Evolutionary Psychology of Resilience

Abstract

Dealing with environmental stressors is a basic part of life for any organism. Positive psychology focuses largely on the topic of resilience and how people can move past difficult situations and interactions. The evolutionary perspective has much to offer in terms of the topic of resilience. This chapter describes resilience and stress reactions from an evolutionary perspective. Further, this chapter uses the concept of natural selection as a model for how failures are to be expected and how success in any domain for any organism owes largely to a long string of failures. This model is used to help provide evolution-based guidance on the topic of moving forward after setbacks and developing a resilient approach to life.

Hidden Ovulation

“…Relative to males, females more often invest both more and a variety of efforts to the overall fitness of their young, especially within the mammalian kingdom. Evolutionary psychology endorses the relationship between sexual selection and parental investment theory as it provides new insights to explain human parenting and mating behavior Geher 2014).…”

“…This standard social science model (SSSM) originates from the false conception that mind and behavior is a product of only experience, which is also called the blank slate (Barkow et al 1995;Figueredo et al 2006). Given that numerous regions of the brain are functionally specific (Cosmides and Tooby 1997;Palanza and Parmigiani 2016), an adaptationist approach to psychology may be scientifically advantageous Barkow et al 1995;Geher 2014). The SSSM significantly lacks this perspective, which transcends to a plethora of unasked questions.…”

“…Individuals with cognitive advantages over the others better adapt to evolutionary pressures over time. The more consistent the evolutionary pressures, the more time the mind has to specialize in each evolutionary hurdle Barkow et al 1995;Geher 2014).…”

“…Humans who yearn and seek for fatty foods have advantage over those without it or those with a lesser degree of it. Today in developed nations, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets are ubiquitous, which result in maladaptive responses, such as heart disease, high cholesterol, and obesity (Geher 2014).…”

Psychological Outcomes Associated with CrossFit

“…Modern humans in Westernized societies have developed various exercise regimens in an effort to compensate for the fact that our modern environments are highly mismatched from ancestral environments when it comes to required physical activity (see Platek et al, 2011;Geher, 2014). It is clear that at some point, people in Westernized societies came to figure out that a life without physical exercise is an unhealthy life (see Stapell, in press).…”