Evolutionary Psychology – serie

This volume is an interdisciplinary exploration of our understanding of the causes and consequences of violence. Represented in its chapters are noted scholars from a variety of fields including psychology, anthropology, law, and literature. The contributions reflect a broad scope of inquiry and diverse levels of analysis. With an underlying evolutionary theme each of the contributors invoke their separate areas of expertise, offering empirical and theoretical insights to this complex subject. The multi-faceted aspect of the book is meant to engender new perspectives that will synthesize current knowledge and lead to a more nuanced understanding of an ever timely issue in human behavior. Of additional interest, is a foreword written by world renowned psychologist, Steven Pinker, and an afterword by noted evolutionary scholar, Richard Dawkins.

This volume in the Springer Series in Evolutionary Psychology presents a state of the art view of the topic of sexuality and sexual behavior drawing on theoretical constructs and research of noted individuals in the field. Comprehensive and multi-disciplinary, this book seeks to provide a broad overview without sacrificing the complexity of a multi-faceted approach. The book is framed by introductory and closing sections that provide a context for the range of ideas contained within. Ample space is provided in designated sections that focus on key areas of sexuality from both male and female perspectives and that include information from primate studies. This volume can serve as a graduate text in sexual behavior in evolutionary terms and as a guide for further research.

This volume in the Springer Series in Evolutionary Psychology presents a state of the art view of the topic of sexuality and sexual behavior drawing on theoretical constructs and research of noted individuals in the field. Comprehensive and multi-disciplinary, this book seeks to provide a broad overview without sacrificing the complexity of a multi-faceted approach. The book is framed by introductory and closing sections that provide a context for the range of ideas contained within. Ample space is provided in designated sections that focus on key areas of sexuality from both male and female perspectives and that include information from primate studies. This volume can serve as a graduate text in sexual behavior in evolutionary terms and as a guide for further research.

This volume is an interdisciplinary exploration of our understanding of the causes and consequences of violence. Represented in its chapters are noted scholars from a variety of fields including psychology, anthropology, law, and literature. The contributions reflect a broad scope of inquiry and diverse levels of analysis. With an underlying evolutionary theme each of the contributors invoke their separate areas of expertise, offering empirical and theoretical insights to this complex subject. The multi-faceted aspect of the book is meant to engender new perspectives that will synthesize current knowledge and lead to a more nuanced understanding of an ever timely issue in human behavior. Of additional interest, is a foreword written by world renowned psychologist, Steven Pinker, and an afterword by noted evolutionary scholar, Richard Dawkins.

“[A] fascinating read… Contrary to what the title might suggest, this is an upbeat exploration of suicide with a positive message.” --Jeanine Connor, Therapy Today, December, 2018This thought-provoking volume offers a distinctly human evolutionary analysis of a distinctly human phenomenon: suicide. Its ‘pain and brain’ model posits animal adaptations as the motivator for suicidal escape, and specific human cognitive adaptations as supplying the means , while also providing a plausible explanation for why only a relatively small number of humans actually take their own lives. The author hypothesizes two types of anti-suicide responses, active and reactive mechanisms prompted by the brain as suicide deterrents. Proposed as well is the intriguing prospect that mental disorders such as depression and addiction, long associated with suicidality, may serve as survival measures.Among the topics covered:·         Suicide asan evolutionary puzzle.·         The protection against suicide afforded to animals and young children.·         Suicide as a by-product of pain and human cognition.·         Why psychodynamic defenses regulate the experiencing of painful events.·         Links between suicidality and positive psychology.·         The anti-suicide role of spiritual and religious belief.In raising and considering key questions regarding this most controversial act, The Evolution of Suicide will appeal to researchers across a range of behavioral science disciplines. At the same time, the book’s implications for clinical intervention and prevention will make it useful among mental health professionals and those involved with mental health policy.

The latest volume in this multidisciplinary series on key topics in evolutionary studies, Evolutionary Perspectives on Death provides an evolutionary analysis of mortality and the consideration of death. Bringing together noted experts from a variety of fields, the books emanate from conferences held at Oakland University, and are dedicated to providing wide ranging and occasionally provocative views of human evolution. The volume on death covers topics from biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology and philosophy, with contributors addressing how evolution informs the process of comprehending, grieving, depicting, celebrating, and accepting death.Among the topics covered:Evolutionary perspectives on the loss of a twinNonhuman primate responses to deathDeath in literatureWitnessing and representing the death of petsThe role of human decomposition facilities in shaping American perspectives on deathThis insightful volume showcases groundbreaking empirical and theoretical research addressing death and mortality from an evolutionary perspective, demonstrating the intellectual value of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding psychological processes and behavior.Chapter 6 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

The latest volume in this multidisciplinary series on key topics in evolutionary studies, Evolutionary Perspectives on Death provides an evolutionary analysis of mortality and the consideration of death. Bringing together noted experts from a variety of fields, the books emanate from conferences held at Oakland University, and are dedicated to providing wide ranging and occasionally provocative views of human evolution. The volume on death covers topics from biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology and philosophy, with contributors addressing how evolution informs the process of comprehending, grieving, depicting, celebrating, and accepting death.Among the topics covered:Evolutionary perspectives on the loss of a twinNonhuman primate responses to deathDeath in literatureWitnessing and representing the death of petsThe role of human decomposition facilities in shaping American perspectives on deathThis insightful volume showcases groundbreaking empirical and theoretical research addressing death and mortality from an evolutionary perspective, demonstrating the intellectual value of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding psychological processes and behavior.Chapter 6 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This unique volume is one of the first of its kind to examine infancy through an evolutionary lens, identifying infancy as a discrete stage during which particular types of adaptations arose as a consequence of certain environmental pressures. Infancy is a crucial time period in psychological development, and evolutionary psychologists are increasingly recognizing that natural selection has operated on all stages of development, not just adulthood. The volume addresses this crucial change in perspective by highlighting research across diverse disciplines including developmental psychology, evolutionary developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology, nutrition, and primatology. Chapters are grouped into four sections:Theoretical UnderpinningsBrain and Cognitive DevelopmentSocial/Emotional DevelopmentLife and DeathEvolutionary Perspectives on Infancy sheds new light on our understanding of the human brain andthe environments responsible for shaping the brain during early stages of development. This book will be of interest to evolutionary psychologists and developmental psychologists, biologists, and anthropologists, as well as scholars more broadly interested in infancy.

This unique volume is one of the first of its kind to examine infancy through an evolutionary lens, identifying infancy as a discrete stage during which particular types of adaptations arose as a consequence of certain environmental pressures. Infancy is a crucial time period in psychological development, and evolutionary psychologists are increasingly recognizing that natural selection has operated on all stages of development, not just adulthood. The volume addresses this crucial change in perspective by highlighting research across diverse disciplines including developmental psychology, evolutionary developmental psychology, anthropology, sociology, nutrition, and primatology. Chapters are grouped into four sections:Theoretical UnderpinningsBrain and Cognitive DevelopmentSocial/Emotional DevelopmentLife and DeathEvolutionary Perspectives on Infancy sheds new light on our understanding of the human brain andthe environments responsible for shaping the brain during early stages of development. This book will be of interest to evolutionary psychologists and developmental psychologists, biologists, and anthropologists, as well as scholars more broadly interested in infancy.

Attraction, mating, reproduction: it is a given that as a species, human beings are concerned with sex. And whether the study compares sexual behaviors of men and women or considers the proportions between nature and nurture, most roads lead back to our distant ancestors and/or our fellow animals.The Evolution of Sexuality collects stimulating new empirical findings and theoretical concepts regarding both familiar themes and emerging areas of interest. Following earlier titles in this series, an interdisciplinary panel of contributors examines topics specific to the whys of male and female sex-related behavior, here ranging from biological bases for male same-sex attraction to the seemingly elusive purpose of the female orgasm. This vantage point between biology and psychology gives readers profound insights not just into human differences and similarities, but also why they continue to matter despite our vast understanding of culture and socialization. And intriguing dispatches from the humanities review sexual themes in classic works of literature and explore the role of parent-offspring conflict in the English Revolution of the seventeenth century. Among the topics covered:      Sexual conflict and evolutionary psychology: toward a unified framework.Assortative mating, caste, and class.The functional design and phylogeny of female sexuality.Is oral sex a form of mate retention behavior?Two behavioral hypotheses for the evolution or male homosexuality in humans.Sperm competition and the evolution of human sexuality.                            The Evolution of Sexuality will attract evolutionary scientists across a variety of disciplines. Faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and researchers interested in sexuality will find it a springboard for discussion, debate, and further study.

This wide-ranging collection demonstrates the continuing impact of evolutionary thinking on social psychology research. This perspective is explored in the larger context of social psychology, which is divisible into several major areas including social cognition, the self, attitudes and attitude change, interpersonal processes, mating and relationships, violence and aggression, health and psychological adjustment, and individual differences. Within these domains, chapters offer evolutionary insights into salient topics such as social identity, prosocial behavior, conformity, feminism, cyberpsychology, and war. Together, these authors make a rigorous argument for the further integration of the two diverse and sometimes conflicting disciplines. Among the topics covered: How social psychology can be more cognitive without being less social.How the self-esteem system functions to resolve important interpersonal dilemmas.Shared interests of social psychology and cultural evolution.The evolution of stereotypes.An adaptive socio-ecological perspective on social competition and bullying.Evolutionary game theory and personality. Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology has much to offer students and faculty in both fields as well as evolutionary scientists outside of psychology. This volume can be used as a primary text in graduate courses and as a supplementary text in various upper-level undergraduate courses.

This interdisciplinary collection presents novel theories, includes provocative re-workings of longstanding arguments, and offers a healthy cross-pollination of ideas to the morality literature. Structures, functions, and content of morality are reconsidered as cultural, religious, and political components are added to the standard biological/environmental mix. Innovative concepts such as the Periodic Table of Ethics and evidence for morality in non-human species illuminate areas for further discussion and research. And some of the book’s contributors question premises we hold dear, such as morality as a product of reason, the existence of moral truths, and the motto “life is good.” Highlights of the coverage: The tripartite theory of Machiavellian morality: judgment, influence, and conscience as distinct moral adaptations.Prosocial morality from a biological, cultural, and developmental perspective.The containment problem and the evolutionary debunking of morality.A comparative perspective on the evolution of moral behavior.A moral guide to depravity: religiously-motivated violence and sexual selection.Game theory and the strategic logic of moral intuitions.The Evolution of Morality makes a stimulating supplementary text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in the evolutionary sciences, particularly in psychology, biology, anthropology, sociology, political science, religious studies, and philosophy

This stimulating volume assembles leading scholars to address issues in children’s cognitive, academic, and social development through the lens of evolutionary psychology.Debates and controversies in the field highlight the potential value of this understanding, from basic early learning skills through emerging social relationships in adolescence, with implications for academic outcomes, curriculum development, and education policy.Children’s evolved tendency toward play and exploration fuels an extended discussion on child- versus adult-directed learning, evolutionary bases are examined for young learners’ moral development, and contemporary theories of learning and memory are viewed from an  evolutionary perspective.Along the way, contributors’ recommendations illustrate real-world uses of evolution-based learning interventions during key developmental years.Among the topics covered: The adaptive value of cognitive immaturity:applications of evolutionary developmental psychology to early education               Guided play: a solution to the play versus learning dichotomyAdolescent bullying in schools: an evolutionary perspective                 Fairness: what it isn’t, what it is, and what it might be forAdapting evolution education to a warming climate of teaching and learningThe effects of an evolution-informed school environment on student performance and wellbeing  Evolutionary Perspectives on Child Development and Education will interest researchers and graduate students working in diverse areas such as evolutionary psychology, cultural anthropology, human ecology, developmental psychology, and educational psychology. Researchers in applied developmental science and early education will also find it useful.

This wide-ranging collection demonstrates the continuing impact of evolutionary thinking on social psychology research. This perspective is explored in the larger context of social psychology, which is divisible into several major areas including social cognition, the self, attitudes and attitude change, interpersonal processes, mating and relationships, violence and aggression, health and psychological adjustment, and individual differences. Within these domains, chapters offer evolutionary insights into salient topics such as social identity, prosocial behavior, conformity, feminism, cyberpsychology, and war. Together, these authors make a rigorous argument for the further integration of the two diverse and sometimes conflicting disciplines. Among the topics covered: How social psychology can be more cognitive without being less social.How the self-esteem system functions to resolve important interpersonal dilemmas.Shared interests of social psychology and cultural evolution.The evolution of stereotypes.An adaptive socio-ecological perspective on social competition and bullying.Evolutionary game theory and personality. Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology has much to offer students and faculty in both fields as well as evolutionary scientists outside of psychology. This volume can be used as a primary text in graduate courses and as a supplementary text in various upper-level undergraduate courses.

Attraction, mating, reproduction: it is a given that as a species, human beings are concerned with sex. And whether the study compares sexual behaviors of men and women or considers the proportions between nature and nurture, most roads lead back to our distant ancestors and/or our fellow animals.The Evolution of Sexuality collects stimulating new empirical findings and theoretical concepts regarding both familiar themes and emerging areas of interest. Following earlier titles in this series, an interdisciplinary panel of contributors examines topics specific to the whys of male and female sex-related behavior, here ranging from biological bases for male same-sex attraction to the seemingly elusive purpose of the female orgasm. This vantage point between biology and psychology gives readers profound insights not just into human differences and similarities, but also why they continue to matter despite our vast understanding of culture and socialization. And intriguing dispatches from the humanities review sexual themes in classic works of literature and explore the role of parent-offspring conflict in the English Revolution of the seventeenth century. Among the topics covered:      Sexual conflict and evolutionary psychology: toward a unified framework.Assortative mating, caste, and class.The functional design and phylogeny of female sexuality.Is oral sex a form of mate retention behavior?Two behavioral hypotheses for the evolution or male homosexuality in humans.Sperm competition and the evolution of human sexuality.                            The Evolution of Sexuality will attract evolutionary scientists across a variety of disciplines. Faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and researchers interested in sexuality will find it a springboard for discussion, debate, and further study.

This interdisciplinary collection presents novel theories, includes provocative re-workings of longstanding arguments, and offers a healthy cross-pollination of ideas to the morality literature. Structures, functions, and content of morality are reconsidered as cultural, religious, and political components are added to the standard biological/environmental mix. Innovative concepts such as the Periodic Table of Ethics and evidence for morality in non-human species illuminate areas for further discussion and research. And some of the book’s contributors question premises we hold dear, such as morality as a product of reason, the existence of moral truths, and the motto “life is good.” Highlights of the coverage: The tripartite theory of Machiavellian morality: judgment, influence, and conscience as distinct moral adaptations.Prosocial morality from a biological, cultural, and developmental perspective.The containment problem and the evolutionary debunking of morality.A comparative perspective on the evolution of moral behavior.A moral guide to depravity: religiously-motivated violence and sexual selection.Game theory and the strategic logic of moral intuitions.The Evolution of Morality makes a stimulating supplementary text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in the evolutionary sciences, particularly in psychology, biology, anthropology, sociology, political science, religious studies, and philosophy

This review of recent evolutionary theories on psychopathology takes on controversies and contradictions both with established psychological thought and within the evolutionary field itself. Opening with the ancestral origins of the familiar biopsychosocial model of psychological conditions, the book traces distinctive biological and cultural pathways shaping human development and their critical impact on psychiatric and medical disorders. Analyses of disparate phenomena such as jealousy, social anxiety, depressive symptoms, and antisocial behavior describe adaptive functions that have far outlasted their usefulness, or that require further study and perhaps new directions for treatment. In addition, the book’s compelling explorations of violence, greed, addiction, and suicide challenge us to revisit many of our assumptions regarding what it means to be human.Included in the coverage:·         Evolutionary foundations of psychiatric compared to non-psychiatric disorders.·         Evolutionary psychopathology, uncomplicated depression, and the distinction between normal and disordered sadness.·         Depression: is rumination really adaptive?·         A CBT approach to coping with sexual betrayal and the green-eyed monster.·         Criminology’s modern synthesis: remaking the science of crime with Darwinian insight.·         Anthropathology: the abiding malady of the species.  With its wealth of interdisciplinary viewpoints, The Evolution of Psychopathology makes an appropriate supplementary text for advanced graduate courses in the evolutionary sciences, particularly in psychology, biology, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy.

“[A] fascinating read… Contrary to what the title might suggest, this is an upbeat exploration of suicide with a positive message.” --Jeanine Connor, Therapy Today, December, 2018This thought-provoking volume offers a distinctly human evolutionary analysis of a distinctly human phenomenon: suicide. Its ‘pain and brain’ model posits animal adaptations as the motivator for suicidal escape, and specific human cognitive adaptations as supplying the means , while also providing a plausible explanation for why only a relatively small number of humans actually take their own lives. The author hypothesizes two types of anti-suicide responses, active and reactive mechanisms prompted by the brain as suicide deterrents. Proposed as well is the intriguing prospect that mental disorders such as depression and addiction, long associated with suicidality, may serve as survival measures.Among the topics covered:·         Suicide asan evolutionary puzzle.·         The protection against suicide afforded to animals and young children.·         Suicide as a by-product of pain and human cognition.·         Why psychodynamic defenses regulate the experiencing of painful events.·         Links between suicidality and positive psychology.·         The anti-suicide role of spiritual and religious belief.In raising and considering key questions regarding this most controversial act, The Evolution of Suicide will appeal to researchers across a range of behavioral science disciplines. At the same time, the book’s implications for clinical intervention and prevention will make it useful among mental health professionals and those involved with mental health policy.

This stimulating volume assembles leading scholars to address issues in children’s cognitive, academic, and social development through the lens of evolutionary psychology.Debates and controversies in the field highlight the potential value of this understanding, from basic early learning skills through emerging social relationships in adolescence, with implications for academic outcomes, curriculum development, and education policy.Children’s evolved tendency toward play and exploration fuels an extended discussion on child- versus adult-directed learning, evolutionary bases are examined for young learners’ moral development, and contemporary theories of learning and memory are viewed from an  evolutionary perspective.Along the way, contributors’ recommendations illustrate real-world uses of evolution-based learning interventions during key developmental years.Among the topics covered: The adaptive value of cognitive immaturity:applications of evolutionary developmental psychology to early education               Guided play: a solution to the play versus learning dichotomyAdolescent bullying in schools: an evolutionary perspective                 Fairness: what it isn’t, what it is, and what it might be forAdapting evolution education to a warming climate of teaching and learningThe effects of an evolution-informed school environment on student performance and wellbeing  Evolutionary Perspectives on Child Development and Education will interest researchers and graduate students working in diverse areas such as evolutionary psychology, cultural anthropology, human ecology, developmental psychology, and educational psychology. Researchers in applied developmental science and early education will also find it useful.