Essay
SAQ – Evolutionary explanation for behaviour IB PSYCH
- Module
- Psychology
- Institution
- K College
A psych SAQ on the evolutionary explanations for behaviour that helped me score a 7 in ib psych HL throughout the course/
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Outline or Describe or Explain one evolutionary explanation of behavior.Describe one study relevant to one evolutionary explanation of behavior.
Evolution is the idea that human behaviors reflect the influence of physical and psychological
predispositions that helped human ancestors survive and reproduce. Those who have the best
traits for adapting to a certain environment have a better chance of survival, hence they can
overcome environmental challenges and successfully reproduce, passing on their
advantageous characteristics to their offspring.
Attraction, according to APA, is the interest in and liking of one individual by another, or the
mutual interest and liking between two or more individuals. It is theorized that we have evolved
to be attracted to individuals with traits that allow us to have healthy offspring. One way humans
may detect superior traits (esp. reproductive fitness) is through pheromones – chemical
messengers released by animals that can influence members of the same species via smell.
The putative pheromone, androstadienone, has been linked to the behavior of attraction.
One study that investigated whether androstadienone can modulate women's judgment of men's
attraction is Saxton et al., a field experiment that placed female college students into 1 of 3
conditions: 1) clove oil, 2) clove oil + androstadienone, 3) water. Cotton wool with one of the
above 3 substances were placed under the females’ noses, and they were asked to rank the
attractiveness of males that they had met in a speed date setting. Results showed that
participants that smelled androstadienone rated males significantly higher, and were more likely
to ask them out on a second date. From this, researchers concluded that androstadienone
increases attraction that females feel towards males by signaling health and reproductive
fitness, since only the condition where the pheromone was smelt lead to an increase in rated
attractiveness.
The study supports the evolutionary theory that humans choose to form personal relationships
with those that can allow us to procreate advantageously. In a world where there is a high risk of
genetic diseases and illnesses, it is evolutionarily advantageous for us to mate with a partner
with healthy traits that can help our offspring avoid such risks, in turn increasing their likelihood
of survival and the passing on of those genes into following generations. Hence, this study
shows how attraction is an evolutionary behavior that helps us find reproductively fit individuals
to increase chances that our offspring survive.
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