Evaluating Evidence of Psychological Adaptation: How Do We Know One When We See One?

Abstract

Evolutionary psychologists argue that human nature contains many discrete psychological adaptations. Each adaptation is theorized to have been functional in humans' ancestral past, and empirical evidence that an attribute is an adaptation can come from showing it possesses complexity, efficiency, universality, and other features of special design. In this article, we present a tutorial review of the evidentiary forms that evolutionary psychologists commonly use to document the existence of human adaptations. We also present a heuristic framework for integrating and evaluating cross-disciplinary evidence of adaptation. Pregnancy sickness, incest avoidance, men's desires for multiple sex partners, and an easily learned fear of snakes are evaluated as possible human adaptations using this framework. We conclude that future research and teaching in evolutionary psychology would benefit from more fully utilizing cross-disciplinary frameworks to evaluate evidence of human adaptation.

Belief in Free Will: Measurement and Conceptualization Innovations

“…A coherent theoretical proposition for an EPA is considered to be an important source of support for the construct (Schmitt & Pilcher, 2004). While the EPA conceptualization is very new and far from fully developed, it nevertheless presents a reasonable behavior analytic alternative to the Skinnerian thesis with markedly different implications for cultural design and social change.…”

“…Rakos (2004) recently proposed a behavior analytic interpretation of the belief in free will that is consistent with such nativist views. He suggested that a belief in agency, expressed in various forms of verbal behavior but experienced more akin to a physiological emotion, is an evolutionary psychological adaptation (EPA; Schmitt & Pilcher, 2004). Every EPA is domain-specific; that is, each evolved to solve a particular survival problem aroused by a specific situation.…”

“…Every EPA is domain-specific; that is, each evolved to solve a particular survival problem aroused by a specific situation. For example, pregnancy sickness, which typically occurs in the first trimester, decreases the likelihood that a pregnant woman will ingest toxins that can harm the fetus at its most vulnerable point in development (Schmitt & Pilcher, 2004). As an EPA, the belief in agency evolved to solve problems of survival requiring decision making and choice behaviors.…”

“…This resulted in better problem-solving, decisionmaking, and self-restraint skills, which in turn are associated with improved psychological and physical health. Schmitt & Pilcher (2004) suggest that health benefits are an important source of evidence for the existence of an EPA. Ultimately, of course, persons with a strong belief in free will would be expected to be more successful in producing offspring and transmitting genes to the next generation (Rakos, 2004).…”

Quantifying Common Criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology

“…Third, individual differences in one's personal mating strategy may provide motivations for defensively rejecting certain findings in evolutionary psychology (Geher and Gambacorta 2010). Fourth, there may be a tendency to focus on methodological limitations (e.g., over-reliance on sampling of college students) and conceptual concerns (e.g., undervaluing the role of culture)-concerns potentially relevant to all of social science-that are selectively overstated when attempting to reject the possible application of evolutionary theory to the study of humans (Confer et al 2010;Kurzban 2013;Schmitt and Pilcher 2004). More specifically, some criticisms may stem from epistemological commitments (e.g., assumptions of complete social constructionism; Wilson 2009) and methodological predilections (e.g., assumptions of the value of qualitative over quantitative research) that are especially common in the social sciences (van den Berghe 1990) and whose prevalence across fields is conspicuously associated with the rejection of evolutionary psychology (Geher and Gambacorta 2010).…”