Feminism and Evolutionary Psychology: Moving Forward

Often since the early 1990s, feminist evolutionists have criticized evolutionary psychologists, finding fault in their analyses of human male and female reproductive behavior. Feminist evolutionists have criticized various evolutionary psychologists for perpetuating gender stereotypes, using questionable methodology, and exhibiting a chill toward feminism. Though these criticisms have been raised many times, the conflict itself has not been fully analyzed. Therefore, I reconsider this conflict, both in its origins and its implications. I find that the approaches and perspectives of feminist evolutionists and evolutionary psychologists are distinctly different, leading many of the former to work in behavioral ecology, primatology, and evolutionary biology. Invitingly to feminist evolutionists, these three fields emphasize social behavior and the influences of environmental variables; in contrast, evolutionary psychology has come to rely on assumptions deemphasizing the pliability of psychological mechanisms and the flexibility of human behavior. In behavioral ecology, primatology, and evolutionary biology, feminist evolutionists have found old biases easy to correct and new hypotheses practical to test, offering new insights into male and female behavior, explaining the emergence and persistence of patriarchy, and potentially bringing closer a prime feminist goal, sexual equality.

This study aims to suggest a methodology of female writing therapy by examining the evolutionary psychological mechanism inherent in human language and art activities, the personality and behavioral tendencies of women, and the linguistic characteristics of female writing, focusing on evolutionary psychology. The results of the discussion are as follows.BR First, human language has evolved based on the evolving psychological mechanism of `cooperation` and `unity`, through which human has acquired the additional psychological effect. Second, human art has evolved based on the evolving psychological mechanism of `show off` and `imagine`, through which human has got psychological effect. Third, women`s empathic ability and self-openness have been evolved, and sociability, affinity, extroversion, sensitivity, and sensitivity have been developed. Fourth, women`s writing has been interpreted as resistance and liberation to male. The result of the above discussion is applied to the 4 steps of writing therapy.

Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing

In our recent survey, we documented that China is currently underperforming in medical innovation (1-3). From social psychology and evolutionary psychology perspectives, in this editorial I put forward some plausible reasons to partially explain why current China is disadvantaged in science and technology innovation, and also why China produced few polymaths.

Human internal and external pressures that drive cognition, emotion, motivation, and interpersonal behavior are critical aspects of clinical psychology and psychotherapy’s perspectives on psychopathology. Different theoretical orientations suggest that difficulties with emotional needs, interpersonal motivations, psychosocial stages, and maturational tasks lie at the core of psychopathology. From an evolutionary and neurobiological perspective, several affective systems were shaped through the interaction between genetic and environmental pressures and can be described as the neural basis for several emotion-based behavioral tendencies. However, efforts to integrate these constructs from basic neural science, evolutionary psychology, and clinical psychology have been sparse. In this sense, the present article aims to briefly review the literature on such clinically relevant constructs and make a proposal in a coherent metatheoretical perspective to integrate and make sense of these phenomena as an unified rationale. From affective neuroscience to evolutionary psychology, developmental psychopathology, and ecological systems perspectives, biopsychosocial and contextual pressures are suggested as a heuristic for a contemporary, coherent, and transtheoretical theory of the disorder.

We argue that mate rejection and ex-partner relationships are important, multifaceted topics that have been underresearched in social and evolutionary psychology. Mate rejection and relationship dissolution are ubiquitous and form integral parts of the human experience. Both also carry with them potential risks and benefits to our fitness and survival. Hence, we expect that mate rejection would have given rise to evolved behavioral and psychological adaptations. Herein, we outline some of the many unanswered questions in evolutionary psychology on these topics, at each step presenting novel hypotheses about how men and women should behave when rejecting a mate or potential mate or in response to rejection. We intend these hypotheses and suggestions for future research to be used as a basis for enriching our understanding of human mating from an evolutionary perspective.

In this research, we provide an interdisciplinary perspective intended to enrich our understanding about the individual and the environmental components of technology utilization. We do so by merging the IS utilization literature with evolutionary psychology. Using a qualitative study, we describe two cases of technology utilization in a hospital setting. These two cases were of particular interest as both employ the same technology, involve the same task, occur in the same hospital, and share the same set of users, yet yield different utilization patterns. We provide an integrated model, the Environmentto-Technology-Utilization Model, which is insightful for IS fit research and practice in comprehending varying utilization behavior across work environments.

Traditional attachment theory posits that attachment in infancy and early childhood is the result of intergenerational transmission of attachment from parents to offspring. Verhage et al. (2016) present meta-analytic evidence addressing the intergenerational transmission of attachment between caregivers and young children. In this commentary, we argue that their appraisal of the behavioral genetics literature is incomplete. The suggested research focus on shared environmental effects may dissuade the pursuit of profitable avenues of research and may hinder progress in attachment theory. Specifically, further research on the "transmission gap" will continue to limit our understanding of attachment etiology. We discuss recent theoretical developments from an evolutionary psychological perspective that can provide a valuable framework to account for the existing behavioral genetic data. (PsycINFO Database Record

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is playing an increasingly important role in influencing consumer behavior, and it represents another opportunity for marketers to build support for their brands. This study explores how the gender of the reader influences how eWOM is perceived. An experiment grounded in evolutionary psychology examines how males and females differ in their perceived trust of eWOM of positive, negative, or mixed valence. The results indicate that females place greater trust than males in eWOM messages. But both genders find eWOM of mixed valence more trustworthy than entirely positive or negative eWOM. A follow-up phenomenological study of male and female consumers who had experienced eWOM shed more light on the experimental findings and offers additional support for their evolutionary basis. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well as recommendations for further research.

The investor relations (IR) function emerged from the need to limit information asymmetries between management and shareholders. As a result, the mandatory disclosure of material information is at the heart of the IR task. Over the years, however, investor relations has evolved into a strategic communication function, responsible for a wide array of voluntary disclosure activities, for relationship management, and executive advisory. Empirical studies document the positive impact of these IR efforts on share prices. Notably, these empirical insights point to tensions emanating from a strategic IR role: According to current regulatory frameworks, voluntary communication beyond mandatory disclosures should not be price-sensitive, and thus should not affect corporate value. To date, there is no authoritative theoretical account for the strategic role of investor relations. Some argue that IR shapes investor perceptions through sensegiving, by fostering social ties, or due to investors’ cognitive biases. This contribution proposes that evolutionary psychology allows for a more comprehensive theoretical account of the strategic role of investor relations. It reviews insights from evolutionary psychology and relates them to established concepts and empirical findings from IR research. It discusses avenues for future research and limitations to an evolutionary psychology perspective on strategic investor relations.

VIOLENT MEMES AND SUSPICIOUS MINDS: GIRARD'S SCAPEGOAT MECHANISM IN THE LIGHT OF EVOLUTION AND MEMETICS Guömundur Ingi Markússon Reykjavik, Iceland The present article is an attempt to bring mimetic theory into dialogue with certain evolutionary approaches to human culture, i.e., evolutionarypsychology and memetics. That which immediately suggests a consonance between these approaches is a shared concern for the fundamental aspects ofhuman culture, or "fundamental anthropology." My discussion aims at reconsidering Girard's startling insight concerning the significance of scapegoating in the formation of human culture, ritual and myth—or, in short, his concept of the scapegoat mechanism. Two alternative approaches will be explored: (1) On the basis of evolutionary psychology, scapegoating is considered as a cognitive side-effect; (2) with reference to memetics, it is suggested that the scapegoat mechanism is a memetic parasite. The former account is an interpretation ofPascal Boyer's ideas about group mentality and fundamentalist violence in his recent book ReligionExplained(2001). The latter consideration is inspired byTerrence W. Deacon's concept of language evolution and symbolic reference in his book The Symbolic Species (1997). It should be emphasized at the outset that neither Boyer nor Deacon are concerned with scapegoating and, needless to say, the application and interpretation oftheir ideas is entirely my own. 1. The Scapegoat Mechanism as a Cognitive Side Effect The following is an attempt to formulate a cognitive account of scapegoating based on Pascal Boyer's ideas about fundamentalism (2001, 292ff). Guömundur Ingi Markússon89 1.1. The Coalitional Reasoning ofthe Social Mind Boyer's theory of religion is firmly rooted in evolutionary psychology (2001, 118, passim)} A key concept in evolutionary psychology is the environment ofevolutionary adapteäness (EEA) which is centered around the claim that our cognitive apparatus evolved in response to ecological problems faced by our ancestors in the Pleistocene period (which lasted from ca. 2 million-10,000 years ago). In other words, the cognition of modern humans is geared to the ancestral environments of our huntergatherer past. The key issue in evolutionary psychology is to gain insight into the adaptive problems faced by our ancestors, and figure out the necessary cognitive capabilities needed to solve them. The resulting models of how the mind works can then be tested experimentally. Evolutionary psychologists also emphasize the áomain specificity of our psychological mechanisms, i.e., in simple terms, that our mind is a collection of specialized mechanisms wrought by natural selection to deal with specific features of our environment, such as detecting predators, keeping track of social relations, etc. In Boyer's account, the mixed stock of our evolutionary heritage includes a complex array of psychological mechanisms for keeping track ofa wide spectrum ofsocial relations, the social mina (2001, 122). An essential aspect of our social intelligence is "intuitive psychology" or a "theory of mind," i.e., seeing others as intentional agents, realizing what they are up to, what their beliefs and desires are, being able to predict their behavior, etc. According to evolutionary psychologists we are adapted for social exchange. We easily calculate the costs and benefits of our interactions with others. Experiments have shown that logical problems are much more transparent to people when presented as social exchange problems. In such cases, the logical rule in question is restated as a "check for cheaters" rule, i.e., the problem is to figure out whether people respect social conventions or not. Evolutionary psychologists interpretthese results to the effect that our cognition is geared to evaluate social exchange, and we have evolved a disposition to check for cheaters in social exchange situations (2001, 124f; Cosmides 1989; Cosmides & Tooby 1992).2 1 On evolutionary psychology, see Barkow et al. and Laland and Brown (ch. 5). 2 Cosmides, one of the pioneers of evolutionary psychology, characterizes "check for cheaters" thus: "cheating can be defined as the violation of a rule established, explicitly or implicitly, by acceptance ofa social contract. A social contract relatesperceived benefits to 90Violent Mêmes and Suspicious Minds Evaluation oftrust is essential to human interaction: "That humans depend on cooperation creates strategic problems, where the value (the expected benefit) of a particular move depends on whether someone else makes a particular move...." (2001, 125...

As part of a large-scale inquiry into the religious and moral orientations of Dutch secondary school students, they were questioned about their religious and moral socialisation at home. More specifically the students were asked how important their religious and moral socialisation is/was to their parents. On the basis of the data thus acquired this paper explores differences in the importance attached to religious and moral socialisation by children in religious and nonreligious families and in churchgoing and non-churchgoing families. As expected, in both religious and churchgoing families the religious socialisation of children is deemed more important than in nonreligious and non-churchgoing families. Two rather unexpected results were that, firstly, moral socialisation was deemed more important in religious and churchgoing families than in their secular counterparts; and, secondly, religious and churchgoing parents considered certain aspects of their children's moral socialisation more important than related aspects of their religious socialisation. Apparently, children's moral socialisation is not only rated more highly in religious and church-affiliated than in secular environments, but in the former it is rated above their religious socialisation. This is a remarkable finding, which is discussed from the perspective of cognitive and evolutionary psychology in the final section of this paper.

Research on family businesses has focused on the differences between family and non-family firms regarding the top management team (TMT), while this study further explores the difference within family firms from different regional culture based on the perspective of socio-emotional wealth (SEW) and evolutionary psychology. Using a sample comprised of all 625 family firms listed on the Small & Medium Enterprise Board and Growth Enterprise Board in Shenzhen Stock Exchange, this study finds that in regions of strong clan culture, family members are more willing to be involved in a family business and accept lower economic rewards. Particularly, when financial risk is high, these relationships mentioned above become more significant. Based on the results, this study proves that regional culture can affect the characteristics of top management teams in family firms, explains the heterogeneity of family firms’ decision-making from a culture-based perspective and extends existing research on family business from the level of “family firm vs. non-family firm” to that of “family firms affected by different regional cultures”.

The human capacity for positive and negative feelings is shaped by the forces of evolution, thus the evolutionary perspective should be relevant to the study of happiness. This paper attempts to identify the more pertinent innate qualities of the human brain, and discusses how the evolutionary perspective can be used to relate these qualities to the study of happiness. Two aspects of our evolutionary legacy appear to be particularly relevant: One, the consequences of discords between the present way of living and the environment of evolutionary adaptation; and two, the presence of feelings designed to influence behaviour. The purpose of the present paper is to both expand on these two aspects and thereby arrive at an evolutionary based description of happiness; and to discuss the relationship between this biological account and some current approached to the study of happiness.

Evolution, Human Enhancement, and the Narrative Self Neil Scheurich (bio) But philosophy has no direct influence on the great mass of mankind; it is of interest to only a small number even of the top layer of intellectuals and is scarcely intelligible to anyone else. On the other hand, religion is an immense power which has the strongest emotions of human beings at its service. Sigmund Freud1 In casual conversation a while back, a psychiatrist colleague of mine asked a question that set me to thinking about the relationships between science, the self, and the odd amalgam of the two that is psychiatry. “Why all this talk now of narrative?” he asked. “It’s a word that has long been with us, but it seems to mean much more now, to stand for something else that we can’t talk about any more.” His question suggested that something vital, while not absent from medicine and psychiatry, has retreated underground. The answer I came up with is that narrative is important because it is a device that economically and holistically captures crucial elements of human experience—self, identity, and notions of value, free will, and even spirituality—that seem increasingly questionable these days in the context of reductionist science on the one hand and social constructionist theories on the other. The term “narrative self” neatly captures that blend of biophysical reality and abstract representation that is human experience. With respect to literature, autobiography, and psychotherapy, the self and its values, reluctant to vanish altogether into the anatomy and physiology of the brain or into the fractured postmodern text, live on in the guise of narrative. The broad phenomenon of narrative—stemming naturally from linguistic consciousness—was the original self-enhancement “technology,” [End Page 1] but the accelerating growth of science and social theory has variably offered both empowerment and distortion. In what follows, my aim is twofold. First, I will explore the implications of evolutionary psychology for the self and the crucial role of narrative in enabling the self to manage its own ambiguous and multidimensional nature. Secondly, I will apply the considerations of evolution and the narrative self to ongoing debates over genetic, physical, and especially psychological enhancements of human beings. I Neurobiology and evolutionary psychology, as well as their common meeting ground, behavioral genetics, have clearly grown exponentially in explanatory power vis a vis human psychology and psychopathology. While much remains to be discovered, and disputes over some facts will always exist, scientists understand more than ever not only how motivation, emotion, and cognition work on a neurological level, but also why human beings are the way they are, based on our historical need to survive and reproduce in the context of natural selection. It is ever more apparent that a host of features crucial to personal identity— social proclivities, temperament, intelligence, and even religiosity—may be under significant genetic and evolutionary control.2 Moreover, evolutionary concepts increasingly find their way into mainstream psychology and even into the popular realm, and thus influence the ways people view themselves. For instance, in his blog for Psychology Today, The Scientific Fundamentalist, Satoshi Kanazawa applies evolutionary psychology to matters of everyday behavior related to sexuality, family relationships, and even social policy.3 Similarly, in a political context, Jonathan Haidt includes evolutionary perspectives in his account of the differing motivations of liberals and conservatives.4 Apart from inevitable disagreements over the facts, evolutionary psychology’s controversy stems mainly from concerns about reductionism, eugenics, and fears of complacency with regard to our moral imperfections. Evolutionary psychology theorists argue that such atrocious behaviors as sexual jealousy, rape, and even abuse of stepchildren can be at least indirectly explained by past evolutionary advantage. The concern is that blinkered scientists and a credulous public will assume that because certain behaviors came about in such transparently explicable fashion, they must be alright. To be sure, evolutionary psychology arguably tends toward a view of human nature that is potentially both [End Page 2] tragic and lenient: evil, in its various guises, is a predictable result of human beings subjected to unmodified natural selection, while human weakness in general seems more comprehensible when viewed in its animal aspects. As...