Evolutionary psychology

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Anyone else familiar with this? It sells itself on going against the PC narrative, but it seems to imply that genetics are completely responsible for the way in which we behave, and that experience means nothing.

As people who do not behave how we are "supposed to," I am curious if anyone here thinks that evo-psych holds any validity. Many people think it is just a way to explain racism and misogyny with science. Even if most stereotypes are true, what about the exceptions? Can exceptions be explained through evo-psych?

Does evo-psych even apply to people who are not NT?

Last edited by TheHaywire on 28 Jul 2013, 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Personally, I find that evo-psyche is a load of crap.

Ethology (the study of the behavior of animals) is one of my special interests, and every time I read something written by an "evolutionary psychologist," they seem to lack the basic understanding of how animals ACTUALLY behave. For example, I hear a lot about "alpha males" on certain sections of WP. It would be nice if these "evo-psyche" types would take a few moments to learn what "alpha males" really are and stop relying on silly cartoon stereotypes.

Seeing as how it tends to run against one of my special interests, I find "evo-psyche" particularly odious. It's based almost entirely on speculation and guesswork.

Most of what I've heard about evo psych seems to fit into the category of "just so stories."

And it seems I am not alone in this perception:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/b ... ntPage=all

It is also related to PUA, which is a way for men to assert their sexual dominance because they are lacking in other areas. I had the strange experience of being immersed in a group full of these types of people, so I know them from the inside out. I think evo-psych is great for people who behave like everyone else with their genetics, but for those of us who act in a way that our blood cannot define... what are we to make of all this? If women are hard-wired to act like fragile princess types, are woman on the autistic spectrum outside of science? What about men? If they are hard-wired to want sex and violence, are autistic men not really men?

I've seen very little evidence that even "normal" people can be so easily summed-up by evo-psyche either.

I see evo psych as relevant to Aspergers, in the sense that we are victims of it, so to speak.
Dr. Tony Atwood recently referred to Aspies as "prey animals", and in the evo psych context, he is fairly accurate.
Not just in terms of bullying and harassment based on their inherent differences, but also...since few Aspies become successful with the opposite sex and produce offspring, and their traits generally repel potential mates rather than attract them.

I always found it a paradox that Aspergers has been referred to as a "developmental disability" yet WE are the ones who discard evolutionary norms like prejudging people, sticking in a group and not welcoming outsiders once the group is formed, excessive reliance on nonverbal communication, spontaneous responses as opposed to in-depth/enlightened thinking...these are all ingrained behaviours that people have had for thousands of years, but much of them are obsolete as we are not nomadic hunter-gatherer societies anymore.

My 2 cents!!

Generally speaking, humans are not prey animals to other humans.

That article kicked butt.

Bookmarked!

I think this sums up my thoughts on evo-psyche quite well:

Evo psychology is more concerned with, pardon my phrase, the human crotch and breeding and validating it's own strange thoughts on the human crotch and breeding.

I don't really give it much validity, as to me it's a load of crap. As someone said before, it's pretty much a bunch of guesswork based on some of the behaviors of non-human great apes, even though these great apes tend to have the emotional restraint of a two year old.

I don't know enough about the subject yet to form a valid opinion, but I am about to read a book by a Dutch neurobiologist called We are our brain, which sort of draws similar conclusions, claiming most of what you do is preprogrammed by your brain, and we are not truly in control of what happens in our lives.

I've been hunting for this book for months in the library, and finally got it Friday, so I am thrilled to find out more about subjects similar to this one .

I'm just going to follow this thread for now.

Brilliant.

I'm concerned that evolutionary psychology is becoming powerful with the new generation. With Obama in office it appears that "liberals have all the power," and evo-psych is being marketed as a rebellion against that establishment. PUA is teaching "beta males" to treat women in an abusive way to become "alpha." The theory is that women only want men who treat them poorly, and that men only want women who are stupid. (yet extremely sexual) If everything is a supposed mating strategy, why do we exist?

None of us in the AS community act like our gender stereotypes, let alone see the mating selection process as a primary dating strategy. We are in a position to refute evolutionary psychology, are we not? If every man and every woman cares only for the breeding selection process, the evo-psych community has simply failed to recognize that not everyone in this world is neurotypical.

I would love to see an evo-psych type include non-NT's in their "studies," if you can even call them that. My guess is that they would have very different results.

That sums up my thoughts on it.

The article I linked makes a point that much of evo psycho data is generated from college students, who are themselves anything but typical.

When I've encountered evo psych proponents, they tend to make excuses why people who do not fit into their theories exist. Usually in such a way as to eliminate such people from consideration.

I don't know enough about evo-psych to give a super-informed opinion on it, but I feel like it's suffered from a lot of unfortunate focus on why stereotypes exist, and the subsequent justification of holding these stereotypes by, for example, the PUA types that the OP mentioned. I also can't see its findings being based, or even being able to be based on as solid of evidence as a lot of other branches of psychology.

Does this mean I think it's an utterly worthless branch of psychology? No. I think that it's absolutely foolish to think that we should ignore the role of evolutionary pressures in forming human, or other animal behaviors. But in order for findings in evo-psych to hold real weight, they'd have to be found based on scientifically rigorous methods and with legitimate evidence, and I feel that the popular conception of what evo-psych has discovered, what with all its talk of "alpha-males" and such, is based off of some pretty questionable conjecture and over-simplification of said conjecture. I also think it's a bad idea to base one's understanding of psychology wholly off of any single branch of the science. No single branch of psychology can fully account for all human behavior.

In reference to the OP's later post regarding people on the spectrum refuting evo psych due to not fitting gender stereotypes, I'm not so sure that I'd agree with this. People on the spectrum make up a relatively small fraction of humanity, and thus our tendency towards non-normative behavior does little to radically alter the way that most people act.

Their studies do not include us. How can an entire field exist that does not acknowledge an entire segment of the population?

"When I've encountered evo psych proponents, they tend to make excuses why people who do not fit into their theories exist. Usually in such a way as to eliminate such people from consideration."

I'm curious to hear what these excuses are. Eliminate anyone from consideration who doesn't fit their theories? Can you elaborate?

If this is how they are defining humanity and evolution, we are not human beings. If there is anyone on the autistic spectrum who feels evolutionary psychology accurately represents you, please speak now.

Otherwise I will be forced to conclude that evolutionary psychology is a neurotypical-only zone.

Because we have psychiatric labels based on disorders. But that is hardly confined to just evo psych, but the same reasoning is used in much of psychology as well in order not to have to deal with problems with psychology-theories of the neurotypical mind.



The excuses why we don't fit into "human universals" apparently is that these things can be found in every culture, which is their criteria. Because neurotypicals are part of every culture, they can get away with that.



I'm on the Yahoo evo psych group and agree with much of your complaints, The problem is that all evolutionary hypotheses are based on humans being a single species that originated in Africa. Because of that assumption, they cannot form different evolutionary reasons for neurotypicals and neurodiverse. But if evolutionary psychology instead used a two-factor model, it might successfully be able to explain both neurotypical and neurodiverse behaviors. But that won't happen as long as ASDs are just medical labels, and the idea that humans are a single species prevails.