Have you ever wondered why people show such different psychological tendencies? Why are most men more drawn to women with fuller figures? Why do some men have what is called a "virgin complex"? Psychologists, on the one hand, study the What — uncovering aspects of the human mind that are not yet understood — and on the other hand are curious about the Why, wanting to know why humans came to display certain distinctive psychological traits. One common framework for this is evolutionary psychology (evolutionary psychology). Building on the theory of evolution put forward by Darwin, evolutionary psychology sets out to use the idea of "survival of the fittest" to explain where the psychological phenomena of modern humans come from. So take just 4 minutes now to see exactly how psychologists fold the biological theory of evolution into psychology!
The theory of evolution
The theory of evolution holds that there is "competition among species" and "survival of the fittest". According to evolutionary theory, the traits of present-day organisms are determined by the genes of their ancestors, and reproducing and passing one's genes on to descendants is no simple matter; before it can reproduce, an organism must first survive and grow in a harsh environment, then attract the opposite sex and mate. And if those genes are to keep being passed down through later generations, an individual's genes must give that individual an advantage in surviving, growing, finding a mate and reproducing. A little abstract? Let me explain with a classic example. A very, very long time ago, the grasslands were not home only to long-necked deer; there were also short-necked deer, medium-necked deer and so on. When food was scarce, a long neck was more advantageous for survival, because long-necked deer could reach the leaves on the trees, while short-necked or medium-necked deer could only fight over the scarcer resources on the ground. As a result, the survival and reproductive chances of long-necked deer increased greatly, while the numbers of short- and medium-necked deer gradually dwindled as they died off. After a long stretch of time, the proportion of long-necked deer in the whole population rose sharply, until eventually all of the deer's offspring became long-necked. The population thus underwent evolution (becoming long-necked), and this evolution arose from "competition among species" (the deer's food) and "natural selection" (the distribution of food being decided by nature). Only the "fittest" stand the best chance of "surviving" and producing offspring, filling the gene pool of later generations with genes that favour survival.
Evolutionary psychology
In the theory of evolution, the "environment" is one factor that cannot be overlooked. To understand evolutionary psychology, we must first look at the environmental factors faced by humans in the distant past. Humans of that era lived as hunter-gatherers, and compared with other animals the human body could be called "frail and small", so when facing a dangerous natural environment, only those with suitable genes could survive. Evolutionary psychologists believe that, besides determining an individual's physiology, these genes also shape an individual's psychological traits. For example, because ancient humans had to rely on the cooperation of the group to survive in the wild, those who were less inclined to group living and who preferred to go it alone may have met with more danger in the wild, and so had fewer chances of survival than those who loved to cooperate. The genes of these "lone wolves" therefore had less opportunity to be passed on to later generations. Over many years, humans evolved a pro-social tendency, and most modern people are not opposed to cooperating and working with others.
As for why men tend to like women with fuller figures? Put simply, there is a view that the breasts and hips can indirectly signal a woman's "reproductive capacity" (and so a fuller figure also suggests being "good at bearing and raising children"), so seeking out a woman with a better figure was advantageous for a man in reproducing offspring and passing on his genes. When this gene for "liking fuller-figured partners" was widely passed on within the population, a kind of collective aesthetic emerged, and men's demands regarding women's figures came about as a result.
The formation of the virgin complex is also related to reproducing offspring. Because women bear the burden of nurturing the embryo, they can be 100% certain that their children are their own offspring, whereas men have no way of being sure that the foetus inside their partner is their own flesh and blood. Since caring for offspring requires both parties to invest a certain amount of resources, men, in order to make sure the resources they invest are truly going towards caring for their own offspring rather than a third party's, came to be more wary than women of being "cuckolded". If a partner were a virgin, then the baby she carried could only be his own flesh and blood. This is one interpretation that a psychologist has offered for the "virgin complex"; as for how true it is, that is left for each reader to judge.
That said, in psychological research that demands scientific verification, scientists have been unable to find evidence that fully supports evolutionary psychology. Even if psychologists were able to identify the genes that determine certain psychological traits, they still could not turn to fossils or other organisms, the way biology does, to verify whether evolutionary psychology is true. In some theories, evolutionary psychologists may merely be reasoning in a circle. Estimating the living conditions and habits of ancient humans from nothing more than the conjectures of historians or anthropologists, and then inferring the psychological mechanisms behind them, produces theories that are hard to test through rigorous experimental design. In the face of these methodological challenges, evolutionary psychology seems unable to produce strong evidence to support the causes of psychological phenomena, yet it remains a view consistent with the modern natural-scientific outlook. Until some other, more fitting theory or method comes along, evolutionary psychology is still a psychological paradigm worth referring to — at the very least, it offers us no shortage of interesting psychological theories.
Comments
No comments yet — share your thoughts.