Explore the evolutionary roots of human behavior and learn about the psychological mechanisms of the Stone Age that govern our modern-day behavior. Evolutionary psychology explains the fundamentals of human behavior—those hard-wired tendencies that make us human before social conditioning has a chance to imprint itself upon us.
This article will explore the psychology of fatherless daughters in light of evolutionary theory. There are broadly two types of heterosexual mating strategies that humans pursue: short-term and the long-term mating strategy. Short-term mating strategy means forming brief relationships with multiple partners while a long-term mating strategy means forming an enduring relationship, typically with one …
This article will attempt to explain the psychology of gangs and gang violence in men using the concept of a dominance hierarchy. Timmy, a boy of fifth grade, was eating lunch at school, relishing his delectable dish in the peace and quiet of the school’s dining hall. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Jimmy and his friends …
Evolution has rendered female sexuality more valuable than male sexuality. There are two major reasons behind this: First, human males produce huge quantities of sperm while females produce only a limited number of eggs. Second, human females invest much more in offspring than males. The result being that female sexuality is a scarce and much …
Why do people go to war? Why do humans engage in warfare at all? At first blush, engaging in warfare seems to make no evolutionary sense. After all, if survival and reproduction are our core needs, why would we ever want to engage in an activity where the chances of us getting killed are so high? To …
The bell rang, and the high school kids rushed out with vigor as if released from prison. As they were leaving their classrooms, boys and girls showed different kinds of behaviors. While the girls walked slowly and with grace, boys could be seen doing a number of thing,s such as kicking one another, tripping and hitting …
This article will look at why physical aggression is so prevalent in men from an evolutionary perspective. Understanding the evolutionary benefits of aggression for men may provide insights into what circumstances trigger such behavior. But first, consider the following scenario: The boy was just fourteen and he had blood smeared all over the front of …
Where does our tendency to cooperate come from?Is it natural for us to cooperate or is it the result of social learning? It’s tempting to think that we’re born as non-cooperative beasts that need to be tamed via education and learning. The whole idea of ‘human civilization’ revolves around the assumption that humans have somehow …
Reciprocal altruism or reciprocity in psychology is defined as the tendency of people to return favors. While reciprocal altruism is observed in kin relationships, it’s common in friendships. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that friendships and other non-kin relationships are based on reciprocal altruism. Consider the following scenario: It was the birthday of …
Why do poor people have so many kids while those higher up the social hierarchy tend to have fewer children? Numerous factors have come together to make the evolution of family possible in us homo sapiens. Typically, families evolve in the animal kingdom when individuals can increase their odds of reproductive success by staying close …
To understand what causes parental favoritism, let’s look at these two hypothetical scenarios: Scenario 1 Jenny always felt that her parents favoured her younger sister over her. She knew it wasn’t due to the age factor since she was only a few months older than her sister. Also, she was more hardworking, studious, calm-tempered and helping than …