Kirjahaku

Biologists have known for decades that many traits involved in competition for mates or other resources and that influence mate choice are exaggerated, and their expression is influenced by the individuals’ ability to tolerate a variety of environmental and social stressors. Evolution of Vulnerability applies this concept of heightened sensitivity to humans for a host of physical, social, psychological, cognitive, and brain traits. By reframing the issue entirely, renowned evolutionary psychologist David C. Geary demonstrates this principle can be used to identify children, adolescents, or populations at risk for poor long-term outcomes and identify specific traits in each sex and at different points in development that are most easily disrupted by exposure to stressors. Evolution of Vulnerability begins by reviewing the expansive literature on traits predicted to show sex-specific sensitivity to environmental and social stressors, and details the implications for better assessing and understanding the consequences of exposure to these stressors. Next, the book reviews sexual selection—mate competition and choice—and the mechanisms involved in the evolution of condition dependent traits and the stressors that can undermine their development and expression, such as poor early nutrition and health, parasites, social stress, and exposure to man-made toxins. Then it reviews condition dependent traits (physical, behavioral, cognitive, and brain) in birds, fish, insects, and mammals to demonstrate the ubiquity of these traits in nature. The focus then turns to humans and covers sex-specific vulnerabilities in children and adults for physical traits, social behavior, psychological wellbeing, and brain and cognitive traits. The sensitivity of these traits is related to exposure to parasites, poor nutrition, social maltreatment, environmental toxins, chemotherapy, and Alzheimer’s disease, among others. The book concludes with an implications chapter that outlines how to better assess vulnerabilities in children and adults and how to more fully understand how, why, and when in development some types of environmental and social stressors are particularly harmful to humans.

Humans have an extraordinary ability to create evolutionarily novel knowledge, such as writing systems and mathematics. This accumulated knowledge over several millennia supports large, dynamic societies that now require children to learn this novel knowledge in educational settings. This Element provides a framework for understanding the evolution of the brain systems that enable innovation and novel learning and how these systems can act on human cognitive universals, such as language, to create evolutionarily novel abilities, such as reading and writing. Critical features of these networks include the top-down control of attention, which is central to the formation of evolutionarily novel abilities, as well as self-awareness and mental time travel that support academic self-concepts and the generation of long-term educational goals. The basics of this framework are reviewed and updated here, as are implications for instructional practices.

Humans have an extraordinary ability to create evolutionarily novel knowledge, such as writing systems and mathematics. This accumulated knowledge over several millennia supports large, dynamic societies that now require children to learn this novel knowledge in educational settings. This Element provides a framework for understanding the evolution of the brain systems that enable innovation and novel learning and how these systems can act on human cognitive universals, such as language, to create evolutionarily novel abilities, such as reading and writing. Critical features of these networks include the top-down control of attention, which is central to the formation of evolutionarily novel abilities, as well as self-awareness and mental time travel that support academic self-concepts and the generation of long-term educational goals. The basics of this framework are reviewed and updated here, as are implications for instructional practices.

Now in a third edition, the authoritative classic text Male, Female evaluates both foundational and recent scholarship on the evolution of human sex differences, including how males and females differ in modern contexts. In comprehensive detail, David C. Geary describes how men and women differ based on evolutionary principles, how human sex differences are similar to those found in other species and how the expression of these differences is uniquely human. The principles of sexual selection-such as female choice and male-male competition-explain sex differences in parenting, mate choices, ways of competing for mates, social-political preferences, development, the brain, and cognition. Far from being one-sided in the nature-versus-nurture debate, Geary shows how an evolutionary framework can easily incorporate the influence of experience and cultural context on the development and expression of sex differences. Thoroughly updated and expanded, this third edition adds a chapter on sex differences that emerge in modern contexts, like occupational choices, variation in sexual orientation, gender identity, and relationships. Scholars from a wide range of sciences have much to learn from this monumental volume.