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Cards In This Set
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What do human beings naturally possess?
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Human beings possess a love of novelty (neophilia)
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What does neophilia mean in terms of picking a mate?
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Due to neophilia, for females, choosing a mate would have led to a demand for ever-more creative displays from potential partners.
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What does EEA stand for and what does mate choice within it favour? What could this explain and according to whom?
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Mate choice in the environment of evolutionary adaptation (EEA) could have favoured creative courtship displays which would explain many of the characteristics that are universally and uniquely developed in humans, such as music, art and humour (Miller, 1998).
Because musicians, actors and artists displau such talents in abundance, we are inevitably drawn to them. |
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What does Miller (2000) argue?
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Miller argued that, although natural selction favours the development of skills that enhance survival, sexual selection might favour minds prone to creativity and fantasy. Celebrities represent this world of fantasy so we are attracted to it.
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Why might the exchange of social information ('gossip') about other group members been adaptive for our ancestors when they began living in larger social groups? According to who?
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De Backer (2005) suggest that gossip creates bonds within social groups and serves a similar function to social grooming by initiating and maintaining ALLIANCES.
Gossip also functions to construct and MANIPULATE REPUTATIONS, particularly those of rivals and to exchange relevant information about POTENTIAL MATES: it is related to reproduction therefore as it focuses on spreading info about who is successful in the mating game. |
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However, we not only talk about people we ecnounter in real life but also gossip about individuals we encounter in the media. What does Barkow (1992) suggest?
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Barkow suggests that our minds are fooled into regarding media characters as being members of our social network. Thus, celebs trigger the same gossip mechanisms that have evolved to keep up with the affairs of ingroup members.
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Who suggests that people spend 2/3s of conversation time on social topics?
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Dunbar et al (1997)
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What did De Backer (2007) find when he survey 800+ participants to test evolutionary explanations for celebrity gossip?
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Participants reported that gossip was seen as a useful way of acquiring information about social group members.
De Backer concluded that media exposure would lead to misperception that celebrities were a part of the scial network thus explaining the interest in celebrity gossip. |
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What does the explanation that love of novelty arose because early females preferred creative behaviour in potential mates tell us nothing about?
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It doesn't tell us WHY they would prefer creative behaviour.
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Why are sexual selection explanations arbitrary (unscientific)?
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Sexual selection explanations are arbitrary because they argue that traits are preferred simply because they would have been attractive. Such explanations do not provide an adequate adaptive reason to explain why traits such as creativity in music, art and humour would have been attractive to ancestral members.
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What evidence does Shiraishi et al (2006) put forward for an evolved love of creativity>
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Shiraishi et al discovered an enzyme correlated with novelty-seeking tendencies. Genetic differences mean that people produce different variations of an enzyme called MAOA (monoamine oxidase A). The researchers found that one form of MAOA was significantly associated with higher scores of novelty seeking, suggesting that there may be a genetic origin to neophilia and attraction to creative people.
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Why are evolutionary explanations reductionist?
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Because they purely relate to biological mating strategies - could be related to socio-economic status, eg.
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