This wide-ranging collection demonstrates the continuing impact of evolutionary thinking on social psychology research. This perspective is explored in the larger context of social psychology, which is divisible into several major areas including social cognition, the self, attitudes and attitude change, interpersonal processes, mating and relationships, violence and aggression, health and psychological adjustment, and individual differences. Within these domains, chapters offer evolutionary insights into salient topics such as social identity, prosocial behavior, conformity, feminism, cyberpsychology, and war. Together, these authors make a rigorous argument for the further integration of the two diverse and sometimes conflicting disciplines. Among the topics covered: How social psychology can be more cognitive without being less social. How the self-esteem system functions to resolve important interpersonal dilemmas. Shared interests of social psychology and cultural evolution. The evolution of stereotypes. An adaptive socio-ecological perspective on social competition and bullying. Evolutionary game theory and personality. Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology has much to offer students and faculty in both fields as well as evolutionary scientists outside of psychology. This volume can be used as a primary text in graduate courses and as a supplementary text in various upper-level undergraduate courses.

What a pity it would have been if biologists had refused to accept Darwin's theory of natural selection, which has been essential in helping biologists understand a wide range of phenomena in many animal species. These days, to study any animal species while refusing to consider the evolved adaptive significance of their behavior would be considered pure folly--unless, of course, the species is homo sapiens. Graduate students training to study this particular primate species may never take a single course in evolutionary theory, although they may take two undergraduate and up to four graduate courses in statistics. These methodologically sophisticated students then embark on a career studying human aggression, cooperation, mating behavior, family relationships, or altruism with little or no understanding of the general evolutionary forces and principles that shaped the behaviors they are investigating. This book hopes to redress that wrong. It is one of the first to apply evolutionary theories to mainstream problems in personality and social psychology that are relevant to a wide range of important social phenomena, many of which have been shaped and molded by natural selection during the course of human evolution. These phenomena include selective biases that people have concerning how and why a variety of activities occur. For example: * information exchanged during social encounters is initially perceived and interpreted; * people are romantically attracted to some potential mates but not others; * people often guard, protect, and work hard at maintaining their closest relationships; * people form shifting and highly complicated coalitions with kin and close friends; and * people terminate close, long-standing relationships. Evolutionary Social Psychology begins to disentangle the complex, interwoven patterns of interaction that define our social lives and relationships.

The transformative wave of Darwinian insight continues to expand throughout the human sciences. While still centered on evolution-focused fields such as evolutionary psychology, ethology, and human behavioral ecology, this insight has also influenced cognitive science, neuroscience, feminist discourse, sociocultural anthropology, media studies, and clinical psychology. This handbook's goal is to amplify the wave by bringing together world-leading experts to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of evolution-oriented and influenced fields. While evolutionary psychology remains at the core of the collection, it also covers the history, current standing, debates, and future directions of the panoply of fields entering the Darwinian fold. As such, The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior is a valuable reference not just for evolutionary psychologists but also for scholars and students from many fields who wish to see how the evolutionary perspective is relevant to their own work.

This volume in the Springer Series in Evolutionary Psychology presents a state of the art view of the topic of sexuality and sexual behavior drawing on theoretical constructs and research of noted individuals in the field. Comprehensive and multi-disciplinary, this book seeks to provide a broad overview without sacrificing the complexity of a multi-faceted approach. The book is framed by introductory and closing sections that provide a context for the range of ideas contained within. Ample space is provided in designated sections that focus on key areas of sexuality from both male and female perspectives and that include information from primate studies. This volume can serve as a graduate text in sexual behavior in evolutionary terms and as a guide for further research.

Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development's Comprehensive coverage on current thinking about the impact of evolutionary theory on human development provides students with the most thorough grounding available in this area. Contributions by leading scholars and researchers expose students first-hand to the thinking of widely recognized experts and the exciting contributions they have been making to this field. To ensure accessibility in classroom settings, chapters have been written according to uniform guidelines for length and format, with cross-references between chapters and a style appropriate to upper-division undergraduate and beginning graduate psychology students. To further facilitate the use of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development as supplemental classroom reading, the volume editors provide an introductory overview chapter and a concluding chapter that sums up the book.

This volume brings together a collection of seven articles previously published by the author, with a new introduction reframing the articles in the context of past and present questions in anthropology, psychology and human evolution. It promotes the perspective of ‘integrated’ social science, in which social science questions are addressed in a deliberately eclectic manner, combining results and models from evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, economics, anthropology and history. It thus constitutes a welcome contribution to a gradually emerging approach to social science based on E. O. Wilson’s concept of ‘consilience’. Human Cultures through the Scientific Lens spans a wide range of topics, from an examination of ritual behaviour, integrating neuro-science, ethology and anthropology to explain why humans engage in ritual actions (both cultural and individual), to the motivation of conflicts between groups. As such, the collection gives readers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the applications of an evolutionary paradigm in the social sciences. This volume will be a useful resource for scholars and students in the social sciences (particularly psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology and the political sciences), as well as a general readership interested in the social sciences.

The latest volume in this multidisciplinary series on key topics in evolutionary studies, Evolutionary Perspectives on Death provides an evolutionary analysis of mortality and the consideration of death. Bringing together noted experts from a variety of fields, the books emanate from conferences held at Oakland University, and are dedicated to providing wide ranging and occasionally provocative views of human evolution. The volume on death covers topics from biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology and philosophy, with contributors addressing how evolution informs the process of comprehending, grieving, depicting, celebrating, and accepting death. Among the topics covered: Evolutionary perspectives on the loss of a twin Nonhuman primate responses to death Death in literature Witnessing and representing the death of pets The role of human decomposition facilities in shaping American perspectives on death This insightful volume showcases groundbreaking empirical and theoretical research addressing death and mortality from an evolutionary perspective, demonstrating the intellectual value of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding psychological processes and behavior. Chapter 6 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.