Darwin's natural selection:

1. Variation in traits (individual differences in behavioural, psychological, physiological etc.....)

2.Hertiable traits- traits passed on from generation to generation.

3. Traits due to adaptation- traits that have evolved because they help with increasing survival and reproductive success.

EEA

Relates to Adaptation-

We evolved based on how humans adapted to the needs of hunter and gatherers societies.

Not all traits are for adaptation purposes.

Examples:

1. By-product related to adaptation (eg. belly button)

2. Noise- Traits that are not for adaptations purposes or a by-product.

We have tend to take action or do kind things to protect and help our kin. This is so that we can maintain the fitness of our community= ensuring that the genetic information of ourselves and kins remains and spreads in the population.

Hence it is important to protect the interests of your kin so as to make sure those genetically related to you will continue to have the chance to reproduce (spread their genes).

See the Belding's ground Squirrel study. 

See Parental and Grandparental certainty-

Mum and maternals grandparents invest more time in children because have 100% certainty that child shares their genetic information.

We are motivated to help non kins if we know that the our kindness will be reciprocated/returned at some point in time. Thus the term reciprocal altruism.

Dealing with Freeloaders

We have an evolved cheater detection system. We can recognise individuals. We can recall out previous experiences with that person. We can judge for ourselves based on our memory/recollection whether it is beneficial to help that person.

This is utter bullshit but we have to learn this crap. Here we go ;-p

What women want?

1. Women are more discriminating about casual sex- because have to deal with the agony of child birth

75% of men would have sex with a stranger !!

(Clark & Hatfield, 1989)

No women would be that stupid!!!! Think of the STDs.... yuck ;-0

2. No money no honey-

Females tend to value resources and status- because a man with resources is arguably going to be able to invest more in children's development and future etc...

(Buss and Schmitt, 1993)

What men want

Men are consciously/unconsciously attracted to women that show physical attributes that indicate fertility.

1. Men like young ladies- Youth- longer time frame to give birth; healthier so less likely to have birth complications.

(Hugh Hefner, Donald Trump, Silvio Berlusconi.... I could write a 2000 word essay listing the guilty men)

2. The perfect waist to hip ratio is 0.67-0.80. Apparently, there is an ideal hip size that makes childbirth easier.

Now I know why my mates watch the Victoria Secrets Angel Fashion show, it is not about the fashion but the waist hip ratio ;-p

Is that the reason why guys go unconsciously crazy over Scarlett Johansson because of her waist and hip ratio???/

ha ha ha ;-]

We can recognise our kin and we have evolved the mechanism to resist having sex with our kin.

Why??? We do not want to produce genetical abnormal children.

Intrestingly enough, this kin recognition mechanism also applies to people who we grew up with.

We also think it is gross to have sex with people we grew up with.

See Taiwanese Infant bride and Kibbutz study.

More BS that I do not agree with but we have to learn it. ;-o

EP says that when trying to achieve mating goal:

Men- prefer agreeableness and conformity in women. Therefore women become more conformist to suit men's needs.

Women- prefer men who are risk takers, decisive, assertive, independent. Therefore men tend to become non conformist when trying to achieve mating goal.

EP says hunters and gathers did not move very far from where they originated from. Hence they are generally not exposed to people of different ethnicities/races. Despite racial categorisation is not due to racism.

What is racial categorisation for in hunter and gatherers societies?

In H & G, skin colour is a physical cue for who your allies are.

It is part of a coalition detection system.

Hence if skin colour was not the cue used to detect allies

(race being decoupled from coalitional information) then there will not be racial categorisation.

See Kurzban et al. (2001)

1. EP is about Pan-adaptationship-every evolved adapted feature serve an adaption functional purpose.

Rebuttal: It is not true. EP acknowledges that not all evolved adapted features is for a functional purpose. For example the belly button.

2.Reductionism- EP explains everything about our behaviour and characteristics with biology and our evolved biological past as hunters and gatherers.

Sort of true- not much of a rebuttal.

3. Genetic determinism- EP explain everything about human behaviour and characteristics with our genetic past as hunter and gatherers. (How our ancestors evolved to suit and adapt to the needs of hunter and gatherers societies).

Development Psychology and pathology, shows that our development experiences do impact upon our behaviour and characteristics.

Human behaviour can be explained by nurture and nature.

EP only explain using nature argument.

Again- not much of a rebuttal.

1. EP is a great metatheory- it brings together ideas and research in psychology under one umbrella.

2. Function- EP helps explain the reasons and functions of our psychological mechanisms.

Distal ultimate cause.

For example, EP argues we have an aversion towards snakes because of our evolutionary past as hunters and gatherers. It acts as a defence mechanism against poisonous snakes.

3. Novel hypotheses- Since EP is based on theoretical explanations based on the hunters and gatherers theory, we have the potential to come up with novel hypotheses that we can put to the test in psychology.