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136-014 Evolutionary Psychology: Cross-Cultural Explanation of Social Behaviour | |
Note | Formerly available as 136-287/387. Students who have completed 136-287/387 are not eligible to enrol in this subject. |
Availability | 2nd and 3rd year |
Credit Points | 12.5 |
Coordinator | Dr Tim O'Meara |
Prerequisites | see Prerequisites. |
Semester | 2 (view timetable) |
Contact | A 1.5 hour lecture, a 1-hour tutorial per week and an optional 1-hour ethnographic film per week |
Subject Description | This subject examines whether the model of a multimodular mind proposed by evolutionary psychologists can help explain what people in different societies do. Evolutionary psychologists argue that mind modules (neural circuits) solved recurrent problems affecting reproductive fitness in ancestral societies. The subject will review the work of evolutionary psychologists, mentioning the main modules proposed to date, but concentrating on mate preference and cooperation modules. Using written and filmed examples of social behaviour around the world (primarily in the Asia-Pacific region), the subject will discuss how, and if, an understanding of mind modules can help in explaining social behaviour, and how anthropologists and other researchers in the human sciences can apply the work of evolutionary psychologists to help solve ethnological questions in diverse societies. |
Assessment | Written work totalling 1000 words and three hours of class tests. |
Prescribed Texts | A subject reader will be available.
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Search : Index : Faculty of Arts : Anthropology
Prev 136-011 Applied Anthropology: Solving Practical Problems at Home and Abroad.
Next 136-016 Sexing the Self: The Anthropology of Sex and Identity
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