121-064 Evolutionary Psychology

Formerly available as 136-014 or 136-287/387. Students who have completed 136-014 or 136-287/387 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

This subject examines whether the model of a multi-modular 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. Using written and filmed examples of social behaviour around the world (primarily in the Asia-Pacific region) students 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.