A psychological adaptation seen universally in humans is to easily learn a fear of snakes.[1]
A psychological adaptation is a functional, cognitive or behavioral trait that benefits an organism in its environment. Psychological adaptations fall under the scope of evolved psychological mechanisms (EPMs),[2] however, EPMs refer to a less restricted set. Psychological adaptations include only the functional traits that increase the fitness of an organism, while EPMs refer to any psychological mechanism that developed through the processes of evolution. These additional EPMs are the by-product traits of a species’ evolutionary development (see spandrels), as well as the vestigial traits that no longer benefit the species’ fitness. It can be difficult to tell whether a trait is vestigial or not, so some literature is more lenient and refers to vestigial traits as adaptations, even though they may no longer have adaptive functionality. For example, xenophobic attitudes and behaviors, some have claimed, appear to have certain EPM influences relating to disease aversion,[3] however, in many environments these behaviors will have a detrimental effect on a person's fitness. The principles of psychological adaptation rely on Darwin's theory of evolution and are important to the fields of evolutionary psychology, biology, and cognitive science.
^Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Jerome H. Barkow; Leda Cosmides & John Tooby, eds. (1992), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-510107-2
^Faulkner, J.; Schaller, M.; Park, J.H.; Duncan, L.A. (2004). "Evolved disease-avoidance mechanisms and contemporary xenophobic attitudes". Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. 7 (4): 333–353. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.1018.9323. doi:10.1177/1368430204046142. S2CID 28558930.
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