In the language of the theory, you are trying to get them to update their “welfare tradeoff ratio” toward you-how much they value your welfare relative to theirs-and treat you better in the future.įor our purposes, this theory is interesting because it makes clear a priori predictions about (1) which factors will trigger greater anger among victims of maltreatment, and (2) the way the guilty party will try to appease the victim. If you sense that somebody doesn’t value your welfare enough, you get angry in an (unconscious) attempt to convince them to place more emphasis on your wellbeing. One evolutionary psychological theory suggests that anger evolved as a bargaining tactic to convince other people to treat you better.
They therefore cannot be post-hoc stories concocted to fit already-existing data. To substantiate this claim, the findings in this essay were predicted a priori by evolutionary reasoning-in other words, the predictions were made before the studies took place.
In reality, the evidence suggests that evolutionary approaches generate large numbers of new predictions and new discoveries about the human mind. Is this true? Do Evolutionary Approaches Lead to New Predictions? What About New Discoveries?
The crux of the just-so charge is that evolutionary hypotheses are convenient narratives that researchers spin after the fact to accord with existing observations. Part 3 (this essay) illustrates how evolutionary thinking leads to new discoveries.Ī common refrain in the social sciences is that evolutionary psychological hypotheses are “just-so stories.” Amazingly, no evidence is typically adduced for the claim-the assertion is usually just made tout court. Part 2 shows why evolution is necessary for a complete science of the mind. Part 1 clears away seven key misconceptions. This essay is part of a series on the value of evolutionary approaches to psychology.
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