Evolutionary explanation of eating behaviour
- Created by: Jack
- Created on: 11-05-15 09:26
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- Evolutionary explanation of eating behaviour
- AO1
- All behaviour are adapted to survival
- Taste preferences are an adaptive response
- 1) Preference for sweet/carbo-hydrates for high energy.
- 2) Avoid bitter (as poisons taste bitter)
- 3) Avoid sour (food that has gone off/is rotten taste sour)
- 4) Taste aversion (avoiding things that have made us sick in the past)
- 5) Neophobia (fear of new food - as they haven't been tasted)
- 6) Over time we have an increased preference for high protein food.
- This is thought to have lead to increased brain size, which is advantageous evolutionary.
- Innate drive to survive
- Taste preferences are an adaptive response
- All behaviour are adapted to survival
- AO2
- STUDIES
- Garcia - fed wolves poisoned sheep. This made them sick, and then didn't eat sheep again (even when in a field full of them).
- Supports theory as this is evidence for adaptive behaviours, such as taste aversion.
- Desor - newborn babies liked sweet drinks and disliked bitter ones.
- Supports theory as it shows evidence for dislike of bitter, preference for high energy foods and shows innate behaviour (rather than behaviour being learnt)
- Garcia - fed wolves poisoned sheep. This made them sick, and then didn't eat sheep again (even when in a field full of them).
- DEBATES
- Determinism
- Fails to explain why some people are anorexic, which is a threat to life and gene survival (because of amenorrhoea), or obesity where health is seriously affected.
- Can't explain individual differences (e.g. vegetarianism, liking sour,etc)
- Reductioni-sm
- Ignores environmental factors like SLT and peer pressure.
- Should produce a testable hypothesis, but can't as evolution has happened over a long period of time.
- Determinism
- ISSUES
- Culture
- Explain cultural variations, as they are an adaptive response to food availability.
- Culture
- REAL WORLD APPLICATI-ON
- Traffic light system shows nutritional value of food, as it is more difficult to tell nowadays.
- RESEARCH METHODS
- Could be learned behaviour (which is an uncontrolled extraneous variable).
- Animal studies can't be generalised to humans as we don't know the similarities.
- Also ethics of of putting wolves off normal diet/making them suffer.
- STUDIES
- AO1
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