Evolutionary Psychology Definition: How Principles of Evolution Shed Light on Human Behavior

While there are several approaches to human behavior, evolutionary psychology sheds light on human behavior through lenses that include principles of evolution.

What Is Evolutionary Psychology?

Psychologists who lean towards this approach explain behavior similarly to how evolutionary biologists shed light on the physical features of an organism. Proponents of this approach hold that when human ancestors faced problems and came up with ways to address them, some of these ancestors had innate intelligence and instincts that enabled them to try things and use the solutions that garner the highest chances of success.

Doing so enabled them to gain some advantages that allowed them to have more offspring via natural selection. Evolutionary psychology holds that human ancestors with psychological advantages passed these behavioral traits to their descendant generations. This then resulted in an offspring population that had such adaptive capacities.

Evolutionary psychologists think that psychological abilities, including being able to make friends or read the intentions of others, are skills that are deeply grounded in complex brain neural circuits and that these are passed down. Oftentimes, these tendencies could be influenced by input from family, culture, and other factors. However, evolutionary psychology holds that underlying evolutionary forces shape all of these.

Evolutionary Psychology Principles

There are some principles that are fundamental to the evolutionary psychology approach. For one, the approach holds that the brain is a physical system that tells the human how to behave appropriately and adaptively with respect to the environment.

The school of thought also believes that the brain's neural circuit enables appropriate problem-solving. The specific construction of the neural circuitry is said to be guided by natural selection throughout many generations. Aside from that, this neural circuitry is said to subconsciously determine the majority of psychological behaviors through processes that people are largely unaware of. The brain's neural circuits are also specialized to be able to address various adaptive problems.

Evolutionary psychology also holds th tathe mind is grounded on adaptive changes that trace back to the Pleistocene period.

Explaining Language Skills Through Evolutionary Psychology

Generally, evolutionary psychology explains skills, including language, that are quite simple yet universal to most humans. There was a point where humans gained language skills that went beyond simple pointing and grunting. Because this ability was helpful for survival, the ability for language acquisition carried on and advanced through natural selection.

However, the exact languages one learns may depend on what is spoken at home or in the direct neighborhood. This also shows how cultural input affects this acquisition.

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