Editing Evolutionary psychology (section)

===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>