Describe the relationship between evolutionary psychology and cognitive psychology. Which one draws upon the other?
Evolutionary psychology is the current viewpoint of psychology. It proposes that humans are biological beings that have been programmed or wired during the process of evolution, to think, behave, learn and feel in manner that have helped in the survival, generation after generation. There are four fundamental prepositions that have been defined under evolutionary psychology. They are described as follows:
1. Evolutionary procedures are the source of origin of all the psychological mechanisms.
2. The psychological mechanisms have been created through the sexual and the natural selection, as described by Darwin.
3. Evolved psychological procedures could be explained as devices that could process the information.
4. The evolved psychological procedures are functional. They could be used to resolve repetitive problems, related to adapting in the surrounding environment, that were faced by our ancestors.
Darwin proposed that the animals are capable of producing the organisms, which inherit same characteristics as that of their parents. In 1890, the term evolutionary psychology was used, for the first time in the book “The Principle of Psychology”, by William James. This was about 31 years after the famous publication of Charles Darwin “Origin of Species”. At birth, much of the behavior of human is programmed by genetic susceptibility.
This was called as instinct. By learning or experience, such behaviors can be modified. However, initially they are formed out of learning or experience. James also proposed that some instinctive behaviors were innate, like fear of snake, height and other things that have survival value. Some of these, however, developed as a result of the adaptation, for example, the parenting skills, love, fighting or quarrelling for a territory among other activities.
When the behaviorism was been studied by the psychologists in the earlier time, it was considered that the behaviors develop as a result of learning. The notion that behaviors could also be transferred through the genetic material was discarded and was opposed strongly. However, in the later year it was determined that the ancestral behaviors, indeed get transferred to the next generation.
For instance, it was very easy to develop a fear of snakes, height and tunnels in the subjects. Fear of snakes is important for the survival; hence, it could be conditioned very easily. On the other hand, less fearful things, like inanimate objects develop no fear in the subjects and are conditioned slowly.