Evolutionary Psychology and Emotions: A Species-Typical Computational Design
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/ths.2019.002Keywords
evolutionary psychology, mind, emotions, natural selection, superordinate program, cognitionAbstract
Abstract. Evolutionary psychology is a major naturalistic approach to knowledge. It begins from a fundamental observation: the human brain is the product of natural selection trying to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. In this paper, I describe this approach and focus on the emotions, an important aspect of mental life. Emotions, I argue, are a superordinate program that evolved to coordinate the activity of other programs in the solution of typical adaptive problems.
References
Adenzato, M., & Meini, C. (Eds.). (2006). Psicologia evoluzionistica. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
Al-Shawaf, L., Conroy-Beam, D., Asao, K., & Buss, D. M. (2016). Human emotions: An evolutionary psychological perspective. Emotion Review, 8, 173–186.
Blair, R. J. R. (2003). Facial expressions, their communicatory functions and neuro-cognitive substrates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 358(1431), 561–572.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss. Vol. 1. Attachment. New York: Basic Books. Bruni, D. (2017). Psicologia evoluzionistica. Dal cervello del Pleistocene alla mente moderna. Rome: Carocci.
Buss, D. (1995). Evolutionary psychology: A new paradigm for psychological science. Psychological Inquiry, 6, 1–30.
Buss, D. M. (2012). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Chenhall, R. H. (2003). Management control systems design within its organizational context: Findings from contingency-based research and directions for the future. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 28(2), 127–168.
Chomsky, N. (1959). A review of B. F. Skinner’s verbal behavior. Language, 35, 26–58.
Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). Cognitive adaptations for social exchange. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and generation of culture (pp. 163–228). New York- Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1995). From function to structure: The role of evolutionary biology and computational theories in cognitive neuroscience. In M. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences (pp. 1199–1210). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured race in the struggle for life. London: Murray.
Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: Murray.
Ekman, P. (1973). Darwin and facial expression: A century of research in review. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3–4), 169–200.
Fodor, J. (1975). The language of thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Fodor, J. (1983). The modularity of the mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Izard, C. E. (1993). Four systems for emotion activation: Cognitive and noncognitive processes. Psychological Review, 100(1), 68–90.
Lang, P. J. (1995). The emotion probe: Studies of motivation and attention. American Psychologist, 50(5), 372–385.
Lang, P. J. (2010). Emotion and motivation: Toward consensus definitions and a common research purpose. Emotion Review, 2, 229–233.
Matsumoto, D., Hee Yoo, S., & Chung, J. (2010). The expression of anger across cultures. In M. Potegal, G. Stemmler, & C. Speilberger (Eds.), International handbook of anger (pp. 125–137). Springer: New York.
Nesse, R. M. (1990). Evolutionary explanations of emotions. Human Nature, 1(3), 261–289.
Oatley, K., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1987). Towards a cognitive theory of emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 1(1), 29–50.
Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Plutchik, R. (1980). Emotion: A psychoevolutionary synthesis. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Plutchik, R. (1991). The emotions. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Putnam, H. (1967). Psychological predicates. In W. H. Capitan & D. D. Merril (Eds.),
Art, mind, and religion (pp. 37–48). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Sell, A., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2014). The human anger face evolved to enhance cues of strength. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35(5), 425–429.
Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Symons, D. (1987). If we’re all Darwinians, what’s the fuss about? In C. Crawford, M. Smith, & D. Krebs (Eds.), Sociobiology and psychology: Ideas, issues and applications (pp. 121–145).
Hilsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Symons, D. (1992). On the use and misuse of Darwinism in the study of human behavior. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 137–159). New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sznycera, D., Tooby, J., Cosmides, L., Poratc, R., Shalvie, S., & Halperinc, E. (2016). Shame closely tracks the threat of devaluation by others, even across cultures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(10), 2625–2630.
Sznycera, D., Xygalatasd, D., Agey, E., Alami, S., An, X., Ananyeva, K. I., [...] Tooby, J. (2018). Cross-cultural invariances in the architecture of shame. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(39), 9702–9707.
Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2003). Shame and guilt. New York: Guilford Press. Tinbergen, N. (1951). The study of instinct. Oxford: Clarendon.
Tomkins, S. S. (1984). Affect theory. In K. R. Scherer & P. Ekman (Eds.), Approaches to emotion (pp. 163–195). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1990). The past explains the present: Emotional adaptions and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethology and Sociobiology, 11,
–424.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and generation of culture (pp. 19–136). New York- Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (2008). The evolutionary psychology of the emotions and their relationship to internal regulatory variables. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 114–137). NY: Guilford.
Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20, 158–177.
Williams, G. C. (1966). Adaptation and natural selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 982
Number of citations: 0
