Human Evolutionary Psychology

Human evolutionary psychology is the amalgamation of two sciences -- evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology. It is the approach of explaining human behavior based on the combination of evolutionary biology, anthropology, cognitive science, and the neurosciences. Human evolutionary psychology applies principles of evolutionary biology, in particular the logic of adaptationism to derive and test hypotheses about the structure of the human mind. Since it is an approach, it can be applied to any of a wide range of areas of psychology such as clinical psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, perception, language, judgment and decision making, and so on. It is a hybrid discipline drawing insights from modern evolutionary theory, cognitive psychology, anthropology, economics and palaeoarcheology.

Human evolutionary psychology has been applied to the study of many fields, including economics, aggression, law, psychiatry, politics, literature, and sex. It is based on the presumption that, just like hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys, and immune systems, cognition has functional structure that has a genetic basis, and therefore has evolved by natural selection.

Human evolutionary psychology is the science that looks for to explain through universal mechanisms of behavior why humans act the way they do. It seeks to rebuild problems that our ancestors faced in their prehistoric environments, and the problem-solving mechanisms they formed to meet those particular challenges. From these reconstructed problem-solving adaptations, the science then attempts to set up the common roots of our ancestral actions, and how those common behavioral roots are manifested these days in the extensively scattered cultures of the world. The objective is to comprehend human behavior that is universally aimed at the passing of one's genes into the next generation.

Human evolutionary psychology is an approach to the complete discipline viewing human nature as a universal set of evolved psychological adaptations to chronic problems in the ancestral environment. At the core of evolutionary psychology is the conviction that all humans on the planet have inbo
areas in their brains which have precise knowledge that help them adapt to local environments. These areas are highly specialized, and only activate when the information is needed. These areas give the brain specific step by step instructions that have evolved from our ancestral pasts to adapt to all situations, including the situations that we face today. But since our brains were conditioned to live in deep history, and not to modern conditions, the result is a gray area between genes and culture that drives some humans into depressive states.

Well, if we are not suited for the modern world, how and why did we make it this far? Well socialization norms and cultures at local environments do have greater influence on our behaviors than some behaviorists wish to admit.

It is precisely questions like these that human evolutionary psychology attempts to answer.