Kinship: The Tie that Binds (Disciplines)

Abstract

As disciplines, evolutionary psychology and behavior genetics have independent—and even antagonistic—histories, assumptions, and methodologies. One point of intersection, however, is their mutual investment in, and reliance on, the concept of kinship. I argue that this mutual concern might serve as common ground supporting an interdisciplinary investigation into the developmental and evolutionary causes of individual differences. In particular, I argue that the statistical main effects reported by each discipline are not particularly illuminating, and that what is needed is a combined effort to unravel the nature of nurture—the rules of epigenesis. To this end I outline a research program which would: (a) identify traits for which heritable variations are adaptive, versus traits for which heritable variations are simply “genetic junk;” then (b) determine how both heritable and non-heritable differences map onto life history strategies.