The Functional Mind: Readings in Evolutionary Psychology

by Douglas T. Kenrick, Carol L. Luce

This work demonstrates how evolutionary perspectives can shed the same light on human thought and behaviour as they have shed on the behaviours of species from earthworms to chimpanzees.

336 pages, Paperback

First published October 17, 2003

About the author

Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. His research and writing integrate three scientific syntheses of the last few decades: evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and dynamical systems theory. He is author of over 170 scientific articles, books, and book chapters, the majority applying evolutionary ideas to human cognition and behavior.

His father and brother both spent several years in Sing Sing, but he broke the family tradition and went to graduate school to study psychology. He studied social psychology under Robert B. Cialdini and received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 1976. He has edited several books on evolutionary psychology, contributed chapters to the Handbook of Social Psychology and the Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, and been an author of two multi-edition textbooks (Psychology, with John Seamon; and Social Psychology: Goals in Interaction, with Steven Neuberg and Robert B. Cialdini). He writes a blog for Psychology Today magazine, titled Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life. He has a forthcoming book of the same title.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF READINGS OVER A WIDE RANGE OF AREAS

The editors wrote in the Introduction to this 2004 book, "In researching readings for this collection... Our selection of readings was driven by several criteria: We wanted to represent the whole field of psychology... We wanted to expose students to the fundamental principles of evolutionary psychology... We favored shorter articles that emphasize empirical findings over longer theoretical treatises... We leaned toward the 'psychology' side of evolutionary psychology." (Pg. vi-vii) They add, "These readings... demonstrate, at a minimum, that an evolutionary perspective can raise interesting questions, lead us to look in new places, and help us to see our connections with other humans and other living organisms." (Pg. xi)

One author admits, "Given the obstacles to well-being---discrepancies between modern and ancestral environments, evolved emotional mechanisms designed to cause subjective distress, and the existence of psychological mechanisms that are inherently competitive---it is clear that an evolutionary perspective does not offer easy or facile solutions to the problems of improving psychological well-being and the quality of life. In fact, they reveal how difficult such solutions will be to achieve. Nonetheless, evolutionary psychology does provide insights into how some of the more unpleasant and damaging features of the human condition might be ameliorated." (Pg. 8)

Another essayist says, "Female mate choice is likely to be strongly driven by judgements about attractiveness that may, in the long evolutionary haul, derive from concerns with potency, sexual maturity, dominance, and a preference for 'sexy' sons who will increase her inclusive fitness... That women evaluate men in terms of more than just their likely resource investment in offspring is also indicated by the prevalence of women's short-term liaisons and extramarital affairs." (Pg. 195-196)

Still another suggests, "Given that men and women should have differed in level of parental investment in offspring during evolutionary history... evolutionary theorists ... have suggested that these sex differences may reflect different reproductive strategies. Specifically, males in our ancestral past should have been selected to be more sexually permissive and to prefer mates who possessed attributes reasonably indicative of youth and high fertility/reproductive value... Females, on the other hand, should have been selected to be less permissive ... and to desire mates who possessed abundant resources and/or offered evidence of high paternal investment." (Pg. 265-266)

Another essay states, "an evolutionary model can explain a number of gender differences in mate selection that are difficult to explain with a 'tabula rasa' cultural relativist position... one would expect social norms to reflect and interact with biological constraints... Models based solely on cultural norms can explain isolated findings but have difficulty incorporating the emerging nomological network of findings. Such models also have difficulty explaining where the cultural norms came from or why the norms are so similar across different societies." (Pg. 299)

This is a broad and well-balanced collection, that will be very helpful to persons studying evolutionary psychology.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book. I considered it for a class in evolutionary psychology but I thought it was probably a little too heavy for most of my undergraduates, and it didn't have a lot of exciting examples that I thought would be beneficial to students.