PSYA3 Evo food

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  • Evolutionary Food Preferences
    • A01
      • Suggests our food preferences have evolved from our ancestors, but to explain our food preferences using our ancestors we must look at the environment they lived in.
        • The environment of evolutionary adaptation (EEA) refers to the environment in which species first evolved.
      • Early humans had diets that included animals and plants of the natural environment. Preferences for fatty foods would have been adaptive but because of the conditions in the EEA, meant energy resources were vital to stay alive.
        • Modern humans are more concerned about nutrients but often focus on foods rich in calories but calories were not always available as they are now so it makes us more bothered about them now.
          • However, this may not always be the case, a trait that is beneficial such as low cholesterol would not have evolved because of the effects on our ancestors.
      • Many things that were important to our ancestors would be harmful in a modern environment which suggests that we're likely to avoid them for survival.
      • Food preferences can be explained by our choice to eat meat. Human ancestors began to include meat in their diet to make up for the lack of quality in plant foods.
        • Evidence from hunter-gathers suggests their daily diet was drived from animal-based foods rich in energy.
          • Milton claimed that without animals it is unlikely that early humans could have secured enough nutrition from a vegetarian diet to evolve to who are are today.
      • Meat preferences can be used to explain our preferences because it suggests we eat meat in order to evolve and secure survival through the nutrition.
      • Taste aversion can also be used, it was known as bait shyness which means being afraid to eat something due to fear of becoming ill.
    • A02
      • There is research into meat-eating as Kendrick studied cultural groups around the world for how they lived and found the common factor was their vegetarianism suggesting there is a price to pay for meat eating which is having a shorter lifespan.
      • Research has found taste and colour can be linked to illness and to the development of taste aversion. This can be used to explain our food preferences as it could have helped our ancestors to survive because if they were lucky enough to survive eating a poisoned food, they wouldn't do it again.
        • Taste aversion has real world application because it has been helpful in understanding helpfulness avoiding foods. Food avoidance can occur during the treatment of cancer. Treatments such as chemo can cause stomach illness, when the illness is paired with food consumption taste aversion occurs.
          • Branstein and Webster gave Ps novel ice creams prior to treatment and as expected, patients acquired taste aversion to the ice creams.
      • Researchers have tried explaining taste aversion in humans.
        • Siegman claimed that different species have evolved in different ways. The natural selection of differential learning has occurred so that each species has the ability to learn associations more easily than others. This research supports food preferences as it suggests we've evolved in different ways to enhance survival.
      • A lot of research has been lab-based controlled observations which may lack ecological validity and make it hard to generalise.

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