Comments on: Personal ads indicate you’re not as free as you want to believe

By: We are gods with anuses: another look at “terror management theory.” | Dangerous Intersection

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:33:18 +0000

[...] public displays of plastinated human bodies. the uncanny sameness of humans, the predictability of personals ads, our relatedness to sponges, my own skeleton, my not-so-distant ancestors, (and here’s more [...]

By: Why are humans so repulsed by the idea that they are animals? | Dangerous Intersection

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:01:54 +0000

[...] to be animals (see, for example, my posts on the uncanny sameness of humans, the predictability of personals ads, our relatedness to sponges, my own skeleton my not-so-distant ancestors, ubiquitous synonyms [...]

By: projektleiterin

projektleiterin — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 09:12:55 +0000

Thanks, Erich, for the additional information. I was on this relationship forum a long time ago and it was so maddening to read some guys’ posts. Some were really smart, eloquent with words and well informed about science, politics, religion, etc., you probably might have liked them, but once they started talking about men and women I felt like giving them a good smack on the head. Evolutionary psychology just seemed like the excuse to be superficial and immature. After reading this excerpt I might take a deeper look at this subject though.

“Another misunderstanding about evolutionary psychology is that current mechanisms are optimally designed. ”
That is something really nice to hear.

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:12:28 +0000

Projektleiterin:

In Evolutionary Psychology: the New Science of the Mind, David Buss writes about one of the major misunderstandings regarding evolutionary psychology: “we can’t change it.” More specifically, the misunderstanding is that evolutionary psychology holds that

human behavior is impervious to change. Consider this simple example of calluses again. Humans can and do create physical environments that are relatively free of friction. These friction free environments mean that we have designed a change-a change that prevents the activation of the underlying callus-producing mechanisms. Knowledge of these mechanisms and the environmental input that triggers their activation gives us the power to alter our behavior to decrease callus production . . .

men. . . can be educated with the information that they have lower thresholds for inferring sexual intent when a woman smiles at them. This knowledge can then be used by men, in principle, to reduce the number of times they act on their faulty inferences of sexual interest and decrease the number of unwanted sexual advances they make toward women.

Knowledge about our involves psychological adaptations along with the social inputs that they were designed to be responsive to, far from dooming us to an unchangeable faith, can have the liberating effect of changing behavior in areas in which change is desired. This does not mean that changing behavior is simple or easy. More knowledge about our evolved psychology gives us more power to change.

Another misunderstanding about evolutionary psychology is that current mechanisms are optimally designed. In tandem, these two fallacies do lead to a pessimistic approach to evolutionary psychology. As Buss points out, however, these two fallacies are, indeed, fallacies.

By: projektleiterin

projektleiterin — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:07:25 +0000

What I don’t really like about evolutionary psychology is that it seems to be mostly used to justfy bad behavior, like men leaving their wives for someone younger, because well, it is the call of nature and they can’t help it: young = fertile and in good health = better mate = resistence futile. Men are described as irresponsible, seeking ephemeral pleasure, they’re hunters, constantly on the go, and it’s ok, because it’s part of nature. Maybe it is ingrained in their genes and maybe their attraction follows natural laws, but it’s not as if they did not have the freedom to say no.

And yes, I know that evolutionary psychology covers more than relationships, but most of them time when it comes it, it’s about the differences between men and women. I have also noticed that it’s mostly men who post about this subject, it seems to utterly fascinate them.