Is general intelligence compatible with evolutionary. The theory of mind module in evolutionary psychology. The evolutionary contingency hypothesis an evolutionary perspective assumes that leadership and followership emerged to solve coordination challenges among social animals van vugt et al. The concept of domain specificity follows from many crossdisciplinary findings indicating that mental mechanisms wellsuited to solving one adaptive problem are often illsuited to solving another barrett and kurzban 2006. Evolutionary psychology is closely linked to sociobiology, but there are key differences between them including the emphasis on domain specific rather than domain general mechanisms, the relevance. Archived from the original pdf on 10 september 2008. The functional domain specificity of selfesteem and the.
Domain specific risk taking because of individual differences in skills and abilities, we expect individuals to. Domain specificity is a theoretical position in cognitive science especially modern cognitive development that argues that many aspects of cognition are supported by specialized, presumably evolutionarily specified, learning devices. This means that certain aspects of human personality evolved to solve particular. The evolutionary psychology of emotions and behavior. Adaptive mechanisms apply to particular adaptive problem. Evolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Evolutionary psychology is based on the idea that the mind is a set of special purpose thinking devices or modules whose domain specific structure is an adaptation to ancestral environments. For instance, according to many evolutionary psychologists, human cognition consists largely of domainspecific cognitive capacities, and this feature of our. Domain general cognitive knowledge has frequently been used to explain skill when domainspecific knowledge held in longterm memory may provide a better explanation. Evolutionary reasoning and empirical evidence converge to suggest that knowledge of the natural and social world is supported by domain. Information processing appears to be an excellent model for the general class of problems solved by psychological mechanisms. Evolutionary psychology also tells us that personality develops through domain specific psychological mechanisms. Subsequently, many have assumed that labeling a mechanism as domainspecific restricts the proposed mechanism to a particular domain, and if evidence can be garnered to show that the mechanism functions in more than one domain e. Testing the domain specificity hypothesis through wason selection task conference paper pdf available september 2015 with 357 reads how we measure.
Domain specificity, numerousness, and functionality. In the past, understanding of such functional specialization has been obscured by confusing debates on innateness and modularity. Like physiological adaptations, psychological adaptations evolved to solve only problems in particular domains and are therefore not necessarily suited for solving problems in other domains evolutionary psychology s tenet of domain specificity cosmides and tooby. An emphasis on domain general knowledge may be misplaced if domainspecific knowledge is the primary factor driving acquired intellectual skills. Evolutionary clinical psychology provides a nonarbitrary definition of psychological disorderwhen an evolved mechanism fails to function as it was designed to function. This form of evolutionary psychology is a version of classical, nativist cognitive psychology. The modular view of the mind is an uncontroversial description of the periphery of the mind, the inputoutput sensorimotor and affective subsystems.
These problems or specific selection pressures are what define a domain. Domainspecific knowledge and why teaching generic skills. Evolutionary psychology evolutionary psychology domain specific mechanisms. Introduction the easiness to reason with deontic norms i. Some psychologists argue that the specificity of face perception is an illusion and that human beings simply become expert recognizers of faces by using unspecialized visual capacities.
The functional domain specificity of selfesteem and the differential prediction of aggression lee a. Currently available evidence suggests that the innate constraints in music are not specific to that domain, making it unclear which domains provided the relevant selection pressures. Evolutionary psychology often does not sufficiently document the innate constr aint and domain specificity required for strong adaptationist argument. Interpersonal attraction 5 spouses sexual overtures i. Evolutionary psychology tends to be associated with a massively modular cognitive architecture. We trace the long history of attempts to explain human cognition by placing. Evolutionary psychologists have adopted the concept to characterize purportedly evolved human adaptations. Modern evolutionary theorists, following on findings from cognitive science, presume that the human. Evolutionary psychology assumes that an evolved psychological mechanism and. For example, birds use different memory systems and different rules for remembering species song, the taste of poisonous food, and locations of food caches. Preconference on culture, brain, and development, meetings of the society for research on child development, denver, co, april 2009. Because many adaptive problems exist, humans have accumulated many adaptive mechanisms. If the contents of the human brain are domain specific, how can evolutionary psychology explain. Economic decision biases and fundamental motivations.
We develop these criteria within the domain of music. Evolutionary psychology wikipedia evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology is the second wave of the cognitive revolu tion. Evolution by natural selection is the only known causal process by which complex speciestypical functional mechanisms can be created, at some fundamental level of description. Over the years, it has occurred to me that the primary argument for the domain specificity of ct i.
Intuitive ontologies and domainspecificity pascal boyer. In an influential paper, barrett and kurzban 2006 proposed a definition of modules purely in terms of functional specialization. Evolutionarily informed research has suggested that brains are composed of a number of specialized domain specific mechanisms. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. Ct ability conceptualized as being specific to a particular areas stems from the simple. A reconciliation of general intelligence with evolutionary psychology at first blush, the existence of domain general intelligence seems incompatible with the strong modularity view of the mind. Domainspecific mechanisms evolutionarily informed research has suggested that brains are composed of a number of specialized domainspecific mechanisms.
This term was chosen not to imply that this approach has an inappropriately narrow point of view, but merely to suggest that the approach adopts a narrower range ofassumptions than broad evolutionary psychology or, just evolutionary psychology. Domainspecific programs organize our expe riences, create our inferences, inject certain recurrent concepts and motiva tions into our mental life, give us our. Systemic functional adaptedness and domain general cognition. One is the concept of functional modularity or domain specificity.
Ancestral cues elict specific emotions fear and ancestral sources of danger as we have already hinted, perhaps nowhere does there exist better evidence for the domain specificity of emotion than in the domain of fear. In press, journal of personality and social psychology. Psychological mechanisms, domain specificity, and domain generality evolutionary psychology assumes that an evolved psychological mechanism and its corresponding neural substrates is an informationprocessing module that was selected during a species evolutionary history because it reliably produced behavior that solved a. Evolutionary psychology, and specifically, the evolutionary psychology of humans, has enjoyed a resurgence in recent decades. Evolutionary psychology of emotions4 the idea is that if the psychological reward mechanism is constrained to emphasize rewards in the present moment, the simplest counter to a specious reward from cheating is to have a current feeling that tugs in precisely the opposite direction. Psychological mechanisms, domain specificity, and domain generality. The position is a close relative of modularity of mind. What is domain specificity and why is it necessary.
Towards the development of an evolutionarily valid domain. Evolutionary psychology, meet developmental neurobiology. Origins of domain specificity 103 understanding of the actions of others in terms of beliefs, desires, and other mental entities, just as they organize patterns in their twodimensional retinal array under the assumption that the world is threedimensional and that objects are permanent, bounded, and solid. It is here argued that such strategy marks a shift in. As tooby and cosmides 1992 and others have argued, it is likely that the mind is equipped with function specific mechanisms adapted for special. First, we advocate combining computational, develop. Before we detail these three studies, the next section introduces the specific kinds of risk considered. On this framework of human cognition, an assembly of specialized information. Evolutionary psychology and the problem of neural plasticity chuck ward department of philosophy millersville university abstract evolutionary psychology as commonly presented is committed to the view that our cognitive architecture consists of a set of genetically prespecified, domain specific.
Domain specificity and intuitive ontology the handbook. In evolutionary psychology, proficiency and specificity interact in the concept of domain specificity. Evolutionary psychologist an overview sciencedirect topics. Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in the social and natural sciences that. Evolutionary psychology is betting that psychological adaptations have to be just as domain specific as physiological adaptations.
It also sheds light on common afflictions such as depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and sexual disorders. Evolutionary psychology stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Evolutionary psychology and the problem of neural plasticity. Conceptual foundations of evolutionary psychology center for. For example, birds use different memory systems and different rules for remembering species song, the taste of. Evolutionary psychologists contend that the human brain consists of domain specific evolved psychological mechanisms, which evolved to solve specific adaptive problems problems of survival and reproduction in specific domains.