0.10 Biology and personality  (Page 9/22)

But if you contribute to the world’s culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a sparking plug, write a poem, it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool. Socrates may or may not have a gene or two alive in the world today…but who cares? The meme-complexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus, and Marconi are still going strong. (pg. 214; Dawkins, 1976)

Discussion Question: According to Richard Dawkins, the true path to immortality is found through cultural contributions to society, by virtue of cultural units he called memes. What memes do you think are important in your life and in your community? Has that changed during your life and, if so, why?

Evolutionary Psychology

The field of evolutionary psychology is a direct application of sociobiology to psychology, and appears to have begun with the publication of The Adapted Mind (Barkow et al., 1992). In this landmark book, a collection of authors were brought together with the purpose of addressing three major premises: (1) that there is a universal human nature, but that it is based on evolved psychological mechanisms as opposed to culture, (2) that these psychological mechanisms were adaptations constructed by natural selection, and (3) that these adaptations fit the way of life of our ancient ancestors, and may not fit our modern circumstances. Similar to the sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists examine how evolution shaped human behavior and cognition in ways that helped individuals to pass on their genes to future generations, covering topics such as cooperation, mate preference, parental care, the development of language and perceptual abilities, the individual need to belong, helping and altruism, and the universality of emotions (Barkow et al., 1992; Buss, 1999; Larsen&Buss, 2005).

One of the best known psychologists studying evolutionary phenomena is David Buss, and he has paid particular attention to how we choose and attempt to keep our mates. In The Evolution of Desire , Buss (2003) describes how biological differences between males and females leads to different mating strategies, and that this should lead to inevitable conflict. Thus, according to Buss, conflict in a marriage is the norm, not the result of choosing the wrong person. As a result of this conflict, and for a variety of reasons underlying it, the possibility always exists that a man or woman in a marriage (or other committed relationship) will engage in other sexual relationships outside of the marriage. In order to defend against this potential loss of a committed mate, it was an advantage for people to evolve the emotion of jealousy. In The Dangerous Passion , Buss (2000b) argues that jealousy is just as important as love and sex. Passion is necessary for us to have motivation (consider Jung’s description of the shadow archetype). But with jealousy:

…Jealousy can keep a couple committed or drive a man to savagely beat his wife. An attraction to a neighbor’s spouse can generate intoxicating sexual euphoria while destroying two marriages. (pg. 2; Buss, 2000b)