Evolutionary Psychology Theories' Role in Personality Development

Evolutionary Psychology Theories’ Role in Personality Development
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Evolutionary Psychology Theories’ Role in Personality Development
1.0 Introduction
Increased acceptance of evolution as a reliable metatheory for psychology has encouraged many personality psychologists to conceptualise personality using evolutionary psychology framework. Novel hypotheses explaining how personality works can be achieved through defining the ultimate function of personality traits. Currently personality psychologists only describe the structure and how causes of behavioural patterns work. These theories only demonstrate how personality differences develop and shallowly explain their causes failing to address the ultimate causes. Comprehensive explanations would rather address the reasons why human personality are structured as they are, and relate to how specific environmental factors affect individual and isolate how individuals respond to different environmental factors. Ultimate explanations will also consider understanding why some environmental factors do not affect individuals and explain the kind of adaptive characteristics individuals may develop. A framework that will answer all these concerns will exhaustively unveil all the hidden answers that hinder personality theory from becoming an enriched novel hypothesis.
A number of prominent scholars have come to agree that evolutionary psychology uses the theory of evolution to answer all psychological phenomena, however fails to explain the causes of specific physiological mechanisms evolvement. Confer et al. (2010) and Boundry, Vlerick & McKay (2015) however argues that evolution by natural sexual selection is one theory that has come close to providing rational framework that can explain the reason of existence of complex adaptive psychological mechanisms and the kind of adaptive problems they are designed to solve. Describing limitations of various theories, Browne (2002) and Francis (2007) also concur to this accepting that even the standard social science model (SSSM) is limited in providing any detailed explanation of personality characteristics. Buss & Lars (2012) report that this shortcomings in all the available researched theories have left personality psychologists with no accurate method to use in their trials to unveil new psychological phenomena. This makes is difficult to fully understand different personality characteristics and their developments (Confer et al., 2010).
Recent improvements have seen evolutionary psychology theory become successful in explaining typical characteristics and different adaptations of some species (Buss, 2005; Buss & Lars, 2012). With many review literature on evolutionary psychology focusing on the effects of factors affecting personality development, the challenge surfacing is how this theory can successfully explain personality and be able to describe individual differences in human behaviour (Browne, 2002). Thesis statement: Since Evolutionary psychology theories consists both social and biological aspects of personality development, the mind and a person’s environment play a role in personality development.
2.0 Literature Review
2.1 Evolution psychology historical perspectives
Evolution psychology as described by Buss (2009) is a relatively modern metatheoretical hypothesis that seeks to explain the modern principles of psychology using core principles of evolutionary biology. Evolutionary psychology theory is based on George Williams, a leading biologist of the twentieth century who seeks to understand the human mind by knowing the purpose for which it was designed for (Buss, 2005).
According to Buss (2009), evolutionary psychology theory’s success has only dominated in domains such as survival, sexuality of species, mating strategies, parenting, kinship, aggression and cooperation. The theoretical advances in these achievements only touch on the levels of species typical and sexual differentiation adaptation. They however totally neglect personality traits and many other individual differences related to human psychology (Buss, 2005; Buss & Lars, 2012). How personality development is influenced by evolutionary psychology in both social and biological aspects is the key question that is to be answered in this research. First it is important to unveil how the mind and a person’s surrounding have contributed to individual personality development (Buss, 2009).
2.2 Understanding evolutionary psychology
The human brain is a spectacular organ in the human body characterized by its core functions such as memory, perception and language. However Workman & Reader (2014) suggests there is more this that can only be understood by looking deeper at the development of human character using the lens of reproduction over time (Buss, 2005; Tooby & Cosmides, 2005). Various scientists have submitted that evolution has shaped the mind and behaviour of human. This psychological approach that attempts to explain useful and psychological traits of the brain is called Evolution psychology. According to Buss & Schmitt (2011) evolution psychology comprises of evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology. Evolution psychology is a scientific approach towards understanding human behaviour through universal mechanisms. This tries to unfold ancestral problems in their primitive environments and how they survived the challenges (Tooby & Cosmides, 2005).
Evolution psychology provides insight on human behaviour with an understanding of how it is passed on into generations. Evolutionary psychologists believe that humans have inherent areas of the brain that bands specific gen that is responsible in helping them adapt to their environments. As described by Buss (2005) evolutionary psychology is imbedded in cognitive and evolutionary biology. Tooby & Cosmides (2005) also adds that it draws on behavioural ecology as Buss & Schmitt (2011) links it to socio-biology. Buss (2005) however acknowledges the existing difference between the two emphasising on the domain specific as opposed to the domain-general mechanisms. The evolutionary psychologists however argue that the human mind consists of the two. According to Buss & Schmitt (2011) evolutionary psychology is based on understanding human behaviour in terms of what they do and the reasons or motivating factor of their actions.
2.3 The history and development of evolutionary psychology
In 1978 German philosopher Immanuel Kant imagined how organisms could transform over time and acquire characteristics of other organisms. According to Workman & Reader (2014) Kant not only meant the physical change, but also referred to a psychological perception. This presaged evolutionary psychology two centuries early of its time. Charles Darwin is regarded as the pioneer of the evolutionary psychology. In the 19th century, Charles Darwin spoke about social instincts which evolved through natural selection. Many of Darwin’s examples in The Origin of Species focused on physical traits. However Darwin also believed that natural selection influenced evolution of behaviour (Buss & Lars, 2012). Darwin’s saw it possible to explain the human mind using the same principles of physical laws just as other body organs referring to their mechanism principles (Browne, 2002; Dunbar & Barrett, 2007; Workman & Reader, 2014; Griffiths, 2015).
As Workman & Reader (2014) illustrates in reference to Stephen Pinker, the problem of the mind can be solved by bringing a more stable foundation to argue from than just referring to it as a sanctuary. This stable foundation brought a materialistic approach that to date has been adopted by modern cognitive psychology that perceives the mind as an information processing organ (Fitzgerald, & Whitaker, 2010). This materialism became important to evolutionary psychology in which Stephen Pinker argued that if mind a brains activity, then just like any organ the brain could be subjected to any pressure of selection. This formed the basis of proving that mind and behaviour were products evolution influenced by natural selection (Dunbar & Barrett, 2007; Workman & Reader, 2014).
According to Workman & Reader (2014), in the Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), he theorised about the origin of emotions and interpreted their expressions. Later Darwin’s work inspired other psychologists such as William James with his ground breaking masterpiece The Principles of Psychology (1980) and Sigmund Freud applying them to behaviour. Not much was noticed at this time since most of studies in psychology in the 20th century were all focused on behaviourism. According to Dunbar & Barrett (2007) William James picked up on evolutionary psychology ageing based his research on the ultimate cause in understanding human instincts. This bore his hypothesis on evolutionary concept referred to as adaptation theory (Workman & Reader, 2014).
Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton who was also influenced by the natural selection theory made remarkable contribution to the history of psychology. According to Workman & Reader (2014) Galton added insight to psychology that intelligence was inherited traits. Galton developed the first ever intelligence traits tests which evolved to what nowadays commonly known as psychometrics. Galton however dismissed some ancient traits as being irrelevant or less important in modern society. In his attempts to apply scientific findings in improving society, he idealised the selective breeding. This was intended to people with traits that benefit society should produce many offspring while discouraging those with less desirable traits. This led to a controversial program known as eugenics (Dunbar & Barrett, 2007; Browne, 2002).
Other important contributors to the development of evolutionary psychology is William James (1842-1891) who distinguished the difference between short and long term memory by studying attention and perception. His findings focused on applying Darwin’s ideas on human psychology to study nature of consciousness and instincts as a driving force of human behaviour. (Workman & Reader, 2014; Browne, 2002). In 1973, Konrad Lorenz and Nickolass Tinbergen were awarded a Nobel Prize for their theory on social evolution and human sociology (Ethology). This theory used Darwin’s theory relating to humans. Ethology combined sociology, culture and psychology (Browne, 2002). According to Nettle, & Penke (2010) humans adopt to solve problems in relation to their biological needs, physical surrounding and cultural setups. This theory has been developed nowadays to behavioural ethology in both sociology and psychology (Nettle, & Penke, 2010).
2.4 Overview of Charles Darwin and his role in the modern theory of evolution
Human origins and their nature have become facets of history of all living beings in the evolutionary worldview. Since the mid nineteenth century, the theory of evolution has been the centre of focus for many scientific studies which have left remarkable footprints in human history. Evolutionary challenged the way humanity perceived its existence creating a chain of controversies (Dunbar & Barrett, 2007). There are many versions of arguments trying to explain the natural progression of species through transformations. It started from the ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander who argued that man evolved from fish. This was followed by the eighteenth century theorist Jean-Baptise Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin. By early 1800, evolution had become a respectable corollary of historical thinking in Europe. In mid-1830 the concept of evolution was rejected by scientists Georges Cuvier and Charles Lyell to ...