Partisans of ep argue that domain specific modules govern central cognition, for it is unclear how the cognitive. To be fair, in leda cosmides and john toobys original formulation of the evolution of the human mind, they acknowledge the existence of such domain generality, calling such forms of. Neglecting neurobiology in defining the mind brad m. Beneath this facade of domaingenerality lies an ensemble of specialized neural systems. Adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the. For both humans and animals, domaingeneral mechanisms are fallible but powerful tools for attaining evolutionary goals e. 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. For instance, according to many evolutionary psychologists, human cognition consists largely of domainspecific cognitive capacities.
For wilson human nature is the collection of universal human behavioral. Overall, they emphasize examples of domaingeneral mechanisms potentially solving problems that some evolutionary psychologists consider only manageable by highly specialized domainspecific systemsbut seem to momentarily forget that just because a mechanism works across content domains, it is still functionally specialized. Clarifying this central concept is necessary for assessing burkart et al. The main point of dispute is whether central cognition, such as abstract reasoning, exhibits domaingeneral properties. The relationship between domain general learning and domain specific learning also known as the modularity debate or modularity of mind has been an ongoing debate for evolutionary psychologists. Broad domain generality in focal regions of frontal and. The research program of evolutionary psychology has offered a method of analysis to identify the functional characteristics of these specialized neural systems. Beneath this facade of domain generality lies an ensemble of specialized neural systems. Clark barretta,b, and john toobya acenter for evolutionary psychology, university of california, santa barbara, ca 93106. The adherence of evolutionary psychology ep to the massive modularity thesis has generated considerable controversy. Interpersonal attraction 5 spouses sexual overtures i. This paper maintains that neither a domaingeneral nor a domainspecific framework.
The evolution of domaingeneral mechanisms in intelligence. Contrast to domain general accounts of learning and human behaviormost unique human adaptations and characteristics cant be explained by domain general accounts e. Contrast to domaingeneral accounts of learning and human behaviormost unique human adaptations and characteristics cant be explained by domaingeneral accounts e. The proposed domainspecificity of many of these devices separates evolutionary psychology from those approaches to psychology that assume the mind is composed of a small number of domain general, contentindependent, general purpose mechanisms. The evolution of domaingeneral mechanisms in intelligence and learning. Because no consensual definition of a domain currently exists, it is impossible at this time to have a clear sense of exactly what domainspecificity means. Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traitssuch as memory, perception, or languageas adaptations, i. Based on observations of other species in their natural environments, the evolutionary psychology of human mating tends to lean toward the idea that females are more selective in their partners than males. A reconciliation of general intelligence with evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology is well suited to providing an account of human nature. Evolutionary psychology ep tends to be associated with a massively modular mm cognitive architecture. This domain generality precluded predictions based on particular content domains such as economic resources, sexual resources, coalitional resources, or parental resources.
Abstract evolutionary psychology ep tends to be associated with a massively modular mm cognitive architecture. The uniquely predictive power of evolutionary approaches. Schmitt2 1department of psychology, university of texas, austin, texas 78712, usa. Furthermore, one brand of socalled evolutionary psychology duchaine. The goal of research in evolutionary psychology is to discover and understand the design of the human mind. The evolution of domaingeneral mechanisms in intelligence and. By doing so, we hope to provide some conceptual tools to facilitate a greater integration of evolutionary psychology with mainstream psychological theory and research. Evolutionary psychologists study what people look for in a partner, and how these preferences may have been shaped by evolutionary pressures. Mental modularity, metaphors, and the marriage of evolutionary and cognitive sciences gary l.
At the base of evolutionary psychology is darwins theory of evolution by natural selection. Evolutionary psychology stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Understanding the world as it really israndomcan liberate and empower us. Is creativity the same or different across different domains, and why. Partisans of ep argue that domainspecific modules govern central cognition, for it is unclear. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations that is, the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection in human evolution. 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. It is not an area of study, like vision, reasoning, or social. Oct 08, 20 more generally, the present data show that the strikingly domain specific brain regions that have been characterized over the last 15 y e. The evolutionary psychology of emotions and behavior martie g. Jun 27, 2012 is general intelligence compatible with evolutionary psychology.
Adaptations are designed by evolutionary process to solve specialized adaptive problemsdomainspecific mechanisms for eating, finding cooperative partners, etc. Pdf human general intelligence as a domain general. Innovation, fatal accidents, and the evolution of general. Is cognitive psychology a domain, or psychology, or behavioral science, or social science.
They didnt get too much into individual differences in domain general cognition, though, and the field of evolutionary psychology in general has tended to focus on what leda cosmides and tooby. Yet, the difference between the two types of cognitive capacities has. Theoretical background the fundamental basis of evolutionary psychology dates. Barrett and kurzban argue that much of the debate is misplaced because critics have incorrectly characterized the sense of modularity involved in ep. Adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the evolution of human intelligence leda cosmidesa,1, h. Intelligence, information processing, and analogical. An alternative to domaingeneral or domainspecific frameworks for. Richard feynman is known primarily as a physicist, but his popular books achieved great renown.
Domaingeneral learning theories of development suggest that humans are born with mechanisms in the brain that exist to support and guide learning on a broad level, regardless of the type of information being learned. It involves the study of the genetic and environmental mechanisms that underlie the universal development of social and cognitive competencies and the evolved epigenetic gene. One of the oldest debates in cognitive neuroscience concerns the degree of functional specialization present in the human brain. Adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the evolution. They didnt get too much into individual differences in domaingeneral cognition, though, and the field of evolutionary psychology in general has tended to. In contrast, domainspecific evolutionary perspectives emphasize that people possess specific needs that were linked to reproductive success in humans ancestral past, and these specific needs can be met only through specific means. This application of evolutionary concepts to psychology is not reliant on the assumption of massive, domainspecific modularity, since predictions derived from such an assumption are often identical to those derived from evolutionary approaches based on plasticity, domaingenerality, and cultural evolution. Evolutionary psychology assumes that an evolved psychological mechanism and. Psychological mechanisms, domain specificity, and domain generality. Mapping the domains of the new interactionist paradigm douglas t. Evolution of domaingenerality 3 the evolution of domaingeneral mechanisms in intelligence and learning evolutionary psychology is radically at odds with the tradition that domaingenerality is an important component of human cognition. A fundamental premise of evolutionary psychology is that evolutionary. Evolutionary psychology university of texas at austin. We conclude a that the fundamental logic of darwinism, as advanced within evolutionary psychology, does not entail that the innate mind consists exclusively, or even massively, of domain.
Pdf the evolution of domaingeneral mechanisms in intelligence. Affective influences on social cognition and behavior. Generality of human intelligence g at the phenotypic level. Mate preferences and their behavioral manifestations. We argue that general intelligence, as presented in the target article, generates multiple distinct and nonequivalent characterisations. I begin with evidence for generality in the cognitive abilities that humans possess, and turn later to evidence for the generality in abilities that everyday tasks require of us. Evolutionary developmental psychology infogalactic.
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. Is general intelligence compatible with evolutionary. The main point of dispute is whether central cognition, such as abstract reasoning, exhibits domain general properties. The modularity of mind or modularity debate states that the brain is constructed of neural structures or modules which have distinct functions. Prior work has discovered several highly specialized components dedicated to particular mental functions, like face recognition or motion perception. For both humans and animals, domain general mechanisms are fallible but powerful tools for attaining evolutionary goals e. This application of evolutionary concepts to psychology is not reliant on the assumption of massive, domainspeci.
Peters saint marys university abstract evolutionary psychology defines the human mind as comprising innate and domainspecific informationprocessing mechanisms that were designed to solve specific evolutionary problems of our pleistocene past. For instance, they failed to specify temporal context. Facial, manual, vocal, and objectrelated imitation has been documented. Barrett and kurzban argue that much of the debate is misplaced because critics. This paper argues that intelligence is a set of domain general abilities which was not designed to solve any. Domaingeneral learning theories also recognize that although learning different types of new information may be processed in the same way and in. We propose that the view that human cognitive architecture is dominated by. Evolutionary psychologists propose the human mind consists predominantly of highly specialized mechanisms. Examining the strengths and weaknesses of applying.
Pdf the concept of general intelligence as measured by standard iq tests has always been a difficult fit for evolutionary psychology. The evolutionary psychology of emotions and behavior. Evolutionary developmental psychology edp is the application of the basic principles of darwinian evolution, particularly natural selection, to explain contemporary human development. The modularity debate in evolutionary psychology dan. Domains of generality behavioral and brain sciences. Many evolutionary psychologists are developing a greater appreciation for cultural evolution and behavioral. The distinction between domain specificity and domain generality is widespread in cognitive science. Brase university of missouri columbia abstract as evolutionary approaches in the behavioral sciences become increasingly prominent, issues arising from the proposition that the mind is a collection of modular. Domaingeneral mechanisms interact in complex ways with domainspecific, information. This essay addresses the question of the domain generality versus domain specificity of creativity through a theoretical analysis of the construct.
Evolutionary psychology, which emerged in the late 1980s, is a synthesis of developments in several different fields, including ethology, cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and social psychology. Or something 4 note that, unlike in the context of evolutionary psychology where domainspecific used to denote cognitive mechanisms that are. The role of evolutionary psychology in the modularity debate by michael lundie under the direction of daniel a. As noted above section 1, evolutionary psychology owes a theoretical debt to human sociobiology.
The evolution of domaingeneral mechanisms in intelligence and learning article pdf available in the journal of general psychology 21. In the same way, advoca tes of narrow evolutionary psychology argue that empirical psychology without an evolutionary perspective has no way to. Second, they were domain general with regard to context. Without an evolutionary perspective, he argued, psychology does not know what it is looking for and when it finds something it does not know what it is looking at e. Vaughn becker department of psychology arizona state university mark schaller department of psychology university of british columbia. Domaingenerality versus domainspecificity of creativity. Domain general mechanisms interact in complex ways with domain specific, information. Keywords risk, risksensitivity theory, embodied capital, signaling, evolutionary psychology, individual differences. Evolutionary behavioral scientists who study culture often rely on the concept of domain generality, presumably because cultural phenomena seemingly incorporate so many aspects of our cognition and environment.
Evolution of domain generality 3 the evolution of domain general mechanisms in intelligence and learning evolutionary psychology is radically at odds with the tradition that domain generality is an important component of human cognition. General cognition prominent evolutionary psychologists have argued that our innate psychological. Dynamic evolutionary questions can be divided further into those dealing specifically with interactions among components inside the organism e. The uniquely predictive power of evolutionary approaches to. Systemic functional adaptedness and domaingeneral cognition. Is general intelligence compatible with evolutionary psychology. Human general intelligence as a domain general psychological. However, our cognitive versatility suggests the additional existence of more. In evolutionary psychology ep, this research paradigm gets applied to the functional analysis of the cognitive mind, including the properties. Evolutionary psychology is an approach to psychology, in which knowledge and principles from evolutionary biology are put to use in research on the structure of the human mind. Wilson took human sociobiology to provide us with an account of human nature 1978. Domain specificity argues that a creativity as a general concept is an abstraction, b we can learn little about the nature of creativity as long as we focus on that abstraction rather than concrete instances of creativity, and c both creativity research and teaching for creativity must be done domain by domain, just as teaching content. Domains may themselves be defined at varying levels of generality or specificity. Evolutionary psychology primer by leda cosmides and john tooby.