Evolutionary Approach
- Created by: abirudd
- Created on: 13-03-15 12:20
View mindmap
- Evolutionary Explanation of Gender
- Evo Approach
- Gender differences occur due to selective pressures in the past that shaped behaviour
- The time of evolutionary adaptation (40 and 10 thousand years ago) is the most important - our ancestors were hunter gatherers
- Gender differences are due to natural and sexual selection, the processes ensured behaviours which aid survival and reproduction are kept in the gene pool
- Natural selection is for behaviours and bodily features which allow an animal to compete sucessfully for food or shelter to survive
- Sexual selection is for behaviours that allow the animal to successfully compete for mates and to reproduce
- Trivers - gender differences come from parental investment - increases the offspring's chance of survival at the cost of the parent's ability to invest in other offspring.
- Behaviours leading to reproductive success are different for men and women and still exist today due to genome lag.
- Evidence for Evo Approach
- Human males are on average 1.15X larger than females - size and weight were characteristics that enabled men to compete successfully for females
- Males show more aggression across nearly all cultures than women and are more likely to be convicted of a violent crime, so male aggression may have a genetic basis - testosterone
- When women undergo a sex change they receive testosterone - Van Goozen at al found they had increased aggressive feelings after treatment.
- Clark and Hatfield - attitudes to casual sex: 75% of men agreed to casual sex with an attractive female stranger, no females agreed to casual sex with an attractive male
- Problems with the Evolutionary approach
- Ideas can't be tested with scientific methods as we can't go back to the EEA to see how people behaved
- Female choosiness can be explained by cultural pressures - in most cultures female chastity is coerced (maybe not adaptation)
- Assumes male and female differences are to aim reproducutive success
- Sternglanz and Nash - Males sleeping around doesn't aid reproductive success as offspring are less likely to survive ini EEA if they don't stick around
- Explains unacceptable behaviour (****) has 'natural'.
- Thornhill and Palmer - **** is a tactic enabling men who can't reproduce with consent to be successful by resorting to sexual violence.
- Why are some **** victims young children and older women (non-reproductive age)
- Thornhill and Palmer - **** is a tactic enabling men who can't reproduce with consent to be successful by resorting to sexual violence.
- Hagen - Out of date and ignores advances in archaeology and anthropology - evo psychologists should update their understanding
- Evo Approach
Comments
No comments have yet been made