of the adaptations they have gone through from many years of natural selection. The third principle is that we are often oblivious to a lot of the underlying processes and traits that are in our brains since we mostly pay attention to what happens in our consciousness. In reality, there are many complex processes that occur underneath all of our conscious thought processes. We also have specialized circuitry in our brains that are used for specific functions; an example would be that the circuitry involved in vomiting is different from the circuitry that allows our visions to work. Lastly, our brains are derived from adaptive changes that happened around the time of the Ice Age, because our ancestors mostly spent their time in a hunting-gathering lifestyle, rather than solving modern problems that we may have nowadays.
Sources
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Images:
Wikimedia Commons @ M. Garde
Wikimedia Commons @ Clément Bardot