Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:18:40.520Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evolutionary psychology and Bayesian modeling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2011

Laith Al-Shawaf  and
David Buss
Laith Al-Shawaf
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712. [email protected]
David Buss
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The target article provides important theoretical contributions to psychology and Bayesian modeling. Despite the article's excellent points, we suggest that it succumbs to a few misconceptions about evolutionary psychology (EP). These include a mischaracterization of evolutionary psychology's approach to optimality; failure to appreciate the centrality of mechanism in EP; and an incorrect depiction of hypothesis testing. An accurate characterization of EP offers more promise for successful integration with Bayesian modeling.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , August 2011 , pp. 188 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bracha, H. S. (2004) Freeze, flight, fight, fright, faint: Adaptationist perspectives on the acute stress response spectrum. CNS Spectrums 9:679–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buss, D. M. (2011) Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind, 4th edition. Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M., Haselton, M. G., Shackelford, T. K., Bleske, A. L. & Wakefield, J. C. (1998) Adaptations, exaptations, and spandrels. American Psychologist 53:533–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Confer, J. C., Easton, J. A., Fleischman, D. S., Goetz, C. D., Lewis, D. M. G., Perilloux, C. & Buss, D. M. (2010) Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations. American Psychologist 65:110–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawkins, R. (1982) The extended phenotype. W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. & Lewontin, R. (1979) The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences 205:581–98.Google Scholar
Neuhoff, J. G. (2001) An adaptive bias in the perception of looming auditory motion. Ecological Psychology 13:87–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Öhman, A., Flykt, A. & Esteves, F. (2001) Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 130:466–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tinbergen, N. (1963) On aims and methods of ethology. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 20:410–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1992) The psychological foundations of culture. In: The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J., pp. Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J., Oxford University Press.Google Scholar