Psychology 4590 Evolutionary Psychology Spring 2004 Professor Steve Scher Office Physical Sciences 4143 www ux1 eiu edu cfsjs Office Hours Office Ph 581 7269 Home Ph 239 4262 Email cfsjs eiu edu Mondays 2 3 Tuesdays 11 30 12 30 Thursdays 2 3 Class Format This is a seminar class As a result the majority of the class will take the form of discussion of the assigned reading material As a result it is imperative that you do the assigned reading for the class before coming to class If you do not you will not be able to participate in class discussion This will mean that your learning will suffer In addition your participation grade see below will also suffer Learning Goals This class is designed to introduce students to the most common ways in which psychologists are attempting to apply ideas of evolution natural selection to the study of human thought and behavior Students will gain experience dealing with applying evolutionary logic to psychological problems will gain experience reading original evolutionary psychology research and theory and will learn about conflicts and disagreements in approaches to studying the evolution of human behavior Readings Readings for this class will come mostly from the book Human Evolutionary Psychology 2002 by Louise Barrett Robin Dunbar John Lycett There will also be some reading from Sense and Nonsense 2002 by Kevin Laland Gillian Brown Finally there will be readings taken from professional psychology journals and books Copies of these readings will be available on reserve in the library Grades Grades on this class will be based on class participation 3 papers and a group presentation Class Participation 15 Class participation grades will be based on the degree to which you participate in most class discussions and show evidence that you have read and thought about the assigned reading material Although attendance is will not be specifically factored into your grade your participation grade will suffer if you do not regularly attend class Paper 1 20 For Paper 1 you will be required to choose one of 3 approaches human behavioral ecology evolutionary psychology sociobiology to the study of the evolution of human psychology You will need to find at least one source from a professional journal or book which supports this position and at least one source from a professional journal or book which critiques the position Your task will be to summarize the different positions and to come up with your own conclusion supported by logical coherent arguments DUE MARCH 11 2004 Paper 2 20 For Paper 2 you will be required to develop a hypothesis related to evolutionary approaches to either altruism or mate selection attractiveness You will need to write a literature review that justifies or supports the reasonableness of your hypothesis DUE APRIL 1 2004 Paper 3 25 Paper 3 will be based on your group presentation see below You will be required to write a thorough review of evolutionary accounts of a particular topic emphasizing different theories of how the particular phenomenon evolved DUE MAY 3 2004 Details will be provided about each paper assignment before the due date However as we cover related material in class and reading you should be thinking about and making notes for the papers Late papers will only be accepted under very exceptional circumstances You should prepare your paper enough in advance to deal with problems like broken printers slow internet connections etc I will be happy to review rough drafts of papers However you must provide me with drafts at least 1 1 2 weeks before you want me to give it back to you Group Presentation 20 For your group presentation each group will choose one of the following topics Language Homosexuality Culture Jealousy Mental Illness Taste or Food Preferences Disgust Landscape Preferences Child Abuse The group will be required to develop a class length presentation on the topic teaching the rest of the class what evolutionary psychologists think about the evolution of each topic PRESENTED ON APRIL 15 29 Tentative Class Schedule Date Topic Reading January 13 Introduction This Course Outline January 15 Introduction BDL Ch 1 LB Ch 1 January 20 History of Evolutionary Psychology Sociobiology LB Ch 2 Scher Rauscher 2003 pp 1 9 LB Ch 3 January 22 The Basics of Evolutionary Theory BDL Ch 2 January 27 The Basics of Evolutionary Theory January 29 NO CLASS February 3 Human Behavioral Ecology February 5 Human Behavioral Ecology February 10 Evolutionary Psychology Adaptationism LB pp 186 194 Sterelny Griffiths pp 324 332 Symons 1992 pp 140 145 Pinker 1997 pp 165 174 LB Ch 5 Cosmides Tooby 1997 February 12 Adaptationism Scher Rauscher 2003 pp 9 19 Sterelny Griffiths 1999 pp 43 48 February 17 TBA TBA February 19 Critiques of Adaptationism Sterelny Griffiths 1999 pp 224 228 Gould 1997a 1997b Dennett Wright Gould 1997 February 24 Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness LB pp 161 162 177 182 Foley 1997 pp 205 212 Functionalism Modularity BDL Ch 10 LB pp 162 163 182 186 Cosmides Tooby 1997 Principle 4 Different neural circuits are specialized for solving different adaptive problems February 26 March 2 Modularity March 4 TBA LB Ch 4 TBA March 9 Kin Altruism BDL Ch 3 Burnstein Crandall Kitayama 1994 March 11 Kin Altruism March 16 Spring Break NO CLASS March 18 Spring Break NO CLASS March 23 Reciprocal Altruism BDL Ch 4 March 25 Is there such a thing as pure altruism TBA March 30 Mate Choice Attractiveness Introduction BDL Ch 5 April 1 More on Mate Choice Kenrick et al 1994 Simpson Gangested 1992 April 6 Group Project Work April 8 The Parental Investment Model April 13 Group Project Work April 15 29 Group Presentations BDL Ch 7 Readings listed in bold face are recommended but not required BDL stands for Barrett Dunbar Lycett 2002 LB stands for Laland Brown 2002 Notice that Cosmides Tooby 1997 is a webpage on the internet READING LIST BIBLIOGRAPHY Barrett L Dunbar R Lycett J 2002 Human Evolutionary Psychology Princeton N J Princeton University Press Burnstein E Crandall C Kitayama S 1994 Some neo Darwinian decision rules for altruism Weighing cues for inclusive fitness as a function of the biological importance of the decision Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73 481 494 Cosmides L Tooby J 1997 Evolutionary Psychology A Primer Available at http www psych ucsb edu research cep primer html Gould S J 1997a June 12 Darwinian Fundamentalism The New York Review of Books XLIV 10 34 37 Gould S J 1997a June 26 Evolution The Pleasures