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Evolutionary Psychology

The below overview of an article is from Lisa Fritscher  How evolutionary psychology explains human behavior

Evolutionary psychology is the belief that behavior is affected by evolution psychology. Other individuals believe that our ancestors used the psychological approach when they were looking for solutions to problems. It is believed that they had better advantages like better health or longer life span. It is also believed that because of evolutionary psychology they had these behavioral traits passed down. It is believed that these neural circuits are deep in the brain and are inherited. There are five principles of evolutionary psychology:

1. Your brain instructs you to behave in a certain way and be adaptive to your environment.

2. Your neural circuitry helps you solve problems correctly. The way your neural circuitry is constructed is done by natural selection and over the course of generations.

3. Most of your behaviors are determined by your subconscious neural circuitry. You are not aware of these subconscious processes for the most part. We depend on conscious decision-making to help us in our daily life.

4. Each neural circuit has a special task and is adaptive to that specific problem.

5. These adaptive changes originated in the Pleistocene era.

During the early stages, individuals developed language skills. It is said that language skills have a role in our ability to stay safe, survive, and reproduce. What languages you can speak come from where you live and grow up. This is an example of cultural input. Even phobias are an evolutionary process. You wouldn’t know how to fear a snake or spider if you were never taught to. It is believed that it came from early individuals not being able to see those creatures well and having to focus before sticking their hands somewhere they are unable to see.

Do you agree with the author? Why or why not?

In this article, I do agree with the things they talked about. I see how our ancestors affect the way we think and operate. You learn from your parents, grandparents, and elders. They learned from the elders above them. Things change a little over time about what we learn. However, the basics are generally passed down to each other.

How much “choice” is afforded in the modern evolutionary psychology perspective?

While I think we all have some ability to choose, most of our involuntary beliefs are inherited. I do, however, believe that as we change and grow with each different environment and situation, we are in. Looking at my childhood is one great example. Things my mother and father used to do and act when I was a child are not how I look at life now. For example, they would let us play outside in the neighborhood with our friends all day and come in at night. It is unheard of now for parents to let their children do that. The environment that we live in is different than when we were kids. While our core values might be the same as what we are teaching our children, the way we do things is different.

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Evolutionary Psychology

The article I found describes evolutionary psychology as the human mind consisting of evolved cognitive mechanisms that developed through evolution by means of natural selection (Selffert-Brockmann, 2018). It was the belief that these mechanisms evolved in order to solve long standing problems in the human environment. The author argued that evolutionary psychology as a framework for strategic communication research can improve understanding of why strategic communication exists in society and have a better understanding of how it works. The author believes that evolves throughout history and this aids in solving ancestral challenges and aids in finding motives. Examples of motives were a persons status in society and their affiliation. The author stated that, "communication was one factor (among many) that determined the reductive success of individuals," (Selffert-Brockmann, 2018). This meaning that the social media and mass amounts of media we have access to today was unanticipated by evolution. It is the belief that we as humans were meant to have a natural setting of face-to face communication. So changing to what is acceptable to socialize around us, helps us to become socially successful. 

Do you agree with the author? Why or why not?

I do agree with the author. Humans were meant to be social. The communication that humans choose to use will defer depending on what is "normal" at the time because humans are prone to adapt to changing situations. This is how humans survived for many years and continue to be successful at communication with each other. 

How much "choice" is afforded in modern evolutionary psychology perspectives?

Due to modern evolutionary psychology perspectives focusing on your brain instructing you to behave in a certain manner that would be considered "appropriate" for the time, I feel there is some "choice" in the matter but not too much. Over the course of natural selection through generations, these circuits in your brain aid you in solving problems and communicating and these will change as society changes. Which means this happens subconsciously in a natural manner. People understand this change in their thought process and have to make conscious decisions daily. So in a sense, people may not have had the choice or a voice in what the "change" was but people do consciously have to make choices daily if they are going to go with what that change may be in order to keep up with society and what is kind of expected. Some believe that you choose your groups you hang around with, your partners, your religious beliefs and your political beliefs, but others believe that these things can possess a person in a sense because of your chances of survival. I found a statement to be interesting that discusses the fact that pink is related to women and blue is related to men.  "Women in prehistory were the principal gatherers of fruit and would have been sensitised to the colours of ripeness – i.e. deepening shades of pink. Men, on the other hand, would have looked for good hunting weather and sources of water – both of which are connected with blue," (Tallis, 2009). Depending on how you look at it, there can be some choice to this psychology but most of your choices seem to be subconscious for survival.