Aug 21, 2019 06:49 PM
Seven Key Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology
https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/20/seve...sychology/
EXCERPT (intros): Evolutionary approaches to psychology hold the promise of revolutionizing the field and unifying it with the biological sciences. But among both academics and the general public, a few key misconceptions impede its application to psychology and behavior. This essay tackles the most pervasive of these.
Misconception 1: Evolution and Learning Are Conflicting Explanations for Behavior - People often assume that if something is learned, it’s not evolved, and vice versa. This is a misleading way of conceptualizing the issue, for three key reasons [...]
Misconception 2: The Products of Evolution Must Be Present at Birth (or Must Emerge Very Early in Development) - A second common misconception is that the products of evolution must be present at birth—or, at least, must emerge early in development. But this is not how natural selection works [...]
Misconception 3: Evolution Implies Genetic Determinism - No matter how widespread the belief, an evolutionary approach to psychology does not imply that behavior is genetically determined There are two ways to appreciate this point [...]
Misconception 4: If a Behavior Varies across Cultures, It Is Not a Product of Evolution - This idea makes intuitive sense, but nonetheless misses the mark. The problem is this: evolutionary thinking does not suggest that behavior will be uniform across cultures, but rather that the neurocognitive machinery that produces behavior will be uniform across cultures. [...]
Misconception 5: Evolutionary Psychology Doesn’t Pay Enough Attention to Individual Differences - There is some truth to this idea, especially if you turn the clock back twenty years. [...] More recently, evolutionary psychologists’ interest in individual differences has grown apace, and we’re seeing progress in both explanation and prediction. Some recent theoretical papers tackling individual differences include [...]
Misconception 6: Evolutionary Psychologists Think That Everything is an Adaptation - This canard just won’t die—though it is tenable only if you read misinformed critiques rather than the actual primary literature in the field [...]
Misconception 7: Evolutionary Psychological Hypotheses Are Just-So Stories - It’s much easier to maintain this misconception if you don’t engage with the primary literature in evolutionary psychology. I’ve discussed this misunderstanding here, but would like to address it again for a broader audience in this essay. [...] (MORE - detailed elaborations)
'Crazy cat ladies' are not a thing, study finds
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/...082119.php
EXCERPT: . . . These results are reported in the new study, Pawsitively sad: pet-owners are more sensitive to negative emotion in animal distress vocalizations, from Associate Professor, Christine Parsons, who is based at the Interacting Minds Centre at the Department of Clinical medicine at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is the first author of the scientific article, just published in the journal "Royal Society Open Science".
[...] According to Christine Parsons the study also found no evidence to support the longstanding 'crazy cat lady' stereotype. Female cat owners have, for many years, been portrayed as neurotic, lonely, sexless and eccentric. Dog owners, and dog ownership is seen more positively, associated with benefits like the 'Lassie effect'. Named after the TV collie, Lassie, dog owners typically get more physical exercise than non-owners, a happy side-effect of dog walks.
"In general, we think of dog owners in more positive terms than cat owners. In our study, we were able to test how cat-owners, dog owners and people with no pets responded on a series of robust psychological measures. We found no differences," Christine Parsons says. "For symptoms of anxiety, depression and self-reported experiences in close relationships, we found no differences between adults with and without pets. We suggesting that cat or dog ownership is not necessarily associated with individual differences in psychological health, at least as tested here." (MORE - details)
https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/20/seve...sychology/
EXCERPT (intros): Evolutionary approaches to psychology hold the promise of revolutionizing the field and unifying it with the biological sciences. But among both academics and the general public, a few key misconceptions impede its application to psychology and behavior. This essay tackles the most pervasive of these.
Misconception 1: Evolution and Learning Are Conflicting Explanations for Behavior - People often assume that if something is learned, it’s not evolved, and vice versa. This is a misleading way of conceptualizing the issue, for three key reasons [...]
Misconception 2: The Products of Evolution Must Be Present at Birth (or Must Emerge Very Early in Development) - A second common misconception is that the products of evolution must be present at birth—or, at least, must emerge early in development. But this is not how natural selection works [...]
Misconception 3: Evolution Implies Genetic Determinism - No matter how widespread the belief, an evolutionary approach to psychology does not imply that behavior is genetically determined There are two ways to appreciate this point [...]
Misconception 4: If a Behavior Varies across Cultures, It Is Not a Product of Evolution - This idea makes intuitive sense, but nonetheless misses the mark. The problem is this: evolutionary thinking does not suggest that behavior will be uniform across cultures, but rather that the neurocognitive machinery that produces behavior will be uniform across cultures. [...]
Misconception 5: Evolutionary Psychology Doesn’t Pay Enough Attention to Individual Differences - There is some truth to this idea, especially if you turn the clock back twenty years. [...] More recently, evolutionary psychologists’ interest in individual differences has grown apace, and we’re seeing progress in both explanation and prediction. Some recent theoretical papers tackling individual differences include [...]
Misconception 6: Evolutionary Psychologists Think That Everything is an Adaptation - This canard just won’t die—though it is tenable only if you read misinformed critiques rather than the actual primary literature in the field [...]
Misconception 7: Evolutionary Psychological Hypotheses Are Just-So Stories - It’s much easier to maintain this misconception if you don’t engage with the primary literature in evolutionary psychology. I’ve discussed this misunderstanding here, but would like to address it again for a broader audience in this essay. [...] (MORE - detailed elaborations)
'Crazy cat ladies' are not a thing, study finds
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/...082119.php
EXCERPT: . . . These results are reported in the new study, Pawsitively sad: pet-owners are more sensitive to negative emotion in animal distress vocalizations, from Associate Professor, Christine Parsons, who is based at the Interacting Minds Centre at the Department of Clinical medicine at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is the first author of the scientific article, just published in the journal "Royal Society Open Science".
[...] According to Christine Parsons the study also found no evidence to support the longstanding 'crazy cat lady' stereotype. Female cat owners have, for many years, been portrayed as neurotic, lonely, sexless and eccentric. Dog owners, and dog ownership is seen more positively, associated with benefits like the 'Lassie effect'. Named after the TV collie, Lassie, dog owners typically get more physical exercise than non-owners, a happy side-effect of dog walks.
"In general, we think of dog owners in more positive terms than cat owners. In our study, we were able to test how cat-owners, dog owners and people with no pets responded on a series of robust psychological measures. We found no differences," Christine Parsons says. "For symptoms of anxiety, depression and self-reported experiences in close relationships, we found no differences between adults with and without pets. We suggesting that cat or dog ownership is not necessarily associated with individual differences in psychological health, at least as tested here." (MORE - details)