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Anthropology 7 Midterm Study Guide
1
Lecture Concepts
Week 1
*Human Nature is our universal or speciestypical psychological (neural) architecture
plus our species-typical anatomy. This course
concerns our universal psychological
architecture: What is it like?
*Perception works through neural programs
that make innate assumptions about the nature
of the external world. These assumptions
were built into the architecture of our
perceptual systems by natural selection – and
they reflect regularities that were statistically
true of the world in which we evolved.
*Cognitive impenetrability (e.g., Muller Lyer
Illusion): Information can be present in, and
driving one or more neural programs, while
not being accessible to, or used by other
neural programs.
*Fish Principle (Instinct blindness): Fish are
the last to discover water, and humans are the
last to discover human nature: It seems to be
out there in the world, when in fact it is the
operation of evolved programs in our heads.
*Standard Social Science Model (SSSM):
The mind is a blank slate, and our mental
contents are completely the result of the
culture and events we are exposed to.
*Is human nature a blank slate (general) or
richly structured (specialized)?
*Evolutionary Psychology and its view of the
human mind
*Natural Selection
Week 2
*Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness
(EEA)
*Adaptive Problem, Cognitive Program, and
Neurophysiological basis
*Responses to Imminent Danger (Frozen in
Terror and other alternatives)
*Fear as a program (How does it function and
what adaptive problem does it try to solve?)
*Snake Phobia (sub-program)
*Rhesus monkey experiment (“fear face”):
increases fear of snakes, but not of other
stimuli
Week 3
*Marginal Benefit Curve
*Formidability: ratio of the cost expended by
an individual to injure a target, to the cost
inflicted on the target
*Aggression (How does it influence the
choices of others?)
*Evolutionary stable strategy (marginal
benefit equalization proportionate to
formidability)
*Tools of social influence/negotiation
(Reward and Punishment)
*Zorba the Greek: importance of allies and
public opinion in small communities
*Alliances and Allies in the EEA
*Fear of Public Speaking: one of the most
common and powerful fears, seems irrational
because we live in a well-policed world; in
the unpoliced ancestral world, a situation
where you can transform the opinions of
others towards you is potentially dangerous
Week 4
*Welfare Trade-off Ratio
*What is aggression (pathology or
evolutionary adaptation)?
*How can a trait of aggression contribute to
its own replication (genetic spread)?
*What is the function of adaptation for
aggression?
*Mutual assessment
*Entropy (Why is it easier to harm than to
help?)
*Dominance hierarchy
*Welfare Trade-off Ratio
*Who wins in conflicts?
*Evolution of ferocity-desperateness
*Anger/Rage as an Adaptation
*Revenge and retribution has an underlying
evolutionary logic. This logic explains
certain apparent paradoxes, such as efforts to
prevent the suicide of those sentenced to be
executed., and the behavior of “going postal.”
Anthropology 7 Midterm Study Guide
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Week 5 (and Week 6 lecture before midterm)
*Disgust as an emotion program
*Adaptations for the avoidance of toxins and diseases
*Humans as foragers (opportunistic omnivores), who need to distinguish all substances along a
spectrum from good food (high level of nutrients to low level of toxins) to less nutritious to neutral
to highly toxic substances.
*Pregnancy sickness as an adaptation
*Adaptations for Incest Avoidance
*Family structure
*Adaptations governing own choice of partner
*Adaptations to intervene in the sexual choices of others
*Incest Survey: Some results and significance
Anthropology 7 Midterm Study Guide
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Readings: Listed are key terms from the readings. It is not enough to know their definition, you
should understand the concepts behind them and be familiar with the examples used to illustrate
them. Please note that this is not a complete listing. There is no substitute for doing the readings.
Gaulin and McBurney
Standard Social Science Model (SSSM)
Critiques of SSSM
SSSM view of Human Nature
Naturalistic Fallacy
Mechanisms of Natural Selection
The Evolution and Spread of Adaptations
Sexual Selection
Evidence for Evolution
Prerequisites for Natural Selection
Principles of Evolutionary Psychology
Mendelian Genetics
Phenotype vs. Genotype
Facultative vs. Obligate traits
Genetic Variation
Polygenic traits
Genetic Fallacy
Altruism
Group Selection
Kin Selection (Hamilton’s Rule)
Reciprocal Altruism (Game Theory)
Nature-Nurture Dichotomy
Novel Environments & the EEA
Purpose of Perception
Sensory Ecology & Sensory Adaptation
Coevolution of the senses
Definitions of Consciousness
Consciousness and Learning
Unity of Consciousness
Self-awareness and Unity of Self
Learning Mechanisms (Evolution, Adaptations,
and Species Differences)
Classical and Instrumental Conditioning
Categorization (Typicality)
Memory
Logical Thinking
Cheater-Detection
Cognitive Heuristics
Sex Differences in Cognition
Information Formats (Probability vs. Frequency)
Daly and Wilson
Natural Selection (History and Definition)
Genes and Natural Selection (Gregor Mendel)
Physical Basis of Heredity
Proximate vs. ultimate causation
Fitness
Wynne-Edward’s Challenge
Lack & Hamilton’s Response
Levels of Selection
Heritability
Competition and selection pressures
Reproductive Strategies
Discriminative parental solicitude
Nepotistic Strategies
Kin Recognition
Costs and Advantages of Sex
Muller’s Ratchet
Evolution of the Sexes
Parental investment (Female vs. Males)
Polygynous vs. Polyandrous
Male Competition and Female Defense
Female-Female Competition
Reproductive effort
Sexual Selection
Male Mating Strategies
Female Mate Choice
Resource-Defense Polygyny
Polygyny Threshold
Comparative Socioecology
Reproductive isolating mechanisms
Social organization of Birds and Mammals
Species Typical Degrees of Polygyny
Sexual Size Dimorphism
Examples of Sex Role Reversals
Anticuckoldry and Antiphilandery Tactics
Biparental Care
Male Lactation
Life History Strategies
Semelparous vs. iteroparous organisms
Cole’s Paradox
Expenditure of Reproductive Effort &
Scheduling
r-K Theory (and its problems)
Forms of Optimal Timing
Anthropology 7 Midterm Study Guide
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The Adapted Mind, Introduction:
Please read this chapter for general background on evolutionary psychology and a richer
understanding of class topics. Material from this chapter may be on the midterm.
Questions to ask yourself about Nisa and The Seven Samurai:
What kind of worlds are Nisa and The Seven Samurai set in?
What kinds of hierarchies exist (relative power relationships)?
What is the nature of male-female relationships? Why?
What kind of cost-benefit analysis is going on for each character (Nisa and her family, brigands,
farmers, and samurai)?
What kind of programs are they running? And how would I write computer programs that, when
exposed to those worlds, duplicate each individual’s behavior on my PC?
How do individuals evaluate each other? What is the result of poor assessments?
What is the role of status, aggression, and communal decision making?
In The Seven Samurai, what is the significance of facial expressions?
*Keep in mind the clips from Seven Samurai that were used to illustrate points in class lecture.
For Example: Recall the different solutions the villagers have for dealing with Brigands (fight,
submission, suicide). What was motivating each character’s response?
The Human Quest Videos:
You should be familiar with each of main segments (usually focused around experiments or
examples) and the point they are trying to prove about human nature and how the mind works. For
example, the Williams Syndrome segment demonstrates that the human brain can be good at some
things (language, social connections) and poor at others (visual-perception skills, low average I.Q.).
If people with Williams Syndrome had general purpose minds, we would expect limitations in all
areas, but this is clearly not the case. This segment is meant to demonstrate that the human brain is
not a blank slate as traditionally assumed rather it is made up of numerous specialized components.
Other video segment topics:
-Motherese
-Object Permanence
-The Human Brain: General Purpose or Specialized (Swiss Army Knife Model)
-William Wallace, Charles Darwin and the 2nd Darwinian Revolution
-Mental Maps
-Cravings for Fat, Sugar, and Salt
-Facial recognition (Prosopagnosia)
-Joint Attention
-Understanding Other Minds (Snoopy and the Crayons)
-Autism
-Social component of brain (Phineous Gage)
-Inter-group conflict