Inspired by the discovery that machines could perform some of the functions of the human brain, cognitive scientists rejected the strictures of radical behaviorism and tried to shine a light inside the black box of the mind itself. One of the most important things they discovered is that our brains process information in incredibly selective ways: We only pay attention to a small fraction of what is going on out there, we only ruminate consciously about an even smaller fraction, and we upload a still smaller portion into our long-term memory stores. Which information we select and which we throw out can have big downstream consequences. … to give a simple example, men looking at a crowd stare selectively at the beautiful women, which leads them to later misjudge how prevalent those movie starlets are in the real world, which in turn leads them to feel less committed to their current romantic partners.
by by Douglas T. Kenrick
What do sex and murder have to do with the meaning of life? Everything.In Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life, social psychologist Douglas Kenrick exposes the selfish animalistic underside of human nature, and shows how it is intimately connected to our greatest and most selfless achievements. Masterfully integrating cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and complexity theory, this intriguing book paints a comprehensive picture of the principles that govern our lives. As Kenrick divulges, beneath our civilized veneer, human beings are a lot like howling hyenas and barking baboons, with heads full of homicidal tendencies and sexual fantasies. But, in his view, many ingrained, apparently irrational behaviors—such as inclinations to one-night stands, racial prejudices, and conspicuous consumption—ultimately manifest what he calls “Deep Rationality.”
Although our heads are full of simple selfish biases that evolved to help our ancestors survive, modern human beings are anything but simple and selfish cavemen. Kenrick argues that simple and selfish mental mechanisms we inherited from our ancestors ultimately give rise to the multifaceted social lives that we humans lead today, and to the most positive features of humanity, including generosity, artistic creativity, love, and familial bonds. And out of those simple mechanisms emerge all the complexities of society, including international conflicts and global economic markets. By exploring the nuance of social psychology and the surprising results of his own research, Kenrick offers a detailed picture of what makes us caring, creative, and complex—that is, fully human.
Illuminated with stories from Kenrick’s own colorful experiences — from his criminally inclined shantytown Irish relatives, his own multiple high school expulsions, broken marriages, and homicidal fantasies, to his eventual success as an evolutionary psychologist and loving father of two boys separated by 26 years — this book is an exploration of our mental biases and failures, and our mind’s great successes. Idiosyncratic, controversial, and fascinating, Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life uncovers the pitfalls and promise of our biological inheritance.
Several decades ago, Doug Kenrick married evolutionary biology to social psychology and he has been a leader in this important field ever since. Unlike many scientists, he sees the big picture and writes with humor, wisdom, and verve.
– Daniel Gilbert
野蛮な進化心理学―殺人とセックスが解き明かす人間行動の謎
by ダグラス・ケンリック
translated by 山形浩生, 森本正史
大切なことはみんな悪い奴らから教わった!
男たちはなぜ酒場で殴り合いをするの?
女もよく人を殺すことを考えているって本当?
アイドルの写真集を買う人はどうして評価が辛口なの?
ヤラしいことを考えている男が、行動経済学の予測を裏切るのはなぜ?
※ただしイケメンに限るって、どこまで根拠があることなの?
男は年下の美人を好み、女は年上の権力者を好むという俗言の真相は?
上品な会話では決して話題にのぼることのない性や暴力といった刺激的なトピックから、偏見、心の仕組み、記憶、芸術、宗教、経済、政治、はては人生の意味といった高尚なテーマまで、 今もっとも注目を集める研究分野=進化心理学の知見を総動員して徹底的に解説します。
進化心理学
ウィキペディア
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/進化心理学
進化心理学 (evolutionary psychology) とはヒトの心理メカニズムの多くは進化生物学の意味で生物学的適応であると仮定しヒトの心理を研究するアプローチのこと。適応主義心理学等と呼ばれる事もある。
人間行動進化学会は、進化心理学を「社会学と生物学の視点から、現代的な進化理論を用いて、感情、認知、性的適応の進化などを含めた人間の本性を解明する学際的な学問」と位置づけている。研究対象には感情、認知などの他、宗教、道徳、芸術、病理なども含まれる。
進化の視点はほとんどの認知科学者に受け入れられており、進化心理学者とそれ以外の認知科学者の境界は曖昧である。したがって本項ではふつう進化心理学者とは見なされない人物の見解についても言及する。言語の起源や芸術、宗教の起源の探求は進化心理学に含められることがあるが、それは（コスミデスらが定義したような）狭義の進化心理学よりも進化人類学に近い。
Evolutionary psychology
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology
Evolutionary psychology (EP) is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations – that is, the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system, is common in evolutionary biology. Some evolutionary psychologists apply the same thinking to psychology, arguing that the mind has a modular structure similar to that of the body, with different modular adaptations serving different functions. Evolutionary psychologists argue that much of human behavior is the output of psychological adaptations that evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments.
The adaptationist approach is steadily increasing as an influence in the general field of psychology.
Evolutionary psychologists suggest that EP is not simply a subdiscipline of psychology but that evolutionary theory can provide a foundational, metatheoretical framework that integrates the entire field of psychology, in the same way it has for biology.
Evolutionary psychologists hold that behaviors or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations[3] including the abilities to infer others’ emotions, discern kin from non-kin, identify and prefer healthier mates, and cooperate with others. They report successful tests of theoretical predictions related to such topics as infanticide, intelligence, marriage patterns, promiscuity, perception of beauty, bride price, and parental investment.
The theories and findings of EP have applications in many fields, including economics, environment, health, law, management, psychiatry, politics, and literature.
Controversies concerning EP involve questions of testability, cognitive and evolutionary assumptions (such as modular functioning of the brain, and large uncertainty about the ancestral environment), importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, as well as political and ethical issues due to interpretations of research results.