Adaptation and Human Behavior

Adaptation and Human Behavior PDF Author: Napoleon Chagnon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351329189
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
This volume presents state-of-the-art empirical studies working in a paradigm that has become known as human behavioral ecology. The emergence of this approach in anthropology was marked by publication by Aldine in 1979 of an earlier collection of studies edited by Chagnon and Irons entitled Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective. During the two decades that have passed since then, this innovative approach has matured and expanded into new areas that are explored here. The book opens with an introductory chapter by Chagnon and Irons tracing the origins of human behavioral ecology and its subsequent development. Subsequent chapters, written by both younger scholars and established researchers, cover a wide range of societies and topics organ-ized into six sections. The first section includes two chapters that provide historical background on the development of human behavioral ecology and com-pare it to two complementary approaches in the study of evolution and human behavior, evolutionary psychology, and dual inheritance theory. The second section includes five studies of mating efforts in a variety of societies from South America and Africa. The third section covers parenting, with five studies on soci-eties from Africa, Asia, and North America. The fourth section breaks somewhat with the tradition in human behavioral ecology by focusing on one particularly problematic issue, the demographic transition, using data from Europe, North America, and Asia. The fifth section includes studies of cooperation and helping behaviors, using data from societies in Micronesia and South America. The sixth and final section consists of a single chapter that places the volume in a broader critical and comparative context. The contributions to this volume demonstrate, with a high degree of theoretical and methodological sophistication--the maturity and freshness of this new paradigm in the study of human behavior. The volume will be of interest to anthropologists and other professions working on the study of cross-cultural human behavior.

Adaptation and Human Behavior

Adaptation and Human Behavior PDF Author: Napoleon Chagnon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351329189
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume presents state-of-the-art empirical studies working in a paradigm that has become known as human behavioral ecology. The emergence of this approach in anthropology was marked by publication by Aldine in 1979 of an earlier collection of studies edited by Chagnon and Irons entitled Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective. During the two decades that have passed since then, this innovative approach has matured and expanded into new areas that are explored here. The book opens with an introductory chapter by Chagnon and Irons tracing the origins of human behavioral ecology and its subsequent development. Subsequent chapters, written by both younger scholars and established researchers, cover a wide range of societies and topics organ-ized into six sections. The first section includes two chapters that provide historical background on the development of human behavioral ecology and com-pare it to two complementary approaches in the study of evolution and human behavior, evolutionary psychology, and dual inheritance theory. The second section includes five studies of mating efforts in a variety of societies from South America and Africa. The third section covers parenting, with five studies on soci-eties from Africa, Asia, and North America. The fourth section breaks somewhat with the tradition in human behavioral ecology by focusing on one particularly problematic issue, the demographic transition, using data from Europe, North America, and Asia. The fifth section includes studies of cooperation and helping behaviors, using data from societies in Micronesia and South America. The sixth and final section consists of a single chapter that places the volume in a broader critical and comparative context. The contributions to this volume demonstrate, with a high degree of theoretical and methodological sophistication--the maturity and freshness of this new paradigm in the study of human behavior. The volume will be of interest to anthropologists and other professions working on the study of cross-cultural human behavior.

Examining Biological Foundations of Human Behavior

Examining Biological Foundations of Human Behavior PDF Author: Barre Vijaya Prasad
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781799828624
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Biopsychology is a branch of psychology that analyzes how the brain and neurotransmitters influence our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. It is a subdivision of behavioral neuroscience that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experiments. Biopsychology studies many topics relating to the body's response to a behavior or activity in an organism. It concerns the brain cells, structures, components, and chemical interactions that are involved in order to produce actions. Psychologists in this.

Homicide

Homicide PDF Author: Martin Daly
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135151525X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 676

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Book Description
The human race spends a disproportionate amount of attention, money, and expertise in solving, trying, and reporting homicides, as compared to other social problems. The public avidly consumes accounts of real-life homicide cases, and murder fiction is more popular still. Nevertheless, we have only the most rudimentary scientific understanding of who is likely to kill whom and why. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson apply contemporary evolutionary theory to analysis of human motives and perceptions of self-interest, considering where and why individual interests conflict, using well-documented murder cases. This book attempts to understand normal social motives in murder as products of the process of evolution by natural selection. They note that the implications for psychology are many and profound, touching on such matters as parental affection and rejection, sibling rivalry, sex differences in interests and inclinations, social comparison and achievement motives, our sense of justice, lifespan developmental changes in attitudes, and the phenomenology of the self. This is the first volume of its kind to analyze homicides in the light of a theory of interpersonal conflict. Before this study, no one had compared an observed distribution of victim-killer relationships to "expected" distribution, nor asked about the patterns of killer-victim age disparities in familial killings. This evolutionary psychological approach affords a deeper view and understanding of homicidal violence.

Biological Foundations of Human Behavior

Biological Foundations of Human Behavior PDF Author: Josephine F. Wilson
Publisher: Cengage Learning
ISBN: 9780155074866
Category : Human behavior
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Wilson provides a thorough, engaging introduction to the underlying principles of biological psychology in 16 manageable chapters. Going beyond the typical boundaries, Wilson includes cutting-edge research from molecular biology, neuroscience, psychobiology, and neuropsychology to give the reader a more complete--yet accessible--understanding of the biological bases of human behavior. Wilson also offers a special focus on human behavior and physiology. This focus makes the text unique in the market, as most of the competing books emphasize animal models and include only limited human examples. This new text features an outstanding art program, carefully developed to clarify core concepts. Readers will find that each of Wilson's 16 chapters offers current research findings, an excellent use of everyday examples to make difficult concepts understandable, and pedagogy crafted to help students master the material.

Child Abuse and Neglect

Child Abuse and Neglect PDF Author: Jane B. Lancaster
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351529110
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
Child Abuse and Neglect is the third volume sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. The goals of these volumes include the development of a biosocial perspective and its application to the interface between biological and social phenomena in order to advance the understanding of human behavior.Child Abuse and Neglect applies the biosocial perspective to child maltreatment and maladaptation in parent-child relations. The biosocial perspective is particularly appropriate for investigating parent behavior since the family is the universal social institution in which children are born and reared, in which cultural traditions and values are transmitted, and in which individuals fulfill their biological potential for reproduction, growth, and development. The volume examines biological substrates and social and environmental contexts as determinants of parent behavior. By identifying areas in which contemporary human parent behaviors conform with and depart from evolutionary and historical patterns and assessing the overall costs and benefits, it permits their objective assessment in terms of modern circumstances. In analyzing evolutionary and historical variations in parent behavior and assessing their costs and benefits, the book makes possible an objective assessment of contemporary variations. Its analysis of the occurrence of child abuse in past history and in other cultures and species advances our ability to predict the probability of child abuse and neglect in various social and ecological contexts.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF MUSICAL BEHAVIOR

PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF MUSICAL BEHAVIOR PDF Author: Rudolf E. Radocy
Publisher: Charles C Thomas Publisher
ISBN: 0398088055
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
The fifth edition of Psychological Foundations of Musical Behavior appears at a time of continuing worldwide anxiety and turmoil. We have learned a lot about human musical behavior, and we have some understanding of how music can meet diverse human needs. In this exceptional new edition, the authors have elected to continue a “one volume” coverage of a broad array of topics, guided by three criteria: The text is comprehensive in its coverage of diverse areas comprising music psychology; it is comprehensible to the reader; and it is contemporary in its inclusion of information gathered in recent years. Chapter organization recognizes the traditional and more contemporary domains, with special emphases on psychoacoustics, musical preference, learning, and the psychological foundations of rhythm, melody, and harmony. Following the introductory preview chapter, the text examines diverse views of why people have music and considers music’s functions for individuals, its social values, and its importance as a cultural phenomenon. “Functional music” and music as a therapeutic tool is discussed, including descriptions and relationships involving psychoacoustical phenomena, giving considerable attention to perception, judgment, measurement, and physical and psychophysical events. Rhythmic behaviors and what is involved in producing and responding to rhythms are explored. The organization of horizontal and vertical pitch, tonality, scales, and value judgments, as well as related pedagogical issues are also considered. The basic aspects of musical performance, improvisation, composition, existing musical preferences and tastes, approaches to studying the affective response to music with particular emphasis on developments in psychological aesthetics are examined. The text closely relates the development and prediction of musical ability, music learning as a form of human learning, and music abnormalities, concluding with speculation regarding future research directions. The authors offer their latest review of aspects of human musical behavior with profound recognition of music’s enduring values.

The Cannibal Within

The Cannibal Within PDF Author: Lewis F. Petrinovich
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780202369501
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The Cannibal Within offers an evolutionary account of the propensity of human beings, in extreme circumstances to eat other human beings, despite the strong Western taboo against such practices. What sets this volume apart from the large body of literature on cannibalism, both popular and anthropological, is the underlying premise: cannibalism as an alternative to starvation is tacitly condoned by the same biological morality that would condemn cannibalism of other sorts in non-threatening situations. Deep as the taboos may be, the survival instinct runs even deeper. The title of the book reflects the author's belief that cannibalism is not a pathology that erupts in psychotic individuals, but is a universal adaptive strategy that is evolutionarily sound. The cannibal is within all of us, and cannibals are within all cultures, should the circumstances demand cannibalism's appearance and usage. Petrinovich's work is rich in historical detail, and rises to a level of theoretical sophistication in addressing a subject too often dealt with in sensationalist terms. The major instances in which survival cannibalism has occurred convinced the author that there is a consistent pattern and a uniform regularity of order in which different kinds of individuals are consumed. In considering who eats whom, when, and under what circumstances, this regularity appears, and it is consistent with what would be expected on the basis of evolutionary or Darwinian theory. In short, he concludes that starvation cannibalism is not a manifestation of the chaotic, psychotic behavior of individuals who are driven to madness, but reveals underlying characteristics of evolved human beings. Lewis Petrinovich is professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology of the University of California, Riverside and is currently a resident of Berkeley, California.

The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy

The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy PDF Author: Eldar Shafir
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137560
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
Includes bibliographical references and index.

Ache Life History

Ache Life History PDF Author: Kim Hill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351329227
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
The Ache, whose life history the authors recounts, are a small indigenous population of hunters and gatherers living in the neotropical rainforest of eastern Paraguay. This is part exemplary ethnography of the Ache and in larger part uses this population to make a signal contribution to human evolutionary ecology.

Hunter-gatherer Childhoods

Hunter-gatherer Childhoods PDF Author: Barry S. Hewlett
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 0202366669
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
In the vast anthropological literature devoted to hunter-gatherer societies, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the place of hunter-gatherer children. Children often represent 40 percent of hunter-gatherer populations, thus nearly half the population is omitted from most hunter-gatherer ethnographies and research. This volume is designed to bridge the gap in our understanding of the daily lives, knowledge, and development of hunter-gatherer children. The twenty-six contributors to Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods use three general but complementary theoretical approaches--evolutionary, developmental, cultural--in their presentations of new and insightful ethnographic data. For instance, the authors employ these theoretical orientations to provide the first systematic studies of hunter-gatherer children's hunting, play, infant care by children, weaning and expressions of grief. The chapters focus on understanding the daily life experiences of children, and their views and feelings about their lives and cultural change. Chapters address some of the following questions: why does childhood exist, who cares for hunter-gatherer children, what are the characteristic features of hunter-gatherer children's development and what are the impacts of culture change on hunter-gatherer child care? The book is divided into five parts. The first section provides historical, theoretical and conceptual framework for the volume; the second section examines data to test competing hypotheses regarding why childhood is particularly long in humans; the third section expands on the second section by looking at who cares for hunter-gatherer children; the fourth section explores several developmental issues such as weaning, play and loss of loved ones; and, the final section examines the impact of sedentism and schools on hunter-gatherer children. This pioneering volume will help to stimulate further research and scholarship on hunter-gatherer childhoods, thereby advancing our understanding of the way of life that characterized most of human history and of the processes that may have shaped both human development and human evolution. Barry S. Hewlett is professor of anthropology at Washington State University, Vancouver. Michael E. Lamb is professor of psychology in the social sciences, Cambridge University.