American Contributions

SCIENCE BRIEFS
Evolutionary Theory and Psychology
Scientists and philosophers submit personal reflections on the significance and influence of Darwin’s theory and of current views
of evolution within contemporary psychology.
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In commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal
work On the Origin of Species, this edition of Psychological Science Agenda includes a special section on evolutionary theory
and psychology. Scientists and philosophers were invited to submit personal reflections on the significance and influence of
Darwin’s theory and of current views of evolution within contemporary psychology. PSA thanks the authors for their provocative
contributions.
Darwin’s Influence on Modern Psychological Science
By David M. Buss
Evolutionary Psychology and the Evolution of Psychology
By Daniel Kruger
Darwinizing the Social Sciences
By Robert Kurzban
Darwinian Psychology: Where the Present Meets the Past
By Debra Lieberman and Martie Haselton
Psychology’s Best Discovery Heuristic
By Edouard Machery
Survival of the Fittest?
By Gary Marcus
An Open Letter to Comparative Psychologists
By Daniel J. Povinelli, Derek C. Penn, and Keith J. Holyoak
Evolution of Human Sex Differences
By Wendy Wood and Alice H. Eagly

Darwin’s Influence on Modern Psychological Science

By David M. Buss

David M. Buss is Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. 

At the end of his classic treatise in 1859, On the Origin of Species, Darwin envisioned that in the distant future, the field of
psychology would be based on a new foundation—that of evolutionary theory. A century and a half later, it’s clear that his vision
proved prescient (Buss, 2009).
Evolutionary psychology is not a distinct branch of psychology, but rather a theoretical lens that is currently informing all
branches of psychology. It is based on a series of logically consistent and well-confirmed premises: (1) that evolutionary
processes have sculpted not merely the body, but also the brain, the psychological mechanisms it houses, and the behavior it
produces; (2) many of those mechanisms are best conceptualized as psychological adaptations designed to solve problems that
historically contributed to survival and reproduction, broadly conceived; (3) psychological adaptations, along with byproducts of
those adaptations, are activated in modern environments that differ in some important ways from ancestral environments; (4)
critically, the notion that psychological mechanisms have adaptive functions is a necessary, not an optional, ingredient for a
comprehensive psychological science.
Darwin provided two key theories that guide much of modern psychological research—natural selection and sexual selection.
These theories have great heuristic value, guiding psychologists to classes of adaptive problems linked with survival (e.g., threats
from other species such as snakes and spiders; threats from other humans) and reproduction (e.g., mate selection, sexual rivalry,
adaptations to ovulation). Advances in modern evolutionary theory heralded by inclusive fitness theory and the “gene’s-eye”
perspective guide researchers to phenomena Darwin could not have envisioned, such as inherent and predictable forms of within-
family conflict and sexual conflict between males and females.
Over the past decade, evolutionary psychology has increasingly informed each sub-discipline within psychology. In perception
and sensation, it has led to the discovery of phenomena such as the auditory looming bias and the visual descent illusion. In
cognitive psychology, based on a fusion of signal detection theory and the asymmetric evolutionary costs of cognitive errors, it
has led to error management theory and the discovery of functional cognitive biases that are, strange as it may seem, “designed”
to err in adaptive ways. Evolutionary social psychology has produced a wealth of discoveries, ranging from adaptations for
altruism to the dark sides of social conflict. Evolutionary developmental psychology has explored the ways in which critical
ontogentic events, such as father absence versus father presence, influence the subsequent development of sexual strategies.
Evolutionary clinical psychology provides a non-arbitrary definition of psychological disorder--when an evolved mechanism fails
to function as it was designed to function. It also sheds light on common afflictions such as depression, anxiety disorders, eating
disorders, and sexual disorders. And it provides a framework for examining how mismatches between ancestral and modern
environments can create psychological disorders. Personality psychology, historically refractory to evolutionary analysis, is
finally beginning to discover adaptive individual differences.
Hybrid disciplines too make use of the tools of evolutionary psychology. Cognitive and social neuroscientists, for example, use
modern technologies such as fMRI to test hypotheses about social exclusion adaptations, emotions such as sexual jealousy, and
kin recognition mechanisms.
More generally, evolutionary psychology breaks down the barriers between the traditional sub-disciplines of psychology. A
proper description of psychological adaptations must include identifying perceptual input, cognitive processing, and
developmental emergence. Many mechanisms evolved to solve social adaptive problems, such as when social anxiety functions
to motivate behavior that prevents an individual from losing status within a group. And all adaptations can malfunction, as when
social anxiety becomes paralyzing rather than functional, making clinical psychology relevant. The key point is that organizing
psychology around adaptive problems and evolved psychological solutions, rather than around the somewhat arbitrary sub-fields
such as cognitive, social, and developmental, dissolves historically restrictive branch boundaries. Evolutionary psychology
provides a metatheory for psychological science that unites these fields, and justifies why the seemingly disparate branches of
psychology truly belong within the covers of introductory psychology books and within the same departments of psychology.