Psy 235 exam 1 Questions With 100% Correct Answers.
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Course
Psy 235
Institution
Psy 235
How does evolutionary psychology deal with the "nature vs. nurture" debate? What is
the right way of understanding the role of culture in psychology/behavior? What is the
truth of the "blank slate" view of the mind? - ️️-Evolutionary psychology is NOT
more "nature" than nurture in the nature...
How does evolutionary psychology deal with the "nature vs. nurture" debate? What is
the right way of understanding the role of culture in psychology/behavior? What is the
truth of the "blank slate" view of the mind? - ✔️✔️-Evolutionary psychology is NOT
more "nature" than nurture in the nature/nurture debate; not another swing in the
nature/nurture pendulum; simply destroys nature/ nurture belief, cannot contrast nature
and evolution
-Naturalistic fallacy: that which is natural is good (this is false)
-Genes allow the environment to influence the development of phenotypes; genes allow
certain features of the environment to influence the person, it is both nature and nurture;
it cannot be either or
-Culture is not an explanation - culture acts on biology, cultural explanations are not
real; ex: heterosexual males wanting more mates than women cannot be explained by
culture, but you need both culture and evolution to explain it
-Blank slate approach says it's all culture, but this is not true, we do not come into the
world with a blank slate
-Not everything is an adaptation - some are noise or byproducts: not selected for
directly but uses or piggybacks of another thing that was selected for ex: reading is a
byproduct of language
A recurrent theme was that "the brain takes information from the internal and external
environment and uses it as input into computations, and generates some output that
regulates behavior." You should be able to unpack each of these steps and provide
examples. - ✔️✔️-Incest ex: ancestors felt disgust and had information processing
programs that thought incest was disgusting so those genes were passed on; let me
compute on how related this individual is and make decisions based on that
Define Evolution: - ✔️✔️-Evolution refers to a change in a species that occurs over
time, and specifically a change in gene frequencies
What are the three premises of Natural selection? - ✔️✔️1. Over-reproduction within a
species: not all survive and some over reproduce.
, 2. Variation exists within a species, and some variants are "more fit" than others:
variation on any phenotype or genotype; variation may make some species more fit to
their environment, which allows them a slightly greater chance in reproduction and
survival.
3. Individuals who are more fit reproduce more, and if the variation is genetic, it will be
transmitted to the offspring, and this will be more widespread in the population.
-Ex: faster reaction to danger, those genes will be passed on and survive more
What are the two keys to natural selection? - ✔️✔️1. Reproductive success: are you
passing on your genetic material and are those offspring surviving? You can't just
reproduce, they have to survive ex: having 3 babies and all surviving is better than
having 24 babies and only 3 survive because of limited resources
2. Differential Fertility: some individuals are reproducing more than others (differential
gene reproduction)
Define sexual selection: - ✔️✔️-based on competition within the species; fit with the
pressures from other members of your species, ex: female wanting a male who has
high health, that male is overcoming a challenge in their species
Define inclusive fitness: - ✔️✔️-need to compute an organism's direct reproductive
fitness (passing on your own genes to own offspring) and an organism's indirect
reproductive fitness (ex: giving money to niece and not your own child will decrease
own reproduction success; niece has some of your genes, but your children have
more).
-indirect reproductive fitness includes copies of one's traits in other related individuals
that are not your direct offspring (ex: helping nieces a little less than helping own
children)
List and describe each step in moving from evolution by natural selection to evolutionary
psychology - ✔️✔️-Humans evolved, like every other species. -Then we move on to
the brain....
What is the function of the brain? How does the brain fulfill this function? - ✔️✔️-The
brain is an organ in the body.
-Like all organs, the brain evolved to serve a function which is.....
-The brain's function is to regulate the body and generate behavior.
-The way the brain regulates/fulfills its function is by information processing.
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