Evolutionary Psychology, Public Policy and Personal Decisions

Charles Crawford, Catherine Salmon

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781135629175
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Toma de decisiones

During the last 15 years, human sociobiology has metamorphosed into evolutionary psychology. It is concerned with the social problems and stresses hominid and primate ancestors encountered, the psychological mechanisms natural selection shaped to deal with these stresses, and the way those ancient mechanisms work now. Evolutionary psychologists are making great progress in expanding the understanding of human nature, however, this knowledge has had little impact on policymakers and legislators. Supreme Court justices and managers seldom consult evolutionary psychologists to help with their deliberations. When faced with private decisions few individuals ask themselves how a Darwinian perspective might help them. This volume's aim is to start the process of using theory and findings of evolutionary psychology to help make the world a better place to live. This book takes evolutionary psychology explicitly into applied areas in a way no other book has. It includes a reasonable scope of applications from pornography to psychopaths and from morality to sex differences in the workplace. An applications section provides concrete ideas for dealing with social and policy issues, including chapters on women in the workplace, rape, and child support. Providing good coverage of basic issues and theory of the field, this book gives lay people and law/policymakers appropriate background to fully understand the applications chapters. Part II provides information on basic psychological mechanisms for group living--including chapters on emotions, reciprocity and legal reasoning, and self deception--that impact on how well public policy and law function. The material in the first two sections provide an intellectual basis for the chapters in the third part of the book which deals with the application of evolutionary psychology to a variety of substantive areas related to public policy and personal decisions. A political scientist concludes the book with a commentary on evolutionary psychology and public policy. The book is designed to serve as a stand-alone text in evolutionary psychology and public policy that can be used in a variety of disciplines, such as psychology, social work, law and psychology, and public policy.

PART I
Methodological and Philosophic Considerations

The four chapters making up this section focus on the logic of evolutionary theory and how evolutionary psychologists use the theory of natural selection in their attempts to understand human motivations and behavior. The more human beings know about their evolved human nature, the better they will understand how to control their behavior and to create viable policies to achieve specific ends.

Crawford’s chapter (chap. 1) provides an introduction to the possible ways in which evolutionary psychology can have a beneficial impact on the creation and implementation of public and private policy. The role of naturalistic and moralistic fallacies in hindering the development of sound public policies is discussed, as well as the implications of implementing beliefs about the nature of ancestrally evolved mental mechanisms.

Misconceptions about what evolutionary psychology is and about the nature of evolution by natural selection itself abound in popular and scientific writings. In chapter 2, Crawford and Salmon provide an introduction to the theory of evolution by natural selection and how evolutionary psychologists use it. Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, the importance of kinship in the evolution of sociality and within family conflict, reciprocity, and the role of genetic variation and the modern envi-ronment in the production of current behavior are explained. The authors emphasize how natural selection produces adaptations that enable organisms to obtain and process information about their environment and use it to adjust their behavior to the varying environmental circumstances they encounter.

Although the Darwinian approach to studying behavior is commonly perceived as portraying most interactions as selfish, ruthless struggles to pass on genes, evolutionary models developed in the last 30 years have shown that altruistic and cooperative behavior can be selected for when it is preferentially directed toward relatives, or at least those who are likely to return the favor. In recent years, however, evolutionary theorists have begun to questions the limitations of these two “selfish” views of cooperative behavior, especially with regard to long-term relationships. In chapter 3, Janicki reviews recent theoretical and empirical developments that seem to uncover a more positive side to evolved human nature.

There are many philosophic issues that trouble those involved in the application of evolutionary theory to the study of human behavior. Holcomb (chap. 4) suggests that the framing of problems as naturalistic and/or moralistic fallacies should be rejected. He calls for a new “mutual engagement” model in which evolutionary psychologists and critics engage each other’s ideas seriously, rather than turning their arguments into a muddle of moral and empirical statements.

CHAPTER 1
Public Policy and Personal Decisions: The Evolutionary Context

Charles Crawford
Simon Fraser University

Most people would like to live in a society founded on moral principles that would help guide their interactions with their friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, and even with their enemies. But most individuals also resist constraints on their behavior that frustrate their attempts to achieve their personal goals and desires. This dilemma is often reflected in the importance of public policy and personal decisions in people’s lives. In this book, public policies refers to laws enacted by legislative bodies, judicial interpretations of these laws and administrative procedures designed to implement them, as well as to policies devised by corporations, public and personal institutions, unions, and professional societies that enable them to conform to laws and their interpretations. For example, all state societies have laws dealing with crimes such as theft, murder, and rape, as well as the regulation of commerce, marriage, and other family relationships. Similarly, businesses and public institutions (e.g., hospitals, churches, and schools) must have policies on accounting, safety, and harassment that conform to government policies.

Personal decisions are those that enable the ongoing behavior of individuals as they go about their daily lives, making friends, doing their jobs, finding mates, caring for their children, planning holidays, going to the movies, and scheming for advantage. Many factors (e.g., ability, financial resources, customs, gender) constrain personal decisions. In state societies, public policies are one of the major constraints on personal decisions. However, the impact of public policy for personal decisions varies greatly with space and time. During the Middle Ages, church and state authorities proscribed the decisions of western Europeans on a wide range of topics ranging from appropriate clothing and places to live to church attendance and who individuals could and could not marry.

About 250 years ago, many thinkers in what are now called the Western democracies began resisting state and church interventions in the private lives of citizens. However, in many parts of the world, the state and/or the church still play important roles in the daily affairs of citizens. Moreover, in recent decades, many special interest groups in the Western democracies have begun demanding state intervention promoting the welfare of women, children, workers, minorities, animals, and the environment. This trend seems likely to continue. If it is to be productive, then it should be based on a sound understanding of the psychology of human beings.

There is an intimate relation between public policy and personal decisions. Many public policies arise because of personal decisions (e.g., the decision to view sexually explicit or aggressive material become intimate with children or members of the same sex, adopt a baby, marry a cousin or mother-in-law, self-administer intoxicating and mind altering substances, employ young children, prevent women from voting, add a room on a house, start a new business, or to pay employees the least possible wage) that impinge on the rights and privileges others believe citizens ought to, or ought not to, possess. Moreover, even if personal decisions do not, themselves, directly violate a law or policy, their consequences sometimes activate public policy processes. This can happen when the consequences of individuals’ decisions bring them into conflict with official policy. Normally, the choice of a child’s stepparent is a personal decision. Although most stepparents are good parents, there is considerable evidence that when a parent abuses a child, a stepparent is likely involved (Daly & Wilson, 1998). Hence, the personal choice of a new mate may lead to actions that activate public policies concerned with the care and abuse of children. Many people believe in freedom of artistic expression. However, some research (Stossel, 1997) suggests that violence on TV leads to children becoming more violent. Such findings suggest to some that there should be restrictions on what can be shown on TV. Although many in the Western democracies believe that sex between consenting adults is a personal matter, many believe that prostitution is harmful to women, and hence, that men’s use of prostitutes should be constrained (Jeffreys, 1997). Do such findings and claims suggest a role for more state intervention in regulating what individuals may or may not do? If they do, then what kinds of knowledge should be used in constructing the interventions?

Legalistic (Hammurabi, Napoleon, John Rawls), religious (Moses, Mohammed, Buddha), economic (Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Milton Friedman), philosophic (Plato, Karl Popper, Isaiah Berlin), and biological (Herbert Spencer, Cesare Lombroso, Stephen J.Gould) approaches to resolving issues in public policy and personal decisions have been advocated at different times and in different places. Biological approaches have always been controversial. However, they have been particularly controversial since the publication of Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Wilson, 1975). Wilson surveyed the biological basis of social behaviors in species ranging from insects to humans. His argument that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection must eventually play an important role in any comprehensive explanation of human behavior incensed social scientists and worried social reformers (Barlow & Silverberg, 1980; Caplan, 1978; H.Rose & S.Rose, 2000). The contents of this volume reflect the proposition that public policy and personal decisions can benefit from an understanding of the aspects of human nature that were shaped across evolutionary time by natural selection.

SCIENTIFIC AND MORAL REALMS

There are two realms that must be considered when developing public policy and making personal decisions. One is the empirical world of the senses. It includes the domain of scientific empirical observations and the scientific theories used to help discover and explain them, the factual historical record, as well as the results of everyday experience. The other is the domain of moral values that have been developed by theologians, moral philosophers, and politicians to help humans deal with the contingencies of human experience, However, it also includes the personal value systems of individuals.

Those who attempt to use Darwin’s theory to contribute to solutions for social ills or in making personal decisions are often accused of leaping the chasm from the empirical and scientific to the moral realm (Barash, 1982). This leap is sometimes referred to as the naturalistic fallacy—using what is to justify what ought to be. Consider two possible evolutionary examples: (a) “Women, more than men, evolved as the primary caretakers of children; therefore, they have traits, such as nurturance and empathy, that make them superior caregivers, and hence women ought to be favored as teachers and nurses.” (b) “Since the demands of hunting. warfare, and male–male competition caused men to evolve larger size, greater physical strength, and greater aggressiveness than women, men ought to be preferred as policemen and infantry men.” Clearly, these statements are erroneous. From the perspective of logic we cannot reason from what is to what ought to be. Although, on average, men are larger, more aggressive, and more competitive than women in all known cultures, it cannot be concluded from this fact that men ought to exceed women on these attributes, and that these attributes ought to determine their roles in life. Empirical and moral realms are logically distinct.

However, recognizing that this reasoning is faulty can lead thinking astray if it prompts the conclusion that the empirical observations appearing to justify its claims are invalid, that the state of nature suggesting it ought to be changed, or that it can easily be changed. For example, identifying the claim “Men are larger than women, therefore, they ought to be larger” as fallacious does not imply that men are not larger than women, that the world would be a better place if men were not larger, or that women can easily be expanded or men shrunk. Similarly, identifying the claim that “Men are more aggressive tha...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• PART I Methodological and Philosophic Considerations
• PART II Cognitive and Affective Psychological Processes
• PART III Real-World Applications
• Author Index
• Subject Index