Editing Evolutionary psychology (section)

==Environment of evolutionary adaptedness==
{{Main|Human evolution}}
Evolutionary psychology argues that to properly understand the functions of the brain, one must understand the properties of the environment in which the brain evolved. That environment is often referred to as the "environment of evolutionary adaptedness".<ref name=Economics-2003/>

The idea of an ''environment of evolutionary adaptedness'' was first explored as a part of [[attachment theory]] by [[John Bowlby]].<ref name=Bowlby1969>{{cite book |last=Bowlby |first=John |title=Attachment |url=https://archive.org/details/attachment01bowl |url-access=registration |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |year=1969|isbn=9780465097159 }}</ref> This is the environment to which a particular evolved mechanism is adapted. More specifically, the environment of evolutionary adaptedness is defined as the set of historically recurring selection pressures that formed a given adaptation, as well as those aspects of the environment that were necessary for the proper development and functioning of the adaptation.

Humans, the genus ''[[Homo (genus)|Homo]]'', appeared between 1.5 and 2.5 million years ago, a time that roughly coincides with the start of the [[Pleistocene]] 2.6 million years ago. Because the Pleistocene ended a mere 12,000 years ago, most human adaptations either newly evolved during the Pleistocene, or were maintained by [[stabilizing selection]] during the Pleistocene. Evolutionary psychology, therefore, proposes that the majority of human psychological mechanisms are adapted to reproductive problems frequently encountered in Pleistocene environments.<ref name=Symons1992>{{cite book |last=Symons |first=Donald |author-link=Donald Symons |chapter=On the use and misuse of Darwinism in the study of human behavior |title=The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1992 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/adaptedmindevolu0000unse/page/137 137–59] |isbn=978-0-19-510107-2 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/adaptedmindevolu0000unse/page/137 }}</ref> In broad terms, these problems include those of growth, development, differentiation, maintenance, mating, parenting, and social relationships.

The environment of evolutionary adaptedness is significantly different from modern society.<ref name=EBO-social/> The ancestors of modern humans lived in smaller groups, had more cohesive cultures, and had more stable and rich contexts for identity and meaning.<ref name="EBO-social">"social behaviour, animal." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 23 January 2011. [https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/550897/animal-social-behaviour].</ref> Researchers look to existing hunter-gatherer societies for clues as to how hunter-gatherers lived in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness.<ref name=moralanimal/> Unfortunately, the few surviving hunter-gatherer societies are different from each other, and they have been pushed out of the best land and into harsh environments, so it is not clear how closely they reflect ancestral culture.<ref name=moralanimal/> However, all around the world small-band hunter-gatherers offer a similar developmental system for the young ("hunter-gatherer childhood model," Konner, 2005; 
"evolved developmental niche" or "evolved nest;" Narvaez et al., 2013). The characteristics of the niche are largely the same as for social mammals, who evolved over 30 million years ago: soothing perinatal experience, several years of on-request breastfeeding, nearly constant affection or physical proximity, responsiveness to need (mitigating offspring distress), self-directed play, and for humans, multiple responsive caregivers. Initial studies show the importance of these components in early life for positive child outcomes.{{sfn|Narvaez|Gleason|Wang|Brooks|2013}}{{sfn|Narvaez| Wang|Gleason|Cheng|2012}}

Evolutionary psychologists sometimes look to chimpanzees, bonobos, and other [[great ape]]s for insight into human ancestral behavior.<ref name=moralanimal>Wright 1995</ref>

===Mismatches===
{{Main|Evolutionary mismatch}}

Since an organism's adaptations were suited to its ancestral environment, a new and different environment can create a mismatch. Because humans are mostly adapted to [[Pleistocene]] environments, psychological mechanisms sometimes exhibit "mismatches" to the modern environment. One example is the fact that although over 20,000 people are murdered by guns in the US annually,<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/| title = Pew Research Center| date = 26 April 2023}}</ref> whereas spiders and snakes kill only a handful, people nonetheless learn to fear spiders and snakes about as easily as they do a pointed gun, and more easily than an unpointed gun, rabbits or flowers.<ref name=Ohman2001>{{cite journal |last1=Ohman |first1=A. |last2=Mineka |first2=S. |year=2001 |title=Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning |journal=Psychological Review |volume=108 |issue=3 |pages=483–522 |url=http://instruct.uwo.ca/psychology/371g/Ohman2001.pdf |access-date=16 June 2008 |doi=10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.483 |pmid=11488376}}</ref> A potential explanation is that spiders and snakes were a threat to human ancestors throughout the Pleistocene, whereas guns (and rabbits and flowers) were not. There is thus a mismatch between humans' evolved fear-learning psychology and the modern environment.<ref name=Pinker1999>{{Cite journal |last=Pinker |first=Steve |title=How the Mind Works |journal=Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences |pages=386–89 |year=1999 |volume=882 |issue=1 |publisher=WW Norton|doi=10.1111/j.1749-6632.1999.tb08538.x |pmid=10415890 |bibcode=1999NYASA.882..119P |s2cid=222083447 }}</ref><ref name=Hagen2006>{{cite journal
 |doi=10.1016/j.tpb.2005.09.005 |pmid=16458945 |year=2006 |last1=Hagen |first1=E.H. |last2=Hammerstein |first2=P.  |title=Game theory and human evolution: a critique of some recent interpretations of experimental games |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=339–48 |journal=Theoretical Population Biology|bibcode=2006TPBio..69..339H }}</ref>

This mismatch also shows up in the phenomena of the [[supernormal stimulus]], a stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which the response evolved. The term was coined by [[Niko Tinbergen]] to refer to non-human animal behavior, but psychologist [[Deirdre Barrett]] said that supernormal stimulation governs the behavior of humans as powerfully as that of other animals. She explained junk food as an exaggerated stimulus to cravings for salt, sugar, and fats,<ref>Barrett, Deirdre. Waistland: The R/Evolutionary Science Behind Our Weight and Fitness Crisis (2007). New York: W.W. Norton. pp. 31–51.</ref> and she says that television is an exaggeration of social cues of laughter, smiling faces and attention-grabbing action.<ref>Barrett, Deirdre. Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010</ref> Magazine centerfolds and double cheeseburgers pull instincts intended for an environment of evolutionary adaptedness where breast development was a sign of health, youth and fertility in a prospective mate, and fat was a rare and vital nutrient.<ref name=abcde>{{Cite journal |title=Game theory and human evolution: A critique of some recent interpretations of experimental games
 |year=2006 |journal=Theoretical Population Biology |volume=69 |pages=339–48 |last1=Hagen |first1=E. |last2=Hammerstein |first2=P.
 |doi=10.1016/j.tpb.2005.09.005 |pmid=16458945 |issue=3|bibcode=2006TPBio..69..339H }}</ref> The psychologist [[Mark van Vugt]] recently argued that modern organizational leadership is a mismatch.<ref>Van Vugt, Mark & Ahuja, Anjana. Naturally Selected: The Evolutionary Science of Leadership (2011). New York: Harper Business.</ref> His argument is that humans are not adapted to work in large, anonymous bureaucratic structures with formal hierarchies. The human mind still responds to personalized, charismatic leadership primarily in the context of informal, egalitarian settings. Hence the dissatisfaction and alienation that many employees experience. Salaries, bonuses and other privileges exploit instincts for relative status, which attract particularly males to senior executive positions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Van Vugt |first1=Mark |last2=Ronay |first2=Richard |year=2014 |title=The Evolutionary Psychology of Leadership |journal=Organizational Psychology Review |volume=4 |pages=74–95 |doi=10.1177/2041386613493635|s2cid=145773713 }}</ref>