Monday, May 2, 2011

Obligate vs. Facultative Adaptations

David Buss, a leader in evolutionary psychology research, lists six properties of evolved psychological mechanisms in his textbook, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind:
  1. An evolved psychological mechanism exists in the form that it does because it solved a specific problem of survival or reproduction recurrently over evolutionary history

  2. An evolved psychological mechanism is designed to take in only a narrow slice of information.

  3. The input of an evolved psychological mechanism tells an organism the particular adaptive problem it is facing.

  4. The input of an evolved psychological mechanism is transformed through decision rules into output.

  5. The output of an evolved psychological mechanism can be physiological activity, information to other psychological mechanisms, or manifest behavior.

  6. The output of evolved psychological mechanism is directed toward the solution to a specific adaptive problem.
Within these mechanisms are two different types of adaptations: obligate and facultative. Obligate adaptations are the same no matter the specific environment, but facultative adaptations are sensitive depending on the environmental variation. For example, the fact that sugar tastes sweet and the pain of scraping your knee would not change if they were experienced in a different environment. However, if when very young a person was often lied to or had promises broken by a parent, they may eventually have trust issues because of it. Their sense of trust as an adult depends on whether their parents or guardians were reliable. Evolutionary psychologists hold that facultative adaptations work like "if-then" statements.

9 comments:

  1. Hi, Julia! Just letting you know this blog post of yours was referenced on TipTap Lab's blog. It can be viewed here: http://blog.tiptaplab.com/Evolution-of-Personality-Environmental-Variation

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Julia your blog is Psychology relevant. I have read this blog very carefully. Here you talk very uncommon tips or info. This info is helpful for students. I a waiting for coming another post by you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i really like this blog of revolutionary psycology, i must say letter of recommendation writing service is also doing great job, letter of recommendation writing service gonna suggest it to my sister too, thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. in internet there are some rare article about Psychology relevant. i read some of them also yours. i thunk you write one of the best one explore more to see the sample of quality writing services.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Moreover having good grammatical skills best essay is placed as the primary tip for writing a good review.
    read more

    ReplyDelete
  6. I extremely like this blog of progressive psychology, I should state letter of proposal composing administration is additionally doing extraordinary occupation, explore more gonna recommend it to my sister as well, a debt of gratitude is in order for posting.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This was the great initiative for the peoples who have a lot of interest about irish biography. It is an good platform for the peoples who have studying about it. Good job & carry on.read here if you want to know more about the quality writing services.

    ReplyDelete