454 Part V Biological/Evolutionary Theories
seldom seen in social science. It offers explanations for the ultimate origins of not
only all biological systems, but human thought, behavior, and personality as well.
As a guide for practitioners however, we give the theory relatively low
marks. Evolutionary theory says little about how we should raise our children, what
we should teach them and how, or how to conduct therapy to treat mental disorders.
The theory is more abstract and pure than concrete and applied.
Evolutionary theory of personality rates moderate on internal consistency.
Adaptation is a guiding principle and many ideas stem from this core concept. And
most scholars agree on how to define adaptation. However, not all agree on what
is and is not an adaptation. The most glaring example is personality. Although
Buss, MacDonald, and Nettles all agree that personality variability is an adaptation,
two other leading theorists, Tooby and Cosmides, do not.
Evolutionary theory of personality scores high on the criterion of parsimony.
The idea that you can explain the origins of human personality with a few key
concepts of adaptation, mechanism, and natural and sexual selection is quite simple.Concept of Humanity
It is difficult to say on which side of the optimism-pessimism debate evolution-
ary theory would fall. It is mostly descriptive and, in that sense, tends to be
somewhat neutral about describing human nature. Humans are and have been
capable of incredibly uplifting acts of heroism and bravery and cooperation,
inspiring works of creativity, and unbelievable and unspeakable acts of vio-
lence and cruelty. Both extremes are part of human nature (Pinker, 2002).
Evolutionary psychology has a complex view on the question of deter-
minism versus free-will. A common assumption of evolutionary theory by
critics is that it is harshly deterministic in that it explains behavior in terms
of an evolved past and genetic influence. Indeed, evolutionary psychology
is often criticized for condoning traditional sex-roles (e.g., women are
attracted to high status men and men are attracted to physically attractive
women). Buss and other evolutionary theorists make clear, however, that
evolutionary psychology is a theory of how these traits began, not how they
should be. In other words, it is meant to be more descriptive than prescrip-
tive. Moreover, as we saw with Buss’s view of the origin of personality,
biological and environmental explanations are not mutually exclusive. They
are both necessary. Buss (1999) argues in fact that knowledge and aware-
ness of our evolved psychological mechanisms and strategies actually give
us more power to change them if we want to.
On the question of causality versus teleology it is clear that evolution-
ary theory comes down heavily on the causality side of the equation. Evolu-
tion by natural selection above all else is a theory of origins or cause.
Darwin’s book, after all, was titled Origin of Species.
Evolutionary theory sides more with the unconscious influences on
thought, behavior, and personality than on conscious ones. Most of what we