Evolutionary Psychology

Why are we attracted to beauty? Why do we fall in love? Why do we die? Can all these be related to the way our bodies, brains, and minds are made up of? It is widely accepted that the brain underpinning human psychology is the result of biological evolution but the evolutionary perspective is usually not incorporated into the research of psychology and other related fields.

This is partially related to the long-standing idea that biology doesn't matter much that there is no human nature but rather, our nature is made by learning and culture. Although this view is not widely accepted anymore, there is still resistance to the adoption of the evolutionary perspective which is a problem deriving from various reasons such as motivated opposition or misguided skepticism.

The course first addresses these and then introduces the evolutionary perspective for the examination of human behavior, a field which can be described as Evolutionary Psychology (EP), a theoretical lens for all branches of psychology. It is linked to disciplines as diverse as anthropology, biology, economics, and sociology and it is interdisciplinary by nature. From a Darwinian standpoint, there is nothing more influential than sex playing a direct role in the transmission of genes.

Thus, topics such as mate selection is examined as the universality of human behavior by linking the evolutionary history of problems related to reproduction. Similarly, other problems of survival, group living, parenting, and kinship will be examined as adaptation of the human mind. Therefore the course serves as a window to the mechanisms of the mind that are relevant to the questions for what it means to be a human being.