Product Description
A short, broad introduction to the emerging field of evolutionary psychology (the study of adaptive significance of behavior). 10 short chapters introduce the reader to the major topics within the field of evolutionary psychology (from "Social Order and Disorder" to "Mating and Reproduction" to "The Creative Impulse: The Origins of Technology and Art"). For psychologists, students, or anyone interested in evolutionary psychology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Book in good condition - took long to arrive
The book is in good condition. My only issue is that it literally took about 3 weeks to arrive, the longest I have ever waited for a book to be delivered.

Very informative
Comprehensive and easy to read and full of useful information. Ample reference material and evidence to back up the findings and theories. I especiall liked the explanations of psychpathologies from evolutionary perspectives and the effects of different brain damages on personality and behavior.

Textbook, but Worth a Look
This book, for all its faults, is surprisingly informative. Yes, the authors are poor writers (poor-to-bad punctuation, spelling, and run-ons abound); there's no question that the authors did not consult a style manual before writing some tortuous sentential structures. Even some key scientist's names are misspelled. But despite these obvious flaws, the authors explain evolutionary biology quite thoroughly, even if, or rather because, it is meant as a textbook.

But taking some of the chapter and section highlights, look what's covered under one set of binding:

Chapter One: The Roots of Evolutionary Psychology
--Darwin's Theory
--The Modern Synthesis
--Behavior as a Function of Evolution

Chapter Two: From Big Bang to Big Brain
--Life in the Universe
--The Beginning
--Vertebrate Life
--Hominid Evolution (Africa, Bipedalism, & First Humans)

Chapter Three:; Encephalization and the Emergence of Mind
--The rive Movers in Hominid Encephaization (Machiavellian Intelligence, Ice Ages, Ballistic Hunting, Language, & Intraspecific Competition
--The Modular Brain
--The Modular Mind (Fear Learning, Social Reasoning, Gender Differences

Chapter Four: Language
--The Nature of Language (Animal Communication, Animal Language Studies, & Feral Children)
--Language Acquisition (Developmental Stages, Critical Periods)
--Language Evolution (Universals, Ancient Origins, Conceptual Domains)

Chapter Five: Mating and Reproduction
--Sexual Selection (Sex Differences, Mate Slection Criteria)
--Aesthetics of Attraction (Symmetry, Waist-Hip Ratio, Masculine Ideal, Feminine Ideal)
--Human Pheronomes (Menstrual Synchronicity, Major Histocaptibility Complex Preferences, Male Pheromones, Female Pheromones)
--Jealousy and Mate-Guarding
--Sperm Wars
--Sexual Orientation
--Pair-bonding Strategies (Limerence and Long-term Pair Bonding)

Chapter Six: Ontogeny
--Prenatal Development
--Postnatal Development (A Priori Mind, Parent-Infant Conflicts, Incest Avoidance, Evolved Contingency Mechanisms, Optimizing Cognitive Potential, Adaptive Function of Menopause)

Chapter Seven: Social Order and Disorder
--Dominance Hierarchies (Affiliation and Aggression & Biochemical Status of Mood Disorders)
--Evolution of Compassion (Kin Selection, Reciprocal Altruism, & Universal Morality and Ethics)

Chapter Eight: Personality and Psychopathology
--Early Personality Theorists
--Contemporary Personality Theories (Case-Study, Trait, and Factor Analysis)
--The Three-Factor Model
--The Five-Factor Model
--Evolutionary Theory of Personality (Adaptive Significance & Phylogeny and Ontogeny of Personality)
--Personality and Abnormal Behavior (Axis I and Axis II Disorders)

Chapter Nine: The Creative Impulse
--Tool Use (In Nonhumans, Hominid Archeology, Tool-use as a Selective Force, Hominid Cognitive Ability)
--Aesthetic Manipulation (Pleistocene Art, Adaptive Art)
--Consciousness and the Symbolic Universe

Chapter Ten: Ancient Mammal in a Brave New World
--Mismatch Theory
--Stree: Then and Now
--Mental Health
--Indoctrination, Nationalism, & War
--Psychoparmacology (Substance Abuse & Pharmacology)
--The New Eugencis: Genetic Engineering

As one can see, almost every conceivable topic of evolutionary and psychological importance is covered in a single volume of about 250 pages. Admittedly, some features are not as well covered as I might have liked. For example: The distinction between altruism and reciprocal altruism is conflated, and the subsection on stress hormones identifies not a one. But these quibbles are minor compared to the magisterial accomplishment of having all these features in one, consolidated volume. And other than E. O. Wilson, this is the first volume I've encountered where sexual orientation from an evolutionary perspective is addressed, even if it's in paltry terms. Nothing is more counterintuitive to evolutionary biology than the persistence of homosexuality. The authors explanation may fail, but at least they don't avoid it.

And unlike some modern populizers of evolutionary biology and psychology, this book gives the facts and nothing but the facts. People used to other populizers' (Pinker for example) invasive and extemporaneous inputs might be bored by the lack of mindless interruptions, but I appreciated the straight-forwardness of this volume. As one who looks critically at evolutionary biology to explain human behavior, I appreciate this direct and unconvoluted approach. There are deficiencies, which I am sure the authors today would want to correct. But for explaining human behavior in terms of the Modern Synthesis, this one volume does it all without the extraneous.

I encourage the authors to consult a style manual, rewrite, and repunctuate many of their sentences. I also encourage them to add new information that has come to light since this volume was printed in 2002. And I beseech the authors to try harder to explain homosexuality in evolutionary terms (they explain it only in ontogenic terms). But with these few admonitions, a second edition would be a welcome event. The "Further Reading" List is extensive, while the notes are cryptic (no page references); and the index is comprehensive.

Read Pinker et al. for their hype, read and keep this volume for your reference. ... Read more

Product Description
Human beings, like other organisms, are the products of evolution. Like other organisms, we exhibit traits that are the product of natural selection. Our psychological capacities are evolved traits as much as are our gait and posture. This much few would dispute. Evolutionary psychology goes further than this, claiming that our psychological traits—including a wide variety of traits, from mate preference and jealousy to language and reason—can be understood as specific adaptations to ancestral Pleistocene conditions. In Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology, Robert Richardson takes a critical look at evolutionary psychology by subjecting its ambitious and controversial claims to the same sorts of methodological and evidential constraints that are broadly accepted within evolutionary biology.

The claims of evolutionary psychology may pass muster as psychology; but what are their evolutionary credentials? Richardson considers three ways adaptive hypotheses can be evaluated, using examples from the biological literature to illustrate what sorts of evidence and methodology would be necessary to establish specific evolutionary and adaptive explanations of human psychological traits. He shows that existing explanations within evolutionary psychology fall woefully short of accepted biological standards. The theories offered by evolutionary psychologists may identify traits that are, or were, beneficial to humans. But gauged by biological standards, there is inadequate evidence: evolutionary psychologists are largely silent on the evolutionary evidence relevant to assessing their claims, including such matters as variation in ancestral populations, heritability, and the advantage offered to our ancestors. As evolutionary claims they are unsubstantiated. Evolutionary psychology, Richardson concludes, may offer a program of research, but it lacks the kind of evidence that is generally expected within evolutionary biology. It is speculation rather than sound science—and we should treat its claims with skepticism.

Life and Mind series: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology
A Bradford Book ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Accurate description of the discipline
Evolutionary psychology is a discipline that brings evolution into disrepute with non-scientists.

The author clearly lays out the case for evo psych not reaching the standards of research that evolutionary biology must reach. In this, the author should be applauded.

To be sure - and the author makes this clear also - there is likely to be some truth in evo psych. Some aspects of our psychology are possibly adaptations to past need. Yet the discipline routinely fails to examine how or why such adaptations might come about, nor the heritable bases for them, nor ways to distinguish sufficiently between alternative hypotheses or the null hypothesis.

Evolutionary psychology has the seductive appeal of storytelling, but broadly lacks scientific rigour. The discipline needs to grow up or move on.

Boring Read
This is one of those books where an author expresses his wondering thoughts without making a clear point or really suggesting or proving anything. His arguments are weak and his writing is unfocused.

A black gown treatment of adaptation
William Blake once registered his opposition to religious orthodoxy as follows: "I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen; A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door; So I turned to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves, And tombstones where flowers should be; And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires."

I often think of this poem, which laments the predilection of priests to legislate sensuality from our lives, when I come upon a philosopher who criticizes a school of scientific thought. The critique is almost always of the form "Here are the rules of science. You are violating some of these rules. Bad, bad, bad!" Such critiques are usually not worth much, because either what the school of thought asserts is correct or it is not. Every scientist knows the rules of scientific protocol and rarely makes an error. I don't need a philosopher to tell me about violating rules.

Richardson is such a philosopher. One strike against him. He gets strike two for a really stupid title to his book. Evolutionary psychology is not maladapted, in fact, so the title is just a snide slur.

Richardson wears the black gown of"adaptationism," which is a set of doctrines specifying what is an what is not a biological adaptation, and what is and what is not an adequate proof that a human characteristic is an adaptation. For instance, Richardson claims that we cannot call either language or cognition adaptations, because "a discussion of what we actual know about the evolution of either human language or cognition would be very brief." (p. 89) Really? I am not a expert in either language or cognition, but I know lots about their evolution, having read game theoretic treatments, comparative brain studies, paleontological studies, behavioral ecological studies of brain size and social group dynamics, etc. Very brief? What Richardson means is that we have little direct evidence, because the fossil record does not include much about soft tissues.

Only a wearer of the black gown could get away with this flamboyant degree of skepticism: "I do not doubt that human language and human rationality are evolved capacities, or even that they provided substantive advantages to our forbears. Perhaps they are adaptations; I do not claim to know. Indeed, I claim not to know." (p. 95). So, what then must something be to count as an adaptation, if not that it is an evolved capacity that provides substantive advantages? Richardson's answer is that an adaptation must be an adaptation FOR something. "The problem is, after all,'' he notes on p. 125, "not merely to show that language is an adaptation, but to explain it as an adaptation. Without a suitable explanation, we will not know what specifically it ia an adaptationFOR." The problem with language and cognition is that they provide so many benefits that we cannot single out what they were adaptations FOR. Richardson in fact vacillates in the book, sometimes denying they are adaptations at all, other times admitting that they are adaptations, but only bargain-store basement adaptations until we know what they are FOR.

Adaptations do not have to be adaptations FOR anything. It is true that Cosmides and Tooby think of adaptations as solutions to recurrent problems, but it is reasonable to call anything an adaptation if (a) it enhances the fitness of its bearers; (b) it is costly to maintain; and (c) it is an evolved trait. It is true that evolutionary psychologists tend to treat human characteristics as adaptations even if they appear not to satisfy (a), on grounds that they may have at one time in our evolutionary past,or appearances are misleading. For instance, since a significant fraction of males rape, this is likely an adaptation; since there are many sociopaths, sociopathy is likely an adaptation; since humans are subject to depression, depression is likely an adaptation. I do not share with evolutionary psychologists this predilection for seeing adaptations everywhere,but there are enough human adaptations to make Richardson's argument incorrect.

This book is really not about evolutionary psychology at all, but rather about the philosophy of adaptation. Evolutionary psychology is just a convenient hook onto which Richardson's treatment of adaption can hang. Moreover, I do not find much merit in this treatment.

... Read more

Product Description

Evolutionary aesthetics is the attempt to understand the aesthetic judgement of human beings and their spontaneous distinction between "beauty" and "ugliness" as a biologically adapted ability to make important decisions in life. The hypothesis is - both in the area of "natural beauty" and in sexuality, with regard to landscape preferences, but also in the area of "artificial beauty" (i.e. in art and design) - that beauty opens up fitness opportunities, while ugliness holds fitness risks. In this book, this adaptive view of aesthetics is developed theoretically, presented on the basis of numerous examples, and its consequences for evolutionary anthropology are illuminated.

Product Description
Although researchers have long been aware that the species-typical architecture of the human mind is the product of our evolutionary history, it has only been in the last three decades that advances in such fields as evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and paleoanthropology have made the fact of our evolution illuminating. Converging findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences.First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors--problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, cooperation, and sexual infidelity. Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture.The Adapted Mind explores this new approach--evolutionary psychology--and its implications for a new view of culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

The Coming Out Party of Evolutionary Psychology
One of the first and most thorough as well as perhaps the most serious treatment of the (then) new and fledgling field of Evolutionary Psychology (EP).

Primarily as a result of this book (and certainly as a result of the research of its contributors, beyond just their contributions here in this volume), I have become a firm believer in the EP cultural worldview. Today, it is seen as a natural, and further elaboration of the Darwinian paradigm: that explains the connection between evolutionary biology and evolutionary developments in human behavior, including developments in cognitive processes.

The key hypothesis allowing this connection to flow rather seamlessly is of course the central idea introduced in the book: that brain architecture is inherited and thus is too (like everything else biological) a product of Darwinian processes. In particular, the brain too has evolved through Darwinian specialization or natural selection. (Why it has taken us so long to accept this rather obvious biological fact says a lot about how we ourselves have been socialized culturally.)

Thus, what these authors do here is set the EP ship upright by basically showcasing what they have learned in the EP laboratory since Dawkins' first two trail blazing books "The Selfish Gene," and "Sociobiology." Both of which were controversial -- not just because of what they implied about human behavior -- but also and most especially, for the fear many felt that social planners might do as a consequence of the content of Dawkins' new Socio-biological paradigm and framework.

Thus this book, along with others that subsequently leaned on it (such as Robert Wright's "Moral Man," and Marc D. Hauser's "Moral Minds"), proves that Dawkins' framework and paradigm are robust and durable and are likely to endure since as this book so aptly demonstrates, they have also survived the rigors of the scientific method -- as well as the doubts of potential social policy makers and armchair social scientists. That is why this book is so important and is THE seminal work in the field of EP. For my work on race and racism, it is an invaluable resource, especially the section on mate selection and its impact on cultural development. An easy Five Stars

The source
What can I say?This is THE book, the apolitical manifesto, the thing that made me choose to get a PhD at Santa Barbara.Unfortunately, everything but the first chapter is illustration and example of the larger point, but if you want to debate evolutionary psychology with someone I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect your opponent to have read and understood Psychological Foundations of Culture (chapter 1).

An important introduction to evolutionary psychology
This is one of the earliest texts in the field called Evolutionary Psychology (EP).This specialization evolved from what Edward O. Wilson termed "Sociobiology" in the mid-1970s.EP applies the logic of sociobiology to human psychology.That is, how has natural selection shaped how humans think and make decisions?As editors Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, and Jerome Barkow put it (page 7): "Evolutionary psychology is psychology informed by the fact that the inherited architecture of the human mind is the product of the evolutionary process."The book, in their conceptualization, has two goals (page 3): "The first is to introduce the newly crystallizing field of evolutionary psychology to a wider audience. . .The second goal of this volume is to clarify how this new field. . .supplies the necessary connection between evolutionary biology and the complex, irreducible social and cultural phenomena studied by anthropologists, economists, and historians."

They locate their perspective by juxtaposing evolutionary psychology with what the term "the standard social scientific model."The chapter by Tooby and Cosmides (Chapter 1) outlines this model in much more detail.
As we know, the SSSM insists that, for all practical purposes, human nature - and thus human behavior - is shaped by culture. Put less laconically, the SSSM rests on three cardinal tenets - two of them explicit, the third usually implicit. These are: (1) that humans have no innate behavioral tendencies; (2) that, consequently, human nature is solely the product of learning and socialization (in short, of "nurture"); from which it follows (3) that human nature (and consequently human behavior) is essentially quite malleable (my rendering of the perspective). Of course, evolutionary psychology moves in a different direction, emphasizing the effects of the evolutionary process on human behavior and thinking.

This edited volume includes a series of chapters exploring different aspects of human behavior.The section titles illustrate the variety of topics covered: Section II focuses on cooperation and social exchange, noting that these have evolutionary bases; III examines the psychology of mating and sex; IV looks at parental care and children; V considers perception and language as evolutionary adaptations; VI takes a look at environmental aesthetics (such as evolved responses to landscapes); VII has only one chapter--looking at the evolution of psychodynamic mechanisms.The volume closes with an essay by Jerome Barkow.

Not all readers will be convinced by the arguments raised in this volume.However, it serves an important purpose by unapologetically claiming that we cannot understand much of human psychology (and other social behaviors) without considering human evolution. Indeed, it is hard to complain about this overarching perspective.However, readers may well dispute specific applications of the perspective. In the end, this is a rich volume and will prod the reader to think differently about "human nature."

Evolution from Several Vantages
This book is a massive tome on evolutionary factors that influence human behavior. It begins with clarification of the kind of Darwinism the authors appeal to, so that everyone is on the same page, and considers the general psychological foundations of Darwinism on culture.

The book then moves on to discuss cognitive adaptations for social exchange, citing human and non-human examples. The book also includes the evolutionary psychology of mating and sex, examining preferences for mate selection and competition, mechanisms for sexual attraction, and the evolutionary use of women as chattel (something any Old Testament and Quran reader can relate to).

A significant portion of the book is devoted to parental care and children, examining how pregnancy sickness, patterns between twins, maternal-infant vocalizations, and child play in the form of chasing each other are all evolutionary mechanisms that continue to be featured.

Steven Pinker adds an essay on natural language and natural selection; Roger Shepard contributes an essay on the man's perceptual adaptation to the natural world; both of which demonstrate the interconnectedness between perception, language, and adaptation.

The book concludes with some of its most esoteric issues: environmental aesthetics, intrapsychic processes, and the theoretical implications of culural phenomena.

The whole book, while not necessarily over-academic, is ultimately dense reading. Most of the concepts and conceptualizations require mental work to apprehend, while the statistics and empirical evidence are clearly described. While drawing from many disparate areas of evolutionary biology, all the essays find their ultimate significance in how the mind, in particular, has adapted to environmental forces. A demanding, but facinating, read.

A fresh start
The argument - and it is an argument - is that human behaviour is strongly influenced by evolved psychological mechanisms, and that those mechanisms are numerous and specific, rather than just one general learning mechanism- ie a human baby comes with an installed operating system and quite a lotof free software, and is definitely not a blank slate. What makes theargument persuasive is the attempt to import the scientific method -hypotheses falsifiable by experiment - to an area previously characterisedby mumbojumbo and pseudoscience. Not all the attempts are successful, butas they say it's a start. 100 years late (for psychology) it is saying (a)the brain is an organ so it must have evolved too - let's think about it ina Darwinian fashion and (b) let's try to make pyschology a science not ahumanity. It is potentially very offensive to existing psychologypractitioners, because it implies that most existing psychologists arewitch doctors. It is also very offensive to large bodies of public policywonks (let's not beat about the bush here - in American speak this book isvery offensive to liberal Democrats), essentially saying that most of the"science" behind social and educational policy has no foundation.And because it is polemical - it is shooting at a century of vestedinterests after all - it overstates its case in some places, although thewriters are usually very careful to stress that while behaviouralprogrammes may be partly pre installed, behaviour itself is nothardwired.

It was the start for me of looking at the way we think in acompletely different light and led me to later, more detailed, morebalanced statements of the case.

It is pretty hard going in places,particularly as they do rather tiresomely go out of their way trying toavoid giving direct offence, but they're not fooling anyone (not mss67 fora start.)But in reality they are yelling that the Emperor("learning/nurture is all") has no clothes. For all its faultsit's the book that has most influenced my thinking in the last 10 years,and definitely a five star performance. ... Read more

Product Description
Since the dawn of time human beings have had to make decisions. Wise or foolish, thoughtful or instinctive, altruistic or selfish, decision-making - from the most simple to the most complex - enables people to confront and overcome constant environmental challenges. Yet, despite the momentousness of decision-making in adaptability terms, men and women ignore the actual process that takes place in their minds when, for example, they invest in the stock market, buy a car, trust a person they just met, or simply decide to go to the movies. While some decisions are taken in a few seconds (when we act impulsively without time to evaluate the process), other decisions require considerable cognitive effort and accurate cost-benefit analysis. But is it only the optimal decision that deserves to be called rational? If this is the case, how then can we explain the wisdom of our instincts, of our emotions, of our 'sixth sense'? Moreover, what is the role of subjectivity, free will, desire, culture in the decision-making process? Research on decision-making has had a long and controversial history.The idea of a perfect rationality has more recently given way to the idea of a rationality conscious of its incompleteness - to a process that cannot be expressed or conceived in logical or rational terms. In this ground-breaking book, Mauro Maldonato reinterprets the secular controversy about the nature of human decision-making in light of recent discoveries in cognitive neurosciences and new research (neuroeconomics and neuroethics). At the end of this literary excursion along a stunning archipelago of rationality, morality, emotion and consciousness, the reader is provided with the means to view and assess personal decision-making and resultant action in a completely different way - a way that impacts positively on human interaction and psychological wholeness. ... Read more

Product Description

In recent years, a new discipline has arisen that argues human behaviour can be understood in terms of evolutionary processes.Evolutionary Explanation of Human Behaviour is an introductory level book covering EvolutionaryPsychology, this new and controversial field. The book deals with three main areas: human reproductive behaviour, evolutionary explanations of mentaldisorders and the evolution of intelligence and the brain. The book is particularlysuitable for the AQA-A A2 syllabus, but will also be of interest to undergraduates studyingevolutionary psychology for the first time and anyone with a general interest in this new discipline.

Customer Reviews (1)

Fascinating and enlightening read
Looking for a book that could introduce me to basic concepts in evolutionary psychology, I came across this Kindle edition and found myself engrossed several hours later, having not moved much other than to turn pages!Cartwright manages to provide a solid and in-depth look into an enormously broad field without becoming dry or overly academic.Chapters are divided into topics such as sex selection (Why does a male peacock have a tail that has no apparent biological purpose, while the female peahen has no equivalent?Because the male has evolved a trait that will make him more attractive to potential carriers of his offspring.) to why babies cling to objects after infancy (a vestige from when infants gripped fur to keep from falling from their mothers) to why men seek physical descriptions in personal ads while women are interested in the wealth and status of potential male partners.The topics were just varied enough to keep a layperson's interest but stimulating enough to provoke a deeper curiosity.Very impressive! ... Read more

Product Description
According to evolutionary biologists, we are the minders of our genes. But, as Christopher Badcock points out in this book, it is only recently that evolutionists have realized that minders need minds, and that evolution needs psychology to fill the yawning gap between genes and behaviour.

Evolutionary Psychology assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, and concentrates on the fundamental issues raised by the application of modern Darwinism to psychology. Basic concepts of evolution are explained carefully, so that the reader has a sound grasp of them before their often controversial application to psychology is discussed. The approach is a critical one, and the author does not hide the many difficulties that evolutionary psychology raises. Examples include the strange neglect of Darwin's own writings on psychology, and the fact that no existing theory has succeeded in explaining why the human brain evolved in the first place.

The book is the first to give a non-technical account of remarkable new findings about the roles that conflicting genes play in building different parts of the brain. It is also the first to consider the consequences of this for controversies like those over nature/nurture, IQ, brain lateralization and consciousness.

Evolutionary Psychology is based on many years experience of teaching evolution and psychology to social science students, and is intended for all who wish to get to grips with the basic issues of one of the most exciting and rapidly growing areas of modern science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent introduction that holds the attention
This was the first book on evolutionary psychology I read, and it was an easy-to-understand and engaging introduction that gave me the background I needed to tackle more difficult works such as _The Adapted Mind_. Badcock explains the history of the movement well, treats most issues with healthy skepticism, and explains natural selection in such a way that most readers, even those without preexisting knowledge of evolution, should find quite easy to understand.

That being said, I had a couple of problems towards the end of the book, Badcock's strange fascination with Freud being first among them. He takes some very interesting data on unconscious processing and treats it as evidence that Freud was right on about all the defense mechanisms and so forth. He also seemed too set on the goal of reframing the mother/fetus relationship as an "arms race", although this is a more minor criticism. If it weren't for the Freud apologetics, I'd give this book 5 stars. ... Read more

Product Description
Religion is one of the most powerful forces running through human history, and although often presented as a force for good, its impact is frequently violent and divisive. This provocative work brings together cutting-edge research from both evolutionary and cognitive psychology to help readers understand the psychological structure of religious morality and the origins of religious violence.

• Introduces a fundamentally new approach to the analysis of religion in a style accessible to the general reader
• Applies insights from evolutionary and cognitive psychology to both Judaism and Christianity, and their texts, to help understand the origins of religious violence
• Argues that religious violence is grounded in the moral psychology of religion
• Illustrates its controversial argument with reference to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the response to the attacks from both the terrorists and the President. Suggests strategies for beginning to counter the divisive aspects of religion.
• Discusses the role of religion and religious criticism in the contemporary world. Argues for a position sceptical of the moral authority of religion, while also critiquing the excesses of the “new atheists” for failing to appreciate the moral contributions of religion.

Customer Reviews (1)

Deconstructing God
Have you ever wondered how science meets the challenge of explaining the origin of religious morality? Here's how.

In his "In the name of God", John Teehan shows how evolutionary psychology can provide us with an understanding of religious moral thinking. Although Teehan focuses on two of the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions (Judaism and Christianity), his analysis and conclusions could well apply to most forms of religious thinking: as long as there is an IN-GROUP (pro-social ethics), there must always be an OUT-GROUP (violence).

As one might expect, this book is critical of religions. Violence in the name of God is not an exceptional aberration that happens in spite of religious virtue (as believers usually claim), it is intrinsic to religion. To the extent that religions ride on our evolved psychology, religious morality will contain both sides of our nature, good and evil. To me, this is a central message in Teehan's book: we cannot ignore the ugly side of religious ethics (violence) or downplay it as an exception to the rule.

This is not a "new atheism" book, however, for Teehan never lets his analysis become a tool to criticize religion. Because of its unusually neutral approach, this book offers a great opportunity to the believer to better understand the real roots of her/his faith. In fact, in the last chapter Teehan devotes a section to admonish the "new atheists" (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett) for their radical attitude which, ironically, creates another in-group/out-group dichotomy (just like religions do, according to Teehan).

T. Dobzhansky famously said that "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution". Teehan's book invites us to replace "biology" with "religion". Darwin would be very happy to see the far reach of his theory. Ironically, not only does religion not pose a real threat to evolutionary theory -- it has become its subject of study. ... Read more

Product Description

Evolutionary psychology is concerned with the adaptive problems early humans faced in ancestral human environments, the nature of the psychological mechanisms natural selection shaped to deal with those ancient problems, and the ability of the resulting evolved psychological mechanisms to deal with the problems people face in the modern world. Evolutionary psychology is currently advancing our understanding of altruism, moral behavior, family violence, sexual aggression, warfare, aesthetics, the nature of language, and gender differences in mate choice and perception. It is helping us understand the relationships between cognitive science, developmental psychology, behavior genetics, personality, and social psychology.

Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology provides an up-to-date review of the ideas, issues, and applications of contemporary evolutionary psychology. It is suitable for senior undergraduates, first year graduate students, or professionals who wish to become conversant with the major issues currently shaping the emergence of this dynamic new field. It will be interesting to psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and anyone interested in using new developments in the theory of evolution to gain new insights into human behavior.

Customer Reviews (2)

Five Stars but only if you tear out the last two pages!
This is a great book for those who have read some Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins and/or Edward O. Wilson and want to get an idea of what the academic writings behind the scene of popular introductions to Darwinian evolution and evolutionary psychology might look like.The range of topics is wide, from (a representative title from each section) Life History Theory and Human Development, to Sociogenomics for the Cognitive Adaptionist, to Biological Adaptations and Human Behavior, to Physical Attractiveness: Signals of Phenotypic Quality and Beyond, to How Selfish by Nature?, to Psychopathology and Mental Illness, and finally to The Evolutionary Psychology of Religion.There is even cutting edge research recently featured in the New York Times based on the work of Christopher Badcock found in An Evolutionary Theory of Mind and Mental Illness: Genetic Conflict and the Mentalistic Continuum.Getting this book for that chapter alone is worth it.

However the book isn't perfect.The final chapter, The Evolutionary Psychology of Religion by Scott Atran, starts out like a serious academic work, describing, for instance, that the number of supernatural events in a story is between two and three for the story to be credible.Only one supernatural event, or ten supernatural events make a story unbelievable--an interesting observation in the study of the psychology of religion.

But in the last two pages, the conclusion of the chapter, Atran makes a factual error and then a foundational empirical error.

His factual error is "...religious fervor is increasing across parts of the world, including in the United States, the world's most economically powerful and scientifically advanced society."In contrast Newsweek (April 13, 2009) says:

According to the American Religious Identification Survey..., the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. The Jewish population is 1.2 percent; the Muslim, 0.6 percent. A separate Pew Forum poll echoed the ARIS finding, reporting that the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent; in terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008--roughly the same percentage of the electorate as African-Americans. (Seventy-five percent of unaffiliated voters chose Barack Obama, a Christian.) Meanwhile, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million. (That is about double the number of, say, Episcopalians in the United States.)

His foundational empirical error is based in "Science cannot tell us what we ought to do or what ought to be; it can tell us only what we can do and what is.Religion thrives because it address our deepest emotional yearnings and society's foundational moral needs." He continues with his assessment that Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins "are all arrogantly out of their depth" for arguing that "science can replace religion". This placement of religion along side of science with certain properties it alone has is not unlike Stephen Jay Gould's discredited NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria). If this is a material world, and there is no empirical evidence to suggest it is not, it is ALL science.This little fact upends everything Atran argues for in his conclusion.Because science can't yet answer how a particular person chooses what is moral for her doesn't mean it should be relegated to the religious magisteria.It just means that science hasn't found the answer yet and more work has to be done.

This conclusion oddly seems to have nothing to do with what was said earlier in the chapter and seems to be tacked on at the last moment.He should have left it off because it takes away from the scientific approach in the rest of the chapter and of the book.It's an unfortunate way to end this good academic introduction to evolutionary psychology.Tear out those two pages and this book gets five stars!

Thank you for sharing your wisdom
You taught so many !

I actually read this for pleasure!

Cordially;

Paula-Jon Killilea

pjk/dk/cc ... Read more

Product Description
A Harvard psychologist explains how our once-helpful instincts get hijacked in our garish modern world.Our instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection— evolved for life on the savannahs 10,000 years ago, not in today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects, from candy to pornography to atomic weapons—that gratify these gut instincts with often-dangerous results. Animal biologists coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and exert a stronger pull than real things, such as soccer balls that geese prefer over eggs. Evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett applies this concept to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment, demonstrating how supernormal stimuli are a major cause of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity and war. However, Barrett does more than show how unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. She also reminds us that by exercising self-control we can rein them in, potentially saving ourselves and civilization. 55 illustrations ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

We need to "trust our instincts" less and trust our intellect more
"Supernormal Stimuli" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Barrett's book interview ran here as the cover feature on July 19, 2010.

Highly recommended
Supernormal stimuli are exaggerated versions of natural stimuli to which there are existing instinctual responses. Animal ethologists first came up with the concept but this book makes the case that it explains much of what has gone wrong for human society in the face of technology and urban lifestyle. She explains how pornography, unhealthy diets, and even the quest for nuclear energy as opposed to wind or solar power are supernormal stimuli. It's a fascinating take on modern dilemmas which has practical implications for how we should go about fixing them.

Overly simplistic
The author should stick to psychology and stay away from speculations related to evolutionary biology.Her treatment of the life of Tinbergen was of interest.Her use of his ideas is flawed.She leaves out the role of pleasure and practicality in guiding human choices.A species of bird drawn to eggs that are more blue acts out of blind instinct.The preferences of humans for food and intellectual endeavors is related to the pleasure that we receive from them.She mentions how hunter-gatherers are not particularly territorial, since there is no great value in it, but agricultural societies are territorial for obvious practical reasons.The supernormal theory does not apply to territoriality.In discussing war, she leaves out the fact that the homicide rate has been on the decline over the last few centuries.The rate among Bushmen is several times higher than that of industrial societies.

I share many of Barrett's concerns addressed in the conclusion. Although she does not go so far, her reasoning would lead us to conclude that we should all return to being hunter-gatherers like in the movie Avatar.

Not a Serious Book
I thought I should warn others like myself who were seduced by the cover and or title into thinking that this was a serious or scholarly book. A very quick read, it is in the final analysis on the order of science laced op-ed. The author appropriates the concept 'supernormal stimuli' in order to opine on current social issues relating to fast food, relationships, war, television, and to offer self-help strategies in these areas.

There are humorous cartoons but there is no delving into the concept as it was originally thought-out or an attempt to understand the implications of the actual phenomenon in any serious or philosophical way.

It could be that the concept does not lend itself to a book-length treatment, which would explain why the author begins with an interesting biographical sketch of Nino Tinbergen and then proceeds to simply apply his conceptual term without rigor to her various banal socio-cultural hobby-horses. There was no reason whatsoever to go into the life of Tinbergen as it is of no relevance to the author's intent. That intent is simply to persuade us to collect our problems under the rubric of 'supernormal stimuli'. Otherwise she has nothing to add to the already vast commentary on civilization versus the stone age.

Take the chapter 'Sex for Dummies': If I have to endure another uncritical rendering of Devandra Singh's universal male preference for a female waist-to-hip ratio of .7 I willhave to subject myself to another round of firewater (call it an unhappy hour-glass). There have been at least two studies showing that men will actually choose even lower ratios, even ones not found in nature. This finding would have actually been consistent with the idea of supernormal stimuli. Instead a walk down any city street is treated as a supernormal stimulus since prehistoric man would never have encountered so many women.

And i wonder why the book includes a large chapter on diet and food when the author's previous book was entirely devoted to the subject (and itself had nothing to add to the spate of books that have appeared in the wake of the 'Paleolithic Prescription' from the 90s). It all reeks of 'science' riding the trends.

A Great Read
This is one of the best books I've read in years.It pulls together lots of ideas and facts that I was vaguely aware of, but never saw them all in the same place.
It's exciting -- once you read the book and become aware of supernormal stimuli, you can see they're everywhere.Just never realized what they were before.

The book is really good at explaining concepts, but it's also written with a sense of humor.You can carry it around, read a little in the doctor's office or if you're waiting for something.It really got me thinking about what it means to be a human being.We think we're so much superior to the other animals, but are we?Excellent book. ... Read more

Product Description

Evolutionary psychology is concerned with the adaptive problems early humans faced in ancestral human environments, the nature of psychological mechanisms natural selection shaped to deal with those ancient problems, and the ability of the resulting evolved psychological mechanisms to deal with the problems people face in the modern world. Evolutionary psychology is currently advancing our understanding of altruism, moral behavior, family violence, sexual aggression, warfare, aesthetics, the nature of language, and gender differences in mate choice and perception. It is helping us understand the relationship between cognitive science, developmental psychology, behavior genetics, personality, and social psychology.

Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology provides an up-to-date review of the ideas, issues, and applications of contemporary evolutionary psychology. It is suitable for senior undergraduates, first-year graduate students, or professionals who wish to become conversant with the major issues currently shaping the emergence of this dynamic new field. It will be interesting to psychologists, cognitive scientists, and anyone using new developments in the theory of evolution to gain new insights into human behavior.

Product Description
In the past couple of decades, studies investigating the genetic background of psychiatric disorders have mushroomed. Research into the brain mechanisms and regions of the brain involved in certain dysfunctions have greatly improved our knowledge of the relationship between brain pathology and psychopathology. By contrast, we know far less about 'why' certain individuals remain vulnerable to psychiatric disease at all, and whether they were selected by evolutionary forces or simply by-products of other species-specific characteristics.

This comprehensive book presents a new integrative approach to understanding psychopathological conditions - an approach that embraces cognition, emotion, behaviour, and their nature-nurture interactions. Central to this approach is the introduction of human evolution into the psychiatric model - psychiatrists need to know why the human mind and brain evolved in the way it did. In three parts, the book presents a comprehensive account of human brain evolution in terms of physical features and function, showing how these relate to our current understanding of psychopathology.

Accessibly written, the book shows how a consideration of evolutionary factors in psychiatry can improve our understanding and treatment of specific disorders such as suicidal behaviour, anorexia, and depression. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Solid, Comprehensive Overview of Evolutionary Psychiatry
This book is a well-written introduction to the topic of evolutionary psychiatry. Evolutionary perspectives of psychiatric disorders are becoming increasingly relevant to day-to-day psychiatric practice.The author establishes the core arguments supporting the relevance of evolutionary principles for each major psychiatric diagnosis. It is thorough and broad in its coverage. Anyone interested in the psychological sciences from first year student to veteran psychiatrist will learn something. Also, the book contains perhaps the most comprehensive reference list of evolutionary psychiatry papers to date. The author may have perhaps given greater attention to multi-level selection. Otherwise, an excellent book. ... Read more

Product Description

This book seeks to combine the study of human social cognition - the way we think, decide, plan and analyze social situations - with an evolutionary framework that considers these activities in light of evolutionary adaptations for solving problems of survival faced by our ancestors over thousands of generations. The chapters report recent research and theories illustrating how evolutionary principles can shed new light on the subtle and often subconscious ways that cognitive mechanisms guide peoples’ thoughts, memories, judgments, attitudes and behaviors in social life.

The contributors to this volume, who are leading researchers in their fields, seek answers to such intriguing questions as: how can evolutionary principles help to explain human beliefs, attitudes, judgments, prejudice, and group preferences? Are there benefits to behaving unpredictably? Why are prototypical faces more attractive than atypical ones? How do men and women think about, and select potential mates? What are the adaptive functions of negative affect? What are the evolutionary influences on the way people think about and respond to social exclusion and ostracism?

Evolution and the Social Mind offers a highly integrated and representative coverage of this emerging field, and is suitable as a textbook in advanced courses dealing with social cognition and evolutionary psychology.

Product Description
The field of forensic psychology explores the intersection of psychology and the law. The purpose of this book is to examine topics in the field using the powerful, multidisciplinary, conceptually integrated approach that the natural sciences have embraced for decades with great success.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the meta-theoretical framework that unifies the field of biology. It unites research and understanding of the development, control, and organization of behavior. The study of humans, which includes all of the social sciences, is part of the field of biology. Darwin's theory provides a powerful meta-theoretical framework that can unify and energize forensic psychology, just as it has the biological sciences.

Evolutionary processes undoubtedly shaped physiological characteristics to help solve problems of survival and reproduction. The lungs, for example, with their vast surface area and moist membranes are marvelous adaptions for extracting oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. Natural selection is the only known process capable of shaping complex functional mechanisms. Just as it shaped physiological adaptations with specific problem-solving functions, it also shaped our thoughts and emotions to guide behaviors toward solving recurrent problems of survival and reproduction. With this logic, we can use knowledge of ancestral problems to guide our understanding of how the mind works.

Evolutionary Forensic Psychology is a necessary step toward a unified and complete understanding of psychology and the law. It recognizes that crimes such as murder, non-lethal violence, rape, and theft are manifestations of evolutionarily recurrent selection when they gave individuals an advantage in competition for resources. Each of the chapters that comprise this volume has been selected to provide the first unified examination of important research contributions and future directions of Evolutionary Forensic Psychology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (30)

This book made me become an evolutionary psychologist
When I read this book I was a sceptic about the usefulness of evolutionary ideas in explaining human behaviour. After reading it I became convinced that whatever these people were arguing I must be the opposite. Seriously, there were parts that made me laugh out loud they were so bad. Often these embarrasing excuses for arguments had been written by people who were not otherwise idiots (e.g. Anne Fausto-Sterling, Mary Midgely) but the arguments they used here would have embarassed a first year philosopy undergrad. This conviced me that evo psy was worth looking into and that many of the objections were emotional and shallow. I now have a career in evolutionary psychology and I have this book to thank. Much obliged!

Is EP darwinian?
Discussion contra "evolutionary psychology".
Gould's chapter attempts a coup de grace on the EP gang.I tend to agree with him, and have always had a sneaky suspicion that Dennett and Dawkins, et al, cloud the original message of Mr. Darwin, and hence confuse the lay reader and maybe add ammo to the anti-evolutionary, extreme theistic, camp.

Every Jacobin has its day
The mistake of EP is to map so direct a link between human cultural accretions and a hardwired and immutable survival function. Two confounding factors ruin the attempt.

First, there's the reductio ad absurdum element of these inquiries. To take but one representative instance, the BBC once reported that two Brits had proven conclusively that people are evolutionarily hardwired to stand in line. Genius! Clearly, this is a field of inquiry entering its heyday. Shame the team was never nominated for the Ignobel.

Second, there is what Pierre Duhem, WVO Quine and others have characterized as the "holism" problem in grounding a new fact. This is particularly a conundrum in the human sciences. Given that all human sciences proceed from within the lexical web, we are prone to find a favored construct and retroductively prove what we want to see. There simply is no reason that one causal finding for an element of human culture trumps an alternative explanation. That brute cultural fact can be framed a myriad different ways (narrated through different nodes on the lexical web), and different perceivers are attracted to different explanations. Hence the proponents of evolutionary psychology have a hard time making inroads against other explanations in circulation. Furthermore, they have a hard time making a case that their own causal interpretations are externally valid: Particular 'findings' from evolutionary psychology do not inherently convey a greater 'survival advantage' on the perceiver, hence why should we necessarily restrict ourselves to such direct mappings in any other domain of culture? In that sense, many of the findings out of EP can be called 'epiphenomenal'.

Once evolutionary psychologists dig a little more thoroughly into the lexicon, and the creative uses to which language constructs can be put by the mind, then it seems to me the endeavor will be headed back in the right direction. At that point, though, it'll simply be folded into the work of social neuroscientists.

I can't agree more with the previous reviewers who describe this collection as a mixed bag. Some of the contributions are a bit dismissive. Yet I've sensed the same dismissiveness from many of the partisans of evolutionary psychology against their critics, and I don't know that those rebuttals win the day.

This is the kind of controversy that requires fashioning one's own critique. This volume does not develop a systematic alternative, and that is its weakness. Its strengths are in supplying food for thought -- for getting the debate off the ground.

Alas, poor authors
As pretentious and vacuous as its title. Ideology trying to mimic science.

Alas - a collection of mostly poor contributions
This is a collection of 14 contributions by scientists and social scientists attempting to make arguments against evolutionary psychology. Many are instantly forgettable, others are only just worth reading and only four are actually worth reading - SJ Gould is always a pleasure to read, Annette Karmiloff-Smith presents some interesting research on the development of the brain in infancy and childhood, Patrick Bateson presents interesting points about instincts and Tom Shakespeare & Mark Erickson present the most reasonable sociologists' perspective arguing for both/and rather than either/or in the nature/nurture debate.

A number of essays paint EP as a new religion.
Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins and E O Wilson are among the usual targets, painted as biological determinists with views of human nature as selfish etc etc.
Editor Steven Rose in his introduction expresses his belief that EP is a transparent attack by the right-wing on collectivity, avoiding the fact that there are people from the left, feminists, etc who would disagree because they find at least some of the insights powerful and convincing. Indeed, it is clear from the essays themselves that the contributors are far from being in agreement about the impact of inherited biology in human life.

Apart from Shakespeare & Erickson's both/and argument the one point I would take from this book is made by both the Roses - EP tends to present human nature as fixed rather than as evolving as all life does.

Unless you are fearful of EP and simply need anything to buttress you against it this book as a whole is, alas, a poor one. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is an introduction to the emerging field of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience, a branch of neuroscience that combines the disciplines of evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience. It outlines the application of cognitive neuroscientific methods (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging, transcranial magnetic stimulation, magneto- and electroencephalography, and the use of neuropsychiatric and neurosurgical patients) to answer empirical questions posed from an evolutionary meta-theoretical perspective. Chapters outline the basics of cognitive evolution and how the methods of cognitive neuroscience can be employed to answer questions about the presence of evolved cognitive adaptations. Written for graduate students and researchers, the book presents the major topics of study undertaken by evolutionary cognitive neuroscientists - such as language evolution, intelligence and face processing - and serves as a primer upon which to base further study in the discipline. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

You will be captivated by what Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience has to offer
Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience combines disciplines of evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience. As a PhD student in Electrical Engineering with a personal interest and only a general knowledge in both of disciplines, I found this book highly interesting, benefited from the assignment of my current neuroscience course, to read it and honestly I learned a lot.

"Foundations in Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience" is comprised of 8 chapters, each written by separate authors, on major topics of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience such as intelligence, language and face processing. Chapters present application of cognitive neuroscientific methods to answer evolutionary psychology questions. What I loved about this book was that although authors have mostly presented their own points of view, they have also provided reviews of previous and current works and have addressed some future works. I do not find myself in a position to evaluate existing theories or authors' hypotheses but rather tried to provide here a view of this book and my understandings.

Book's first chapter, written by its editors, SHACKELFORD and PLATEK as well as AARON T. GOETZ, provides a captivating introduction to evolutionary psychology.Mechanisms of natural and sexual selection, Modern Synthesis and inclusive fitness theory are among chapter's highlighted subjects about theories of evolution itself. The chapter then focuses on evolutionary psychology. It explains psychological mechanisms such as domain-specificity and provides interesting examples of how our current thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are designed to solve everyday problems of our evolutionary past.

Book's second chapter by DAVID C. GEARY, is about evolution of human intelligence the core of which is the ability to anticipate and predict variations and to devise strategies to cope with them. The author believes that the main concern is to figure out the central selection pressure that influenced evolution of human brain and mind and considers three principal classes, climatic, ecological, and social, as candidates to be chosen as the answer. Geary provides interesting information about brain evolution, introduces the concept of fluid intelligence, deliberately explains three abovementioned selection pressures and argues their role in the evolution of human intelligence. At last, he argues that social competitions and cooperation within and between groups is likely to be the answer.

Book's third chapter by JAMES J. LEE, is about the role of the general cognitive factor in evolution of human intelligence which unfortunately was hard for me to read, containing a lot of jargons and complicated sentences! Briefly, Lee believes that one of the problems of studying the evolution of human intelligence is quantitative differences among individuals in cognitive abilities which changes over the course of evolutionary time. He believes that this matter is not well explored, proposes reasons for this negligence, and discusses future prospects.

Book's forth chapter by H. CLARK BARRETT, explains the central principle of domain specificity, shows its manifestation in actual cognitive architectures, and explores how it can be used as a tool for the empirical exploration of mind design. Actually this chapter was also hard for me to read and understand; it was so abstract, although followed by examples where needed.

In the fifth chapter the interplay of biological and cultural evolution which led to the modern language is discussed by MICHAEL A. ARBIB who approaches this matter through analysis of the recent development of two new sign languages developed by deaf communities. This chapter contains valuable explanations for general readers in its early parts as well as specific details for experts in its late part. Arbib grounds his theory of language evolution based on the mirror system hypothesis which suggests that brain mechanisms supporting language evolved based on a brain mirror system for grasping. He explains how the protolanguage might have shaped and hypothesizes that a brain that could support protolanguage could also support language through cultural evolution. The author continues by deliberately analyzing the two abovementioned communities and supporting his hypothesis.

The sixth chapter by ALFREDO ARDILA, is among the fascinating and well written chapters, relating the current hypothesis on the origins of language, with the latest studies on aphasia. It discusses two basic linguistic operations, selecting and sequencing and two basic types of aphasia which disturb them respectively, Wernicke-type and Broca-type. It then mentions proposed three stages in language development: using sounds and gestures, using protowords without a grammar and using grammar. By providing various neurological and neuroscientific data about the two aphasia types, as well as children's language development and experiments with non human primates, it convincingly supports those stages of language evolution.

The seventh chapter by ANTHONY C. LITTLE and BENEDICT C. JONES, is also a great one, discussing the human brain mechanism of facial attractiveness. To reach to this aim, authors review neurobiological work on both the general reward system and the model of face preference and explain their finding that these two are very much related. Authors provide two aspects that might make faces attractive: Symmetry and learning what an average face is and comparing. It is worthy to read the whole chapter but I fun to read some notes from it: "Attractive faces are rated as most attractive when eye-gaze is directed towards the viewer and when the face is smiling" or "Inverted faces are processed in a manner more similar to other objects".


Book's eighth chapter, by HIDEHIKO TAKAHASHI and YOSHIRO OKUBO, is a short yet captivating chapter in which sex differences in jealousy in response to partner's infidelity and its probable evolutionary-wise explanation is discussed. Authors define two types of infidelity, sexual and emotional, and explain experiments and their results indicating that men and women show more brain activation in response to sexual an emotional infidelity, respectively, although there was no difference in the rating of jealousy by men or women.

Generally I appreciated this book a lot and recommend it to any of you who are interested in either topics of Cognitive Neuroscience, Evolutionary Psychology or both. As said in the editorial review, this book is for graduate students and researchers, but I dared to read it anyway and enjoyed a lot.
... Read more

Product Description

The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption by Gad Saad applies Darwinian principles in understanding our consumption patterns and the products of popular culture that most appeal to individuals. The first and only scholarly work to do so, this is a captivating study of the adaptive reasons behind our behaviors, cognitions, emotions, and perceptions. This lens of analysis suggests how we come to make selections such as choosing a mate, the foods we eat, the gifts that we offer, and more. It also highlights how numerous forms of dark side consumption, including pathological gambling, compulsive buying, pornographic addiction, and eating disorders, possess a Darwinian etiology.

Engaging and diverse in scope, the book maps consumption phenomena onto four key Darwinian modules: survival, reproduction, kin selection, and reciprocal altruism. As an interesting proposal, the author suggests that media and advertising contents exist in their particular forms because they are a reflection of our evolved human nature - negating the notion that they exist through the reverse causal link, as proposed by social constructivists. The link between evolutionary theory and consumption behaviors is detailed throughout the book via an examination of (among many others):

• appearance-enhancing products and services;
• financial and physical risk-taking;
• use of sexual imagery and the depictions of women in advertising; and
• television programs, movies, songs, music videos, literature, religion, and art.

The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption will appeal to evolutionists who desire to explore new areas wherein evolutionary theory can be applied; consumer and marketing scholars who wish to learn about the ways in which biological-and evolutionary-based theorizing can be infused into the consumer behavior/marketing/advertising disciplines; as well as other interdisciplinary scholars interested in gaining knowledge about the power of evolutionary theory in explaining a wide range of behavioral phenomena.

Customer Reviews (5)

Pragmatic and Insightful
I found this book after I had taken some MBA courses on Consumer Behavior, and was delighted to find that it was both interesting, well written, and practical.His treatment of the material is even in tone and he shows a technique that makes previously intractable problems somewhat approachable. His breakdown of the Evolutionary Modules into 4 specific modules allows you to take a Framework based approach to problem solving. His topic choices are quite interesting and his introduction to Evolutionary Psychology, given in the beginning, is enough for you to grasp the core concepts. It's also a good refresher if you are familiar with EP. I've used this approach to tackle business problems (which appear to have a Darwin etiology) and it has allowed me attack Organizational Behavior problems in a more scientific way.The modules he describes allow you to at least attempt to form some testable hypothesis. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has not been exposed to Evolutionary informed psychology as well as anyone interested in adding new tools to their tool kit concerning marketing and sales.If you are neither of the above, I would recommend reading it because you may find it just plain interesting.

creating a new scientific field
In his book "The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption" Gad Saad has founded a new field in the social sciences: evolutionary consumer behavior. While Saad is an expert in marketing, I was surprised to find out that his understanding of evolutionary psychology is both wide and deep.The book is very well written and each chapter focuses on a different topic, in a way that makes the reading interesting and fluent. The literature reviews are comprehensive, making it a great book to start with when exploring a new question. This book is highly recommended for both scholars and marketing managers.

Highly recommended.
In this work Gad Saad provides an excellent review of evolutionary psychology and its relevance to the field of consumer behavior.A particularly novel idea is encompassing mate choice within acts of consumption.Although not an easy read, once you begin to see how much Saad's ideas provide a paradigm shift in the field of consumer (and human) behavior, you will definitely want to reread this book in order to relish all its nuances.If new to the field of consumer behavior, you shall learn much about the evolutionary bases for your everyday decisions, from buying a car to accepting a date and choosing a perfume.I gained much knowledge from this book and consider it a must read for anybody interested in a scientifically rigorous review of human behavior in the field of consumption.You will not be disappointed!

High expectations
I'm a marketing research professor. I used to looking for sources to explain consumer behaviour. Ive read Pinker's book Tabula Rasa and I had had high expectagions about the book of Gaad Saad. Unfortunatelly, the major part of the lines are about criticism and atacks over other explanative aproaches to consumer behaviour. It's ok, but I couldn't see enough examples that show clear relations between consumer behaviour and evolutionary psychology.

A Brilliant Analysis of Consumption
This is a brilliant book. It is a path-breaking analysis of consumption from an evolutionary psychological perspective. Professor Saad shows that the widespread belief that advertisers can sell us anything if the ad campaign is clever enough is just plain wrong. Successful advertising - and ultimately consumption - is, to a large degree, based on tapping into basic preferences that evolved over millennia. Saad adroitly integrates basic research in evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology with consumer behavior, and he provides many interesting and amusing examples. This book should be on the shelf of anyone who studies consumption or who is involved in marketing. ... Read more

Product Description
Since Darwin we have known that evolution has shaped all organisms and that biological organs—including the brain and the highly crafted animal nervous system—are subject to the pressures of natural and sexual selection. It is only relatively recently, however, that the cognitive neurosciences have begun to apply evolutionary theory and methods to the study of brain and behavior. This landmark reference documents and defines the emerging field of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience. Chapters by leading researchers demonstrate the power of the evolutionary perspective to yield new data, theory, and insights on the evolution and functional modularity of the brain.

Evolutionary cognitive neuroscience covers all areas of cognitive neuroscience, from nonhuman brain-behavior relationships to human cognition and consciousness, and each section of Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience addresses a different adaptive problem. After an introductory section that outlines the basic tenets of both theory and methodology of an evolutionarily informed cognitive neuroscience, the book treats neuroanatomy from ontogenetic and phylogenetic perspectives and explores reproduction and kin recognition, spatial cognition and language, and self-awareness and social cognition. Notable findings include a theory to explain the extended ontogenetic and brain development periods of big-brained organisms, fMRI research on the neural correlates of romantic attraction, an evolutionary view of sex differences in spatial cognition, a theory of language evolution that draws on recent research on mirror neurons, and evidence for a rudimentary theory of mind in nonhuman primates. A final section discusses the ethical implications of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience and the future of the field.

Contributors:
C. Davison Ankney, Simon Baron-Cohen, S. Marc Breedlove, William Christiana, Michael Corballis, Robin I. M. Dunbar, Russell Fernald, Helen Fisher, Jonathan Flombaum, Farah Focquaert, Steven J. C. Gaulin, Aaron Goetz, Kevin Guise, Ruben C. Gur, William D. Hopkins, Farzin Irani, Julian Paul Keenan, Michael Kimberly, Stephen Kosslyn, Sarah L. Levin, Lori Marino, David Newlin, Ivan S. Panyavin, Shilpa Patel, Webb Phillips, Steven M. Platek, David Andrew Puts, Katie Rodak, J. Philippe Rushton, Laurie Santos, Todd K. Shackelford, Kyra Singh, Sean T. Stevens, Valerie Stone, Jaime W. Thomson, Gina Volshteyn, Paul Root Wolpe ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

diverse topics for an exciting science
It is an exciting time in neuroscience. As the realisation dawned in recent years that evolutionary ideas can be fruitfully applied to the brains of various species. Along with the experimental tools that enable the testing of useful models of the brain.

The book's diversity of papers reflects accurately the intellectual ferment. One example might be the rise of evolutionary game theory. Standard game theory arose with von Neumman and others, and was originally only applied to human subjects. But a chapter on SPFit delves into how players evolve in geological time, optimising their reproductive odds. Thus the promise is to see how behaviour can be explained in the context of playing a long game.

Another very topical issue in the book is mirror neurons. Covered all too briefly here, given the amount of research that is ongoing. If there will ever be another edition of this book, perhaps more space could be allocated to it? ... Read more