December 11, 2007:
Prof. Mark van Vugt:

Evolutionary Social Psychology; a theory about sex shopping and warfare.


Evolutionary psychology is the scientific study of the brain as the product of evolution through natural selection. It is a novel field with many interesting applications. Here I argue that the human brain is primarily social. This social brain enabled human ancestors to solve many important social problems such as finding a mate, caring for off-spring, sharing food, negotiating status hierarchies, and coordinating groups to fight rival groups. Unfortunately, our Stone Age minds are sometimes ill prepared to cope with the many challenges of modern society. For instance, we are more afraid of spiders and snakes than of cars and electricity, although the latter are far more deadly. In this talk I will discuss various examples of a mismatch between modern and ancestral human environments creating problems related to sex, shopping and warfare. 



There are further readings on evolutionary social psychology available on my website.