Evolution-des-wissens – Blue by Ldorfman – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Annotated Links
APA Council of Representatives Resolution Rejecting Intelligent Design as Scientific and Reaffirming Support for Evolutionary Theory In this statement from February 17, 2007, the APA reaffirms earlier resolutions and joins other organizations in opposing the teaching of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory.
Darwin Was Wrong About Dating New research is beginning to question the long-accepted evolutionary explanation for various mating behaviors. Read about some of the alternative explanations and new data on sex differences in mating strategies, selectiveness, and desire for casual sex. From The New York Times, January 12, 2013.
Digging Into The Roots of Gender Differences New research published in Animal Behaviour and summarized by Barbara J. King for NPR suggest that [D]ata on wild chimpanzees from , Tanzania, indicate that human sex differences in childhood are primarily the result of biological, evolutionary mechanisms. Published March 21, 2014.
e-Textbook: Personality From the electronic textbook created for undergraduate and graduate courses in Personality Theories by George Boeree of Shippensburg University.
e-Textbook: General Psychology From the electronic textbook created for undergraduate courses in General Psychology by George Boeree of Shippensburg University.
The Evolutionary Origin of Depression. Article from The Economist, June 25, 2009, which summarizes research by Randolph Nesse, University of Michigan published the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Dr Nesse’s hypothesis is that, as pain stops you doing damaging physical things, so low mood stops you doing damaging mental ones—in particular, pursuing unreachable goals. Pursuing such goals is a waste of energy and resources. Therefore, he argues, there is likely to be an evolved mechanism that identifies certain goals as unattainable and inhibits their pursuit—and he believes that low mood is at least part of that mechanism.
FAQs Edward Hagen, formerly of the Center for Evolutionary Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, and now at the Institute for Theoretical Biology in Berlin has written this page of frequently asked questions in evolutionary psychology to outline the foundations of evolutionary psychology.
Genes and Memes: Just for Hits – Richard Dawkins Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins describes the process of evolution focusing on successful and unsuccessful genes and memes in this entertaining and unusual introduction to the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase 2013 in Cannes (runs 8 minutes and 47 seconds).
How Evolution Works, Animated in Minimalist Motion Graphics This simple and engaging cartoon explains the basics of evolution and why DNA copying errors explain blue eyes. Runs 11 minutes 48 seconds. Warning: contains a cartoon depiction of sex at 4:13.
Lesson Plan: Evolution. Discovery Education, a division of Discovery Communications, provides a Lesson Plans Library of hundreds of original lesson plans written by teachers for teachers for elementary, middle, and high school students. Some lesson plans include suggestions for adaptations for older or younger audiences. Borrow them as-is or use them to spark your own lesson plans. In this lesson on Evolution, students will: demonstrate an understanding of the theory of evolution, study how the theory of evolution has been received by society over time and consider why it has been so controversial and compare the theory of evolution to other ideas about how different life forms emerged and assess which ideas should be taught in science class.
Is There Anything Good About Men? Social Psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, Florida State University, gave this Invited Address to the American Psychological Association, August, 2007. In his own words, “I don’t want to be on anybody’s side. Gender warriors please go home,” Baumeister argues that “rather than seeing culture as patriarchy, which is to say a conspiracy by men to exploit women, I think it’s more accurate to understand culture (e.g., a country, a religion) as an abstract system that competes against rival systems — and that uses both men and women, often in different ways, to advance its cause.” This piece is sure to give you and your students something to think — and debate — about!
Mating Strategies Not Universal Summarizes the results of a cross-cultural study which found that men and women in monogamous societies, such as Pitcairn Islanders, and some polygynous societies, including the Aka in the Central African Republic, have overlapping ranges of number of offspring. This finding suggests that there is greater variation in reproductive strategies than was once thought, so the tendency for men to be promiscuous and for females to be selective may not be universal. From Science News, May 23, 2009.
Overview An introduction to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology.
Primer of Evolutionary Psychology Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, University of California, Santa Barbara, have written this online Evolutionary Psychology Primer.
Evolution: What Does it Mean to Be Human? This web page provides background information for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s exhibit What Does it Mean to Be Human? Describes ongoing research projects and evidence on the evolution of human behavior and physical characteristics. The site features a 3D interactive image library of fossils and artifacts, interactive walk-through of the exhibit, and resources for educators including lesson plans for 6-12 on human evolution, genetics, and more.
Assignments, Exercises, and Activities
Current Researchers and Research Team Pages
David Buss’ Research Lab at the University of Texas. Good overview of the field, their current research program (including scales and reprints in PDF format), and resources on evolutionary psychology.
The Konrad Lorenz Theory Lab A public service of the The Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, the KLI Theory lab is a comprehensive data base that allows efficient scientific literature search in the wider domain of evolution and cognition research. In this introduction we describe the aims of this facility, the areas it covers, its main design features, and extensions we hope to include in the near future (from the website).
Electronic Texts
Darwin (1872). The British Library has placed much of Charles Darwin’s writings on the web including this classic paper The expression of the emotions in man and animals, London: John Murray, (1872), organized by chapter and including the original illustrations.
Dawkins (1989) The classic work The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2nd Edition, 1989). See also Chapter 11 on Memes
Examples and Illustrations
Lecture Notes
Evolutionary Psychology The Department of Psychology at the University of Plymouth provides study and learning materials online for some of their course. This page, by Paul Kenyon for a course on Evolutionary Psychobiology, discusses sexual selection, emotion, depression and many other topics.
Slide Presentations
Tools for Teaching Evolutionary Psychology. David M. Buss shares this Power Point presentation of how to teach undergraduates the basics of evolutionary psychology including natural selection and sexual selection. Along the way he shares 19 “tools” or hints for how to present the material to engage undergraduate students using vivid examples important to students such as mating, cooperation, aggression, social conflict and common clinical problems including depression and eating disorders.
Tests, Measures, and Scales
Multimedia Resources
An Interview with Dr. David Buss. Michael Brit, former professor of psychology, broadcasts a podcast about psychology called The Psych Files. In this episode (June 20, 2009, Episode #98), he talks with Davis Buss about evolutionary psychology: Do you know your own mate value in the dating world? Curious about evolutionary psychology? In this interview with Dr. David Buss we discuss a number of interesting and controversial topics, such as the matching hypothesis and date rape. Are there evolutionary roots to the battle of the sexes and can we change our behavior? Find out in this interview.
Evolutionary Psychology: An Interview with David Buss (Part 1) Psychology teacher Michael Britt created an episode for his podcast, The Psych Files all about Evolutionary Psychology (Episode 111): Evolutionary Psychology – David Buss Responds to Critics. There has been a lot of criticism of evolutionary psychology lately. How do researchers respond? One of the leading researchers in this field – Dr. David Buss of the University of Texas responds to these critics in part 1 of this 2 part episode. Find out how he responds to these questions: a) is evolutionary psychology sexist?, b) doesn’t evolutionary psychology just give people the ammunition they need to not take responsibility for themselves? c) theories from evolutionary psychology are not falsifiable, this it’s not scientific and d) human society is always changing – it hasn’t been stable enough long enough for any human behavior to have evolved. (Originally released December 6, 2009).
Evolutionary Psychology: An Interview with David Buss (Part 2) Psychology teacher Michael Britt created an episode for his podcast, The Psych Files all about Evolutionary Psychology (Episode 112): David Buss Responds to Critics – Part 2 In part 2 of my interview with David Buss, he responds to more criticisms of evolutionary psychology. Here’s what we cover: a) does evolutionary psychology just give criminals another reason not to take responsibility for themselves?, b) is all the research in evolutionary psychology done on American college students?, c) are evolutionary psychology theories falsifiable? We cover such topics as whether women’s mating strategies change depending on where they are in their menstrual cycle? and How does evolutionary psychology might explain homosexuality? and what does evolutionary psychology say about cultural differences in the desire for women with a low waist-hip ratio? (Originally released December 16, 2009).
Genes and Memes: Just for Hits – Richard Dawkins Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins describes the process of evolution focusing on successful and unsuccessful genes and memes in this entertaining and unusual introduction to the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase 2013 in Cannes (runs 8 minutes and 47 seconds).
Why Students Love Evolutionary Psychology Why Students Love Evolutionary Psychology… and How to Teach It,by David Buss. This is one of 7 videos from the APA Education Directorate’s series Videos for Psychology Teachers. The videos are recordings of sessions from the 2012 APA Convention in Orlando, Fla. This lecture discusses evolutionary psychology — such topics as sexual selection, evolved psychological mechanisms and ultimate and proximate causation — and tools for teaching evolutionary psychology in the classroom. Posted November, 2012. (runs 45 minutes).