This book explores the applications of Darwinian thinking to all the areas normally covered in an introductory psychology course and introduces readers to this distinct approach to the field of psychology.KEY TOPICS: The differences between evolutionary psychology and the more traditional non-evolutionary approach are mapped in Chapter 1. Provides a clear, integrative viewpoint on all of psychology. For readers interested in a distinct approach to the study of psychology.
This theory, long the cornerstone of biology, is now beginning to reshape the social and human sciences. Just as selection has sculpted hearts, lungs and livers for specific functions, the human mind too can best be understood in the light of what it was designed to do. This text is the first to show the relevance of evolutionary thinking to the entire range of psychological phenomena, and it does so at a level appropriate for introductory students.
Drawing on their considerable interdisciplinary expertise, Gaulin and McBurney first lay out the fundamentals of modern evolutionary theory. Then they systematically apply this theory to questions from every domain of psychology: learning, cognition, perception, emotion, development, pathology, and more.
This approach has three significant benefits; It forms a bridge that joins psychology with the rest of the life sciences; it provides a powerful and easily mastered basis for hypothesis generation; and it offers an explanatory framework that, for the first time, unites all of psychology. The result is a text that is exciting for both student and professor.