Foundations of Behavior

Fields of psychology emphasizing evolutionary mechanisms that may help explain human commonalities in cognition, development, emotion, social practices, and other areas of behavior. (Chapter 1, page20). FROM WHAT?

Though applicable to any organism with a nervous system, most EP research focuses on humans.

The term evolutionary psychology was probably coined by Ghiselin in his 1973 article in Science. Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby popularized the term in 1002 book-The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (www.oup.com/us/catalog/subject/Psychology /Cognitive/?view) Where is the reference at the bottom for this link? Also you put the link at the bottom and the put, here at the end of the sentence (Oxford University, 2005) This way people could see which link to reference at the bottom and know where to go.

This general evolutionary theory was first looked at by a man named Paley. His theory was that organisms are machines designed to function in particular environments, He also believed that there was a designer... God. Now, Darwin had another theory, natural selection. Darwin did not quite believe that there was one designer.

Natural selection involves three main ingredients:

Variation refers to state in which there exists a variety of traits within a population.

Heritability refers to those traits that can be inherited via reproduction.

Selection refers to those heritable traits that remain in and spread through a population because those traits ultimately aid the organism in survival or reproduction.

Humanistic Psychology

Psychology approach that emphasizes free will, personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential. Humanistic psychology acknowledges that the mind is strongly influence by determining forces in society and in the unconscious, and that some of these are negative and destructive. Humanistic psychology nevertheless emphasizes the independent dignity and worth of human beings and the conscious capacity to develop personal competence and self respect. The value orientation has led to the development of therapies to facilitate personal and interpersonal skills and to enhance the quality of life.

This all came about around 1950, a reaction of both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. These matters summarized by 5 postulates of Humanistic Psychology given by James Bugental in the 1960’s and they are: 1) Human beings cannot be reduced to components.2) Human beings have in them a uniquely human context. 3) Human consciousness includes an awareness of oneself in the context of other people. 4) Human beings have choices and responsibilities and 5) Human beings are intentional; they seek meaning value and creativity. (Bugental, 1964). WHERE IS THE REFERENCE at the bottom?

Cognitive Perspective

Cognitive psychology covers a broad range of research domains, examining questions about the workings of memory, attention, perception, knowledge and representation, reasoning, creativity and problem solving.

Psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problems solving and other areas of behaviors.

To compare these three perspectives and their theories would be as follows, in comparison, all three are the study of the mental processes and behaviors, and living things.

Contrast: Evolutionary Psychology to Humanistic and Cognitive, Evolutionary theories that organisms are comprised of a number of parts that serve different functions. Many traits that are selected for can actually hinder survival of the organism.