CHAPTER 13: TOWARD A UNIFIED EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter Summary – Toward a Unified Psychology
In this chapter, we have considered how evolutionary psychology approaches the major branches of
psychology including cognitive, social, developmental, personality, clinical, and cultural psychology.
Evolutionary psychology has also proved informative for other sub-branches of psychology, such as
organizational and industrial psychology (Colarelli, 1998; Nicholson, 1997), consumer and marketing
psychology (Miller, 2009; Saad, 2007b), educational psychology (Geary, 2002), and environmental
psychology (Kaplan, 1992). Evolutionary psychology has extended its reach and is beginning to
transform other disciplines as well—such as the evolutionary analysis of the law (Jones, 1999, 2005),
religion (Kirkpatrick, 1999; Pinker, 1997), arts (Boyd, Carroll, & Gottschall, 2010), economics
(Ferguson, Heckman, & Corr, 2011; Kurzban, McCabe, Smith, & Wilson, 2001; Saad & Gill, 2001;
Wang, Simons, & Brédart, 2001), medicine and health (Gillette & Folinsbee, 2012; Williams & Nesse,
1991), study of mathematical reasoning (Brase, 2002), psychiatry (Brune, 2008), and sociology
(Hopcroft, 2002; Kanazawa, 2001), as well as hybrid disciplines such as social cognition (Andrews, 2001;
DeKay & Shackelford, 2000) and cognitive neuroscience (Barkley, 2001; Platek, Keenan, & Shackelford,
2007).
Ultimately, however, evolutionary psychology can be expected to dissolve these traditional disciplinary
boundaries. Human beings cannot be neatly partitioned into discrete elements such as personality, social,
developmental, and cognitive. Stable individual differences traditionally have been relegated to the
personality branch, but they often involve social orientations, have particular developmental antecedents,
and are anchored in particular cognitive mechanisms. Social exchange and reciprocity have traditionally
A critical task in this new psychological science will be the identification of the key adaptive problems
that humans have confronted repeatedly over human evolutionary history. Evolutionary psychologists
have barely scratched the surface by identifying some of the problems most obviously and plausibly
linked with survival and reproduction. Many adaptive problems remain unexplored, and many
psychological solutions undiscovered. It is not unreasonable to expect that the first scientists to explore
these uncharted territories will come away with a great bounty.
Evolutionary psychology provides the conceptual tools for emerging from the fragmented state of current
psychological science and linking psychology with the rest of the life sciences in a larger scientific
integration. Evolutionary psychology provides some of the most important tools for unlocking the
mysteries of where we came from, how we arrived at our current state, and the mechanisms of mind that
define what it means to be human.
Suggested Readings
Adriaens, P.R., & De Block, A. (Eds.). (2011). Maladapting minds: philosophy, psychiatry, and
evoluntionary theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Boyd, B., Carroll, J., & Gottschall, J. (Eds.). (2010). Evolution, literature, and film: A reader. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Hagen, E. H., & Hammerstein, P. (2005). Evolutionary biology and the strategic view of ontogeny:
Genetic strategies provide robustness and flexibility in the life course. Research in Human
Development, 2, 87–101.
Haselton, M. G., Bryant, G. A., Wilke, A., Frederick, D. A., Galperin, A., Franenhuis, W. E., & Moore,
T. (2009). Adaptive rationality: An evolutionary perspective on cognitive bias. Social Cognition,
27, 733–763.
Henrich, J. (2009). The evolution of costly displays, cooperation, and religion: Credibility enhancing
displays and their implications for cultural evolution. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 244–
260.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. The entire cognitive system, according to an evolutionary psychological perspective, is __________.
(b) a complex collection of interrelated domain-specific information-processing devices
(c) a complex collection of interrelated domain-general information-processing devices
(d) a simple collection of interrelated domain-specific information-processing devices
2. Traditional ________is anchored by several core assumptions challenged by evolutionary
(a) evolutionary biology
(b) social psychology
(c) personality psychology
(d) cognitive psychology
(a) domain specificity
(b) functional analysis
(c) functional agnosticism
(d) descriptive agnosticism
(a) cannot specify the function of an information-processing device
(b) provides a shortcut to conducting the scientific experiments to test hypotheses
(c) specifies what a problem is and why there is a device to solve it
(d) broadens the search space of successful solutions to a problem
(a) across cultures and time periods, the same key themes are repeated again and again
(b) the types of violence reported on the front page varies by region
(c) most of the front-page space was devoted to scientific discoveries
(d) the number of articles written about violent news stories differed tremendously over time
6. Linda wears tie-dyed shirts and buttons asserting that “men are slime” and frequently tries to organize
the women in her workplace. Is it more likely that “Linda is a bank teller’” or that “Linda is a feminist
bank teller?” The fact that most people tend to reply that “Linda is a feminist bank teller” is an example of
(a) the conjunction fallacy
(b) the feminist fallacy
(c) the base-rate fallacy
(d) the naturalistic fallacy
(a) states that the human environment has had certain statistical regularities that are utilized to
facilitate adaptive problem solving
(b) has a solid evolutionary basis but has not yet received empirical support
(c) is consistent with traditional cognitive psychology
(d) all of the above
(a) the ideal set of physical conditions in which a species is designed to exist
(b) the set of statistical regularities of the human environment throughout our evolutionary history
(c) the type of neural network which best suits the nature of the problem processing
(d) none of the above
(a) the problem is too domain-general for mechanisms to have been fashioned to deal with a
domain-general problem
(b) individuals are presented with visual information rather than written information
(c) there is a high degree of uncertainty
(d) there is a mismatch between the problem presented and the problem the mechanism was
designed to solve
(a) some human reasoning mechanisms are designed to take as input frequency information and
produce as output probabilistic behavior
(b) some human reasoning mechanisms are designed to take as input frequency information and
produce as output frequency information
(c) all human reasoning mechanisms are designed to take as input frequency information and
produce as output frequency information
(d) none of the above
(a) They allow a person to preserve the number of events on which the judgment was based.
(b) They allow a person to update his or her database when new events are encountered.
(c) They allow a person to construct new reference classes after the events have been
encountered.
(d) They allow a person to retrieve frequency representations more often than alternative
representations.
12. Tests of the frequentist hypothesis reveal that performance on the above problem—called the medical
(a) medical diagnosis problem, frequency information, visual information
(b) frequency information, medical diagnosis problem, visual information
(c) medical diagnosis problem, visual information, frequency information
(d) visual information, frequency information, medical diagnosis problem
(a) domain-specific reasoning capabilities; domain-general reasoning capabilities
(b) multiple intelligences; a general intelligence
(c) a general ability to reason; many specialized abilities to reason
(d) content-specific psychological mechanisms; content-general psychological mechanisms
(a) an adaptation designed for the communication of information
(b) a byproduct of the tremendous size of the human brain
(c) not universal across different cultures
(d) not explicable through evolutionary insights
(a) major lexical categories (like nouns, verbs, adjectives)
(b) rules of linear order
(c) the underlying sounds used
(d) verb affixes which denote the timeframe of the event
(a) social gossip hypothesis
(b) social contract hypothesis
(c) Scheherazade hypothesis
(d) information exchange hypothesis
17. Which hypothesis for the evolution of language has the MOST serious difficulties in explaining
(a) social gossip hypothesis
(b) social contract hypothesis
(c) Scheherazade hypothesis
(d) information exchange hypothesis
(a) selection would not have limited language to its original function
(b) selection favored the use of language to solve most adaptive problems
(c) it became less domain specific and more domain general
(d) all of the above
(a) because humans were constantly faced with harsh ecological conditions, they had to evolve
high levels of intelligence in order to combat the environment
(b) those humans who were best able to compete socially by harnessing the power of ecology
tended to acquire more sexual access to mates
(c) since humans were able to subdue the hostile forces of nature, the only competition left was
among themselves, resulting in the evolution of a larger brain
(d) none of the above
(a) IQ and social intelligence are highly correlated
(b) IQ and social intelligence are not correlated
(c) individual differences in survival are not linked with intelligence
(d) individuals of higher intelligence tend to die earlier
(a) founder effects
(b) double jeopardy
(c) spiraling complexity
(d) migration ratchet
(a) increase in relative risk of infertility
(b) reduction in relative risk of infertility
(c) reduction in relative risk of death
(d) increase in relative risk of death
(a) correspondence bias
(b) self-handicapping
(c) self-serving bias
(d) confrontational bias
(a) tendency to present a strength about oneself privately to provide an enduring disposition
responsible for success at a task
(b) tendency to make attributions that make one appear worse than others in the group
(c) tendency to present publicly a purported weakness about oneself to provide an excuse in the
event one fails at a task
(d) none of the above
(a) to prevent inbreeding
(b) to encourage inbreeding
(c) to increase rates of inbreeding suppression
(d) in response to sex between cousins
(a) to punish those who violate social contracts
(b) to promote appeasement and submission
(c) to signal knowledge of an inflicted harm
(d) to motivate the helping of others who are suffering
27. Group selection is ___________________ but the conditions that make group selection likely are
(a) theoretically possible; capable of evolving in a short period of time
(b) theoretically possible; incapable of fashioning domain-specific mechanisms
(c) theoretically impossible; possible only if a species is exposed to group living for sufficient
periods of time
(d) theoretically possible; rarely seen in nature
(a) multiforce selection theory
(b) multigroup selection theory
(c) multilevel selection theory
(d) group adaptation theory
29. A key insight gleaned from evolutionary developmental psychology that is missing from mainstream
(a) that human beings face predictably different adaptive problems at various points in their lives
(b) that all adaptations have a developmental history
(c) that selection can operate on the developmental timing of psychological mechanisms
(d) all of the above
(a) provide a more encompassing body of research in psychology
(b) aid in the prediction of other people’s behavior
(c) understand cross-cultural differences in behavior
(d) none of the above
31. Belsky and colleagues suggest that _____________ early in a child’s life can calibrate the kind of
(a) father absence
(b) mother absence
(c) family income
(d) potty training
32. Chisholm suggests that variations in parental mating strategy and parental investment result in
(a) attachment security
(b) theory of mind
(c) personality characteristics
(d) none of the above
(a) the interaction between heritable characteristics and environments
(b) evolved psychological mechanisms designed to take as input one’s heritable qualities as a
guide to strategic solutions
(c) selection for environments best suited for an one’s heritable characteristics
(d) all of the above
34. All of the following are traits that might be maintained by frequency-dependent selection EXCEPT
(a) proportions of biological sex
(b) mating strategies
(c) language
(d) psychopathology
35. Frequency-dependent selection requires that the payoff of a strategy _____________ as its frequency
(a) decreases; increases
(b) increases; increases
(c) is static; increases or decreases
(d) none of the above
(a) high risk-taking
(b) high Machiavellianism
(c) early attachment to their biological father
(d) short-term mating strategy
(a) provide high benefits but also high costs
(b) provide greater benefits than costs
(c) are viewed as highly attractive in women
(d) are viewed as highly attractive in men
38. All of the following forces could cause the variation inherent in individual differences except
(a) individual variation in exposure to certain environmental insults
(b) mutation load
(c) frequency dependent selection
(d) group selection
(a) environment does not match reactive heritability
(b) mechanism is not performing as it was designed to perform in the contexts in which it was
designed to function
(c) mechanism is performing as it was designed to perform in contexts in which it was not
designed to function
(d) all of the above
(a) activation failure
(b) context failure
(c) deactivation failure
(d) coordination failure
(a) motivates avoidance of future losses; is a signal soliciting help from others
(b) allows us to more objectively evaluate our goals; protects us against a threat of attack
(c) is a signal soliciting help from others; allows us to more objectively evaluate our goals
(d) protects us against a threat of attack; motivates avoidance of future losses
(a) the evocation of different cultural traditions under similar conditions
(b) phenomena that are triggered in some groups more than in others because of differing
environmental conditions
(c) cultural variation that is attributed to similar ecologies
(d) none of the above
43. Gangestad and Buss found that parasite prevalence is ___________ correlated with the importance
(a) positively
(b) negatively
(c) not
(d) causally
(a) stronger in women than in men
(b) a byproduct of other human psychological mechanisms
(c) an emergent phenomenon arising from sexual competition
(d) none of the above
(a) items for which mental images were created
(b) items evaluated for relevance to surviving a hypothetical plane crash
(c) items which were related to an actual autobiographical experience
(d) all of the above
46. The commitment skepticism bias, descent illusion, and auditory looming bias imply that humans
(a) make many errors but still manage to survive
(b) follow domain-free rationality principles
(c) generally fear false alarms and are biased toward misses across multiple domains
(d) are adaptively rational
47. In the first empirical test of the ecological dominance/social competition (EDSC) hypothesis,
(a) in populations with more competition for status, less energy could be devoted to brain evolution,
resulting in smaller cranial capacities
(b) populations in the process of achieving ecological dominance had larger cranial capacities than
those that had already become ecologically dominant
(c) women’s (but not men’s) cranial capacity was positively correlated with the degree to which they
engage in gossip
(d) population density throughout human evolution was positively correlated with cranial capacity
48. Navarrete’s studies on fear learning and extinction based on group membership revealed that
(a) fear of in-group men is the easiest to acquire
(b) fear of in-group members was most difficult to acquire and most difficult to extinguish
(c) fear of out-group men was the most difficult to extinguish
(d) women learn fear of out-group members more easily than men
49. Which of the following is a finding that supports the hypothesis that morality may be sexually
(a) Dominant males are more likely to demonstrate altruistic morality than non-dominant males.
(b) Humans prefer virtuous traits in their mates.
(c) Demonstrated morality is positively correlated with attractiveness.
(d) all of the above
(a) especially strong
(b) especially weak
(c) non-existent
(d) weaker than sexual selection
(a) Children possess conditional strategies that produce different life trajectories based on early
experience.
(b) Adaptations in infancy evolved to solve particular adaptive problems faced specifically during this
age.
(c) Extended childhood contains design features for the prolonged learning and preparation needed to
solve adaptive problems later in life.
(d) all of the above
(a) It grows more and more sophisticated with age.
(b) It “comes online” relatively early in development and maintains a stable skill level through
adulthood.
(c) It reliably develops in many children, but a large proportion of individuals never display theory of
mind.
(d) none of the above
(a) emotional stability
(b) agreeableness
(c) conscientiousness
(d) extraversion
(a) Offspring’s tendency to rebel against their parents post-puberty.
(b) The positive correlation between parents’ IQ and offspring’s IQ.
(c) Men’s significantly greater tendency to prefer short-term mating relationships, relative to women.
(d) The positive correlation between extraversion and physical strength.
55. Psychopaths display “predatory memory” for potential victims who display which of the following
(a) happiness
(b) healthiness
(c) helpfulness
(d) all of the above
56. Cross-cultural variability in pathogen prevalence has provided support for the hypothesis that some
(a) transmitted culture
(b) evoked culture
(c) costly signaling
(d) reactive heritability
(a) Information from individuals of high prestige is discounted if the information coincides with their
self-interest.
(b) Low-prestige individuals do not affect cultural transmission.
(c) Costly signaling decreases the credibility of culturally transmitted messages.
(d) Cultural transmission occurs once evolution has stopped operating on a population.