Montag, 31. August 2015

An interview with Frank Salter: "Social Costs of Diversity"

Social Costs of Diversity (2014)

Game:

Peter Frost:

Finally, there’s “game.” My attitude toward game is like my attitude toward gender reassignment. Both are attempts to push the envelope of phenotypic plasticity beyond its usual limits, and neither can fully achieve the desired result. A lot of boys aren’t wired for game, and there are good reasons why, just as there are good reasons why some people are born male. Male shyness isn’t a pathology. It’s an adaptation to a social environment that values monogamy and high paternal investment while stigmatizing sexual adventurism. Our war on male shyness reflects our perverse desire to create a society of Don Juans and single mothers.

But if game works, why not? Whatever floats your boat.

Mittwoch, 26. August 2015

Love, Trust, and Evolution: Nurturance/Love and Trust as Two Independent Attachment Systems Underlying Intimate Relationships

Kevin MacDonald, Emily Anne Patch, Aurelio Jose Figueredo (2015)


Abstract

Previous research has indicated two dimensions of attachment, Avoidance and Anxiety. The main purpose of this paper is to show that Avoidance is better conceptualized as Nurturance/Love within an evolved systems perspective on personality, and that such a reinterpretation provides a straightforward way of interpreting age changes in patterns of sex differences and heritability of attachment. The Anxiety dimension found in attachment research is conceptualized as trust in the face of threat resulting from an Internal Working Model based on experiences with the mother in situations pulling for fear and influenced by individual differences in the personality system of emotionality/neuroticism. Literature is reviewed showing that the two dimensions of Nurturance/Love and Trust have important differences, including different evolutionary functions and phylogeny, as well as different emotions, brain mechanisms, and patterns of sex differences and heritability. This model is investigated using two versions of the Experiences in Close Relationships Survey yielding measures of Anxiety and Avoidance, and the Interpersonal Adjective Scale-Revised-Big 5, the latter chosen because this personality measure is designed to measure Nurturance/Love in a manner more consistent with an evolutionary perspective on close relationships. 635 subjects participated in the study. Results supported the hypotheses of a strong negative association between Nurturance/Love and Avoidance as measured by the ECR and no association between Nurturance/Love and Anxiety as measured by the ECR. Results support the view that there are two systems underlying close relationships, Nurturance/Love as a physiological reward system designed to motivate close relationships and parental investment, and a Trust mechanism that functions to produce expectations of trust that others will help under conditions of personal threat.

Dienstag, 11. August 2015

The Evolutionary Future of Psychopathology

The Evolutionary Future of Psychopathology
Marco Del Giudice (2015)


Highlights

o Evolutionary theory helps explain the origin and development of psychopathology.

o Recent evolutionary work has implications for taxonomies of mental disorders.

o Evolutionary psychopathology offers an integrative framework for the discipline.



Abstract

Evolutionary approaches to psychopathology have made considerable progress over the last years. In this paper, I review recent advances in the field focusing on three core themes: the role of trade-offs and conflicts in the origins mental disorders, the evolution of developmental mechanisms, and the emergence of alternative classification systems based on life history theory. I situate these advances in the context of current research in psychopathology, and highlight their connections with other innovative approaches such as developmental psychopathology and computational psychiatry. In total, I argue that evolutionary psychopathology offers an integrative framework for the study of mental disorders in which multiple approaches can connect and cross-fertilize.