Upgrade to remove ads
Only $2.99/month

PSY 3030 Exam 1 Flashcards

Terms in this set (76)

Jean Baptiste Lamarck
credited with using the term "biologie". One of the first scientists to suggest species change through the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Georges Cuvler
proposed catastrophism.
Catastrophism
theory that species become extinct through sudden catastrophes and are replaced by different species.
The Fossil Record
bones from older geological strata were different from bones in more recent strata.
Natural Selection
unguided, unconscious, process through which living species are produced via reproductive competition.
Conditions of natural selection that cause evolutionary change
variation, differential reproductive success, heredity.
Variation
members of a population differ in certain characteristics.
Differential reproductive success
some individuals with particular characteristics have more offspring than others.
Heredity
parents are able to pass on those characteristics to offspring.
Intrasexual competition
works through greater access to the opposite sex through same-sex competition.
Intersexual selection
works through possessing traits that the opposite finds attractive, often referred to as female choice.
Founder effects
occur when a small portion of the population establishes a new colony and and the founders of the new colony are not representative of the original population.
Genetic Bottlenecks
when a population shrinks due to a random catastrophe and the survivors carry only a subset of the genes of the original population.
Genotype
includes an individuals complete collection of genes. Does not change in response to the environment but interacts with it-outcome is not predetermined.
Phenotype
refers to the observable characteristics of an individual that are the result of this interaction. Includes unique physical, psychological, and behavioral characteristics.
Epigenetics
examines the process involved in the development of phenotypes.
Ethology
the scientific study of animal behavior, including the study of human behavior from am biological perspective.
Ethology was founded by:
in 1973: Niko Tinbergen. Karl Von Fritsch. Konrad Lorenz.
Inclusive fitness
William Hamilton's Theory: theory that fitness can be measured not only through direct reproduction, but also through actions intended to help genetic relatives.
George C. Williams
evidence against group selection.
Robert Trivers
helping behavior among non-genetic relatives.
E.O. Wilson
Credited with developing the field of sociobiology.
Genetic determinism
behavior is controlled exclusively by genes, with little or no role for environmental influence.
Multiregional continuity theory
different groups of humans in different parts of the world slowly evolved in parallel with each other, all gradually becoming modern humans through interbreeding.
Out of Africa Theory
proposes that modern humans evolved quite recently from only the location of Africa and then migrated into Europe and Asia, replacing all previous populations, including Neanderthals.
Freud 2 Instincts
Life preservative, sexual instincts.
William James-Human Instincts
coughing, signing, vomiting, gagging
Behaviorism
Watson and Pavlov popularized behaviorism in the 1920s. Proposed that behavior is merely the result of reinforcement and punishment.
Harry Harlow
Challenge to behaviorism: development, contact comfort, attachment; experimented with baby rhesus monkeys and presented them with cloth or wire "mothers;" showed that the monkeys became attached to the cloth mothers because of contact comfort.
Garcia's Taste aversion experiment
Challenge to behaviorism: studied rats and how they make associations. Some associations seemed to be adaptive.
Domain-specificity
inspired the evolutionary approach to psychology, that the brain has specialized programs, each designed to solve relevant problems such as survival and reproductive.
Food neophobia
a strong aversion to new foods; also exhibited by rats, is associated with trying new foods in very small doses, even when paired with familiar foods, any sickness experienced is thought to be caused by the novel food and avoidance usually follows.
Disgust
a hypothesized adaption that serves as a defense against microbial attacks, and protects from disease.
Disgust can come in 3 forms:
pathogen related disgust, sexual disgust, and moral disgust.
Behavioral immune system
system of mechanisms designed to detect the presence of pathogens in the immediate environment and facilitate the avoidance of those pathogens before they make contact with the body.
The embryo protection hypothesis
pregnancy sickness is an adaption that prevents mothers from consuming and absorbing teratogens.
The cooking hypothesis
the invention of controlled fire and the ability to cook provided the evolutionary impetus for the evolution of large brains in humans.
The Antimicrobial hypothesis
spices kill or inhibit the growth of microorganisms and prevent production of toxins in food.
Frugivory by-product hypothesis
the human propensity to drink alcohol is a by-product of an adaptive preference for ripe fruit.
The Hunting Hypothesis
The transition from foraging to hunting large game led to more sophisticated tools, development of a large brain, and the evolution of complex language skills.
Provisioning hypothesis
hunting and transporting the meat over long distances is thought to be the origin of men's heavy parental investment compared to other primates.
Show-off Hypothesis
men engage in risky hunting so they can have increased sexual access to more partners, the chance at fathering more children, and increased survival of existing children.
The Gathering Hypothesis
in contrast to men's hunting, women's gathering of plant-based foods was the impetus for the evolution of large brains, advanced tools, etc.; hunting emerged much later.
Savanna Hypothesis
used to explain habitat preferences; selection has favored preferences, motivations, and decision rules to explore and settle in environments abundant in resources and to avoid environments lacking these resources. The Savanna is widely believed to be an ancestral environment that provided the most resources.
Phobias
marked by a persistent and irrational fear of an object or situation that disrupts behavior.
Descent Illusion
overperceive the height of when viewing over a cliff or looking down compared to when looking from the bottom up to the top.
Error Management Theory
the brain makes biased decisions to avoid maladaptive problems.
Theory of Senescence
The power of natural selection decreases dramatically with increasing age, resulting in tradeoffs in traits that increase early life reproductive success at the expense of longevity.
Pleiotropy
phenomenon whereby a gene can have two or more different effects.
de Catanzaro's theory
suicide is likely reaction to limited or complete lack of ability to contribute to own inclusive fitness.
Maladaptive by-product hypothesis
maladaptive theory holds that some human behaviors are the result of past selective forces that are no longer operative, usually because of changes in the physical and social environment, resulting in behaviors that are no longer beneficial for fitness.
Adaptations
inherited and reliably developing characteristics that came into existence through natural selection because they helped solve problems of survival and reproduction better than alternative designs existing in the population during the period of their evolution.
Evaluating the function of an adaptation involves:
Efficiency: solving the problem in a proficient manner.
Economy: solving the problem in a cost-effective manner.
Precision: all the component parts specialized for achieving a particular end.
Reliability: performing dependable in the contexts in which it is designed to operate.
Mutation
a copying error in a piece of DNA that occurs in a single individual.
Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA)
the statistical composite of selection pressures that occurred during an adaptation's period of evolution responsible for producing the adaptation.
Byproducts
characteristics that do not solve adaptive problems and do not have a functional design, but "carried along" with characteristics that do have functional design because they happen to be coupled with those adaptations.
Noise
random effects produced by forces such as chance mutations, sudden and unprecedented changes in the environment, or chance effects during development.
Creationism
a supreme deity created all of the plants and animals.
Seeding Theory
seeds of life arrived on earth via a meteorite or from extraterrestrial intelligent beings from other planets.
Evolution by natural selection
differential reproduction due to inherited design differences.
General evolutionary theory
consists of evolution by natural selection.
Middle-Level Evolutionary theories
fairly broad and cover entire domains of functioning. (Trivers' parental investment, Darwin's natural selection)
specific evolutionary hypotheses
restricted to very specific problems involved in one of the domains from middle-level evolutionary theories.
Specific predictions from hypotheses
most specific level that tests hypotheses from middle-evolutionary theories.
Top-down, theory driven
develop hypotheses from an existing theory and test it with a specific prediction.
Bottom-up, observation driven
observe a phenomenon about humans and determine how that observation fits in with current hypotheses and broader theories.
Properties of evolved mechanisms
1. They evolved in the form they did because it solved a specific recurrent problem or survival/reproduction.
2. They are designed to only take in a narrow slice of information.
3. The input lets the organism know which problem it is currently facing.
4. The input is transformed into an output via decision rules.
5. The output can take on several forms. (physiological arousal, behavior).
6. The output of the organism is designed to solve a specific problem.
Comparing across species
to assess prevalence of a particular recurrent problem and different evolved solutions.
Ex: sperm competition. Large sperm volume=increased odds of paternity. To assess the prevalence of sperm competition, relative testes size can be compared across primate species.
Cross-cultural methods
when human behavior is found to be similar across cultures, it supports the hypothesis that it is an evolved psychological mechanism.
Physiological and brain imaging methods
investigates biological substrates of adaptations and design features of those adaptations.
Ex: men in committed relationships have lower testosterone.
Genetic methods
can be used to test competing hypotheses about genetically vs. environmentally mediated phenomena.
Ex: differences in the onset of menstruation and sexuality in women could be due to father absence.
Comparing males & females
used as a way of investigating different adaptive problems faced by men vs. women.
Ex: men uniquely face paternity uncertainty and therefore, male jealously is more likely to be triggered by cues of sexual infidelity.
Within-species comparisons
comparisons can be made between individuals based on individual difference variables such as age.
Ex: younger women are more likely to abort a fetus when the father is absent.
Comparing individuals across contexts
Comparing the same individual across different contexts.
Ex: change in status from low to high in a man's lifetime leads to increased self-confidence and ability to attract mates.
Experimental methods
active manipulation of an independent variable to see how this affects solving adaptive problems, allows for higher degree of control.
Ex: men find women with visible limbal rings to be more attractive because it is a signal of youth and good health.
Computer Simulations
using computer models to determine which decision rules or strategies lead to the best fitness outcomes.
Ex: using algorithms to compare mate preferences to see what is most successful in fitness terms.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE...