Evolutionary psychology and developmental cross-cultural psychology

Abstract

chapter: argue in favor of a theoretical framework [of psychology that is] based on modern evolutionary biology / since environmentalist concepts such as "learning" or "culture" do not easily apply to the context of early infancy this period will be discussed as an outstanding example for the usefulness of evolutionary based psychological research / instead of either remaining in a state of a phenomenon to be explained or being contrasted as an alternative explanation to evolutionary hypotheses, a somewhat preliminary and pragmatic, but non-reductionistic definition of culture will be presented here: "the product of self-interested individuals necessarily living in groups" /// some implications of evolutionary thinking for cross-cultural psychology are discussed: evolutionary models focusing on biological marker variables (sex, age, and genetic relatedness) and self-interested reproductive efforts (especially parenting behavior) should be superior to sociological functionalism based on psychological well-being as the driving force in human motivation (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)