Human Evolutionary Psychology

by Robin I.M. Dunbar, John Lyccett, Louise Barrett, et al.

Book Overview

Why do people resort to plastic surgery to look young? Why are stepchildren at greatest risk of fatal abuse? Why do we prefer gossip to algebra? Why must Dogon wives live alone in a dark hut for five days a month? Why are young children good at learning language but not sharing? Over the past decade, psychologists and behavioral ecologists have been finding answers to such seemingly unrelated questions by applying an evolutionary perspective to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691096228
• ISBN13: 9780691096223
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.5" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

Highly recommended!!!

Highly recommended for students on human behavior!!! Diversity of themes, take a look at the table content! The reading is easy and clarifying.

The Fab Three from Liverpool

They didn't have adequate texts, so they wrote their own. The writing is very thoughtfull, even diplomatic, and certainly compelling, with explanations as clear as an unmuddy lake in deepest summer. These folks care about their students and aren't going to just leave stragglers behind. They are good examples of why I like humans.

Most useful introduction to the field

I purchased this book about four years ago, when it first came out. I've found it to be invaluable in leading me through the literature on evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology (one of the book's strengths is that it embraces both of these approaches). The book lends itself to browsing, and I've often looked up a topic in the index, read the pages listed, and then later looked up a particularly interesting article mentioned in those pages. In this way I've discovered the work of a few authors that I now consider to be quite important (Pierre van den Berghe and Austin Hughes come to mind). For me, this book has been a great investment.

Good textbook on evolutionary psychology

This is a very nice introduction to evolutionary psychology. Originally, as the authors note, it was designed to meet a need for a good undergraduate textbook in the field. They note that they (page xi) ". . .were frustrated by the fact that there was nothing we could use as a textbook that was sufficiently broad to cover all our interests." However, this book is not just for undergraduate students. It will also serve well the larger public with some knowledge of evolution who might be interested in the developing area of evolutionary psychology. Thus, this book could well have multiple audiences. The purpose of this book, as the authors observe, is to (page 1) ". . .demonstrate that by adopting an evolutionary perspective on human behaviour and psychology, we can provide a coherent unified explanation on human social evolution and adaptation." Obviously, an ambitious agenda for this book. And an agenda that they do pretty well in addressing. The first two chapters do a nice job of laying out the basics of evolutionary theory in readily understandable terms. In these chapters, they clearly note that human behavior can be explained by evolutionary processes. The second chapter addresses the apparent paradox between evolution operating on individuals (the "selfish gene" metaphor) while we see apparent cases of altruism. Following chapters apply evolutionary theory to a variety of human behaviors, such as: (a) cooperation among kin (relatives); (b) reciprocity and sharing; (c) mate choice; (d) human reproduction; (e) parental investment in offspring; (f) marriage and inheritance; (g) the individual's functioning within larger societies; (h) cognition; (i) social cognition; (j) language; (k) cultural evolution. Those topics suggest the scope of this work. The volume is made more useful to readers with many examples provided. It is a focused application of evolutionary theory to human psychology and social behavior. This is one of the better introductions to the study of evolutionary psychology. Those who do not accept the application of evolution to humans, of course, will not be convinced. For others, this is an interesting volume and will provoke much reflection.

HUMAN evolutionary psychology

I am surprised at the relatively low sales numbers and lack of reviews for this excellent text. Although David Buss's text book is by far the better seller it leaves much to be desired. It is simply too "dumbed down" for the senior and graduate level students that it was intended for. Although Dr. Buss is a strong advocate of the evolutionary approach to human psychology, his treatment of evolutionary theory is rather weak and laymen like giving away his background in psychology rather than biology. The currrent text by Barrett et al. however gives an excellent account of evolutionary theory as a starting point for the books' coverage of human evolutionary psychology, perhaps because this book emanates from Robin Dunbar's (2nd author) lab. Dr. Dunbar is a immenent British primatologist whose background includes a thorough grounding in the biological sciences including evolutionary theory. Also, more than any of the other texts in this field the emphasis of this one is on HUMAN evolutionary psychology. Other texts use a more comparative approach and rely too heavily on extrapolations from the general primate literature rather than on data specific to humans. Lastly, this text has the largest and most relevant bibliography of any of the other texts. Documentation is thus extensive This alone is worth the price of the book