Evolutionary Social Psychology

What a pity it would have been if biologists had refused to accept Darwin's theory of natural selection. This theory has been essential in helping biologists understand a wide range of phenomena, including the resplendent display of the peacock, the melodious song of the meadowlark, the bloody competitions of elephant seals, and the co-operative architectural skills of termites who build air-conditioned mounds standing 15 feet above the ground. These days, to study any animal species while refusing to consider the evolved adaptive significance of their behaviour would be considered pure folly - unless, of course, the species is homo sapiens. Graduate students training to study this particular primate species may never take a single course in evolutionary theory, although they often take two undergraduate and four graduate courses in statistics. These methodologically sophisticated students then embark on a career studying human aggression, co-operation, mating behaviour, family relationships, or altruism with little or no understanding of the general evolutionary forces and principles that shaped the behaviours they are investigating. This volume hopes to redress that wrong. This is one of the first books that applies evolutionary theories to mainstream research topics in social and personality psychology. Research in social and personality psychology covers a wide range of important social phenomena, many of which have been shaped and moulded by natural selection during the course of human evolution. These phenomena include selective biases that people have concerning how and why a variety of activities occur. For example: how information exchanged during social encounters is initially perceived and interpreted; people are romantically attracted to some potential mates but not others; people often guard, protect and work hard at maintaining their closest relationships; people form shifting and highly complicated coalitions with kin and close friends; and people terminate close, long-standing relationships. Guided by evolutionary theories and principles; this volume begins to disentangle the complex, interwoven patterns of interactions which define our social lives and relationships.