Controversies Surrounding Evolutionary Psychology

Abstract

The field of evolution and human behavior is a powerful area of inquiry, shedding new light on such facets of human behavior as infant attachment patterns, visual perception, the human emotion system, the nature of altruism, the nature of aggression, human intimate relationships, and more. In fact, over the past several decades, many significant scholars have contributed great work in this field. However, the resistance within academia to the very idea of evolutionary psychology is quite strong. These facts taken together make for an interesting (and often difficult) environment when teaching and researching in the field of evolutionary psychology. This chapter focuses on a host of reasons to expand the inclusion of evolutionary psychology within university curricula—along with a demarcation of the several intellectual forces that surround this field within the academy.