Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.5141/JEFB.2008.31.3.177

Optimality Modeling in Human Evolutionary Behavioral Science  

Jean, Joong-Hwan (Division of EcoScience, Ewha Womans University)
Publication Information
Journal of Ecology and Environment / v.31, no.3, 2008 , pp. 177-181 More about this Journal
Abstract
Recently, the evolutionary study of human psychology and behavior has undergone rapid growth, diversifying into a few distinct sub-disciplines. One fundamental issue over which researchers in Human Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Psychology (EP) have different views is the role of formal optimality modeling for making hypotheses and deriving predictions about human adaptations. The study of EP typically rests on informal inferences and rarely uses optimality modeling, a strategy which human behavioral ecologists have severely criticized. Here I argue that EP researchers have every reason to make extensive use of optimality modeling as its research method. I show that optimality modeling can play an integral role in identifying the functional organization of human psychological adaptations.
Keywords
Evolutionary psychology; Human behavioral ecology; Optimality modeling; Research method;
Citations & Related Records

Times Cited By SCOPUS : 0
연도 인용수 순위
  • Reference
1 Ridley M. 1997. The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, 1st American edn. Viking, New York
2 Sears R, Lawson DW, Dickins TE. 2007. Synthesis in the human evolutionary behavioral sciences. J Evol Psychol 5: 3-28   DOI
3 Seger J, Stubblefield JW. 1996. Optimization and Adaptation. In: Adap tation (Rose MR, Lauder GV, eds). Academic Press, Sand Diego, pp 93-123
4 Edwards AWF. 1998. Natural selection and the sex ratio: Fisher's sources. American Naturalist 151: 564-569   DOI   ScienceOn
5 Krebs JR, Davies NB. 1997. The evolution of behavioral ecology. In: Behavioural Ecology: an Evolutionary Approach (Krebs JR, Davies NB, eds). Blackwell, Oxford, UK, pp 3-12
6 Maynard Smith J, Price G. 1973. The logic of animal conflicts. Nature 246: 15-18   DOI
7 Symons D. 1989. A critique of darwinian anthropology. Ethol and Sociobiol 10: 131-144   DOI   ScienceOn
8 Winterhalder B, Smith EA. 2000. Analyzing adaptive strategies: human behavioral ecology at twenty-five. Evol Anthropol 9: 51-72   DOI   ScienceOn
9 Maynard Smith J. 1982. Evolution and the Theory of Games. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; New York
10 Pinker S. 2002. The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature. Allen Lane, London
11 Smith EA, Borgerhoff Mulder M, Hill K. 2001. Controversies in the evolutionary social sciences: a guide for the perplexed. Trends in Ecol Evol 16: 128-135   DOI   ScienceOn
12 Symons D. 1987. If we're all Darwinians, what's the fuss about? In: Socioblology and Psychology: Ideas, Issues, and Applications (Crawford C, Smith M, Krebs D, eds). Erlbaum, Hilsdale, NJ, pp 121- 146
13 Williams GC. 1966. Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
14 Symons D. 1992. On the use and misuse of Darwinism in the study of human behavior. In: The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 137-159
15 Tooby J, Cosmides L. 1990. The past explains the present: emotional adaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethol and Sociobiol 11: 375-424   DOI   ScienceOn
16 Turke PW. 1990. Which humans behave adaptively, and why does it matter? Ethol and Sociobiol 11: 305-339   DOI   ScienceOn
17 Williams GC. 1992. Natural Nelection: Domains, Levels and Challenges. Oxford University Press, Oxford
18 Wright R. 1994. The Moral Animal: the New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. Pantheon Books, New York
19 Mayr E. 1983. How to carry out the adaptationist program. Am Nat 121: 324-334   DOI   ScienceOn
20 McNamara JM, Houston AI, Collins EJ. 2001. Optimality models in behavioral biology. SIAM Rev 43: 413-466   DOI   ScienceOn
21 Palmer JA, Palmer LK. 2002. Evolutionary Psychology: The Ultimate Origins of Human Behavior. Allyn & Bacon, Boston
22 Parker GA, Maynard Smith J. 1990. Optimality theory in evolutionary biology. Nature 348: 27-33   DOI
23 Pinker S. 1997. How the Mind Works. Norton, New York
24 MacArthur RH, Pianka ER. 1966. On the optimal use of a patch environment. Am Nat 100: 603-609   DOI   ScienceOn
25 Maynard Smith J. 1978. Optimization theory in evolution. Ann Rev Ecol Syst 9: 31-56   DOI
26 Buss DM. 2007. Evolutionary Psychology: the New Science of the Mind, 3rd edn. Allyn and Bacon, Boston
27 Gangestad SW, Simpson JA. 2007. Whither science of the evolution of the mind? In: The Evolution of Mind: Fundamental Questions and Controversies (Gangestad SW, Simpson JA, eds). Guilford Press, New York, NY, pp 397-437
28 Barrett L, Dunbar RIM, Lycett J. 2002. Human Evolutionary Psychology. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
29 Buss DM. 2005. Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J
30 Charnov EL. 1976. Optimal foraging: the marginal value theorem. Theo Popul Biol 9: 129-136   DOI   ScienceOn
31 Clark CW, Mangel M. 2000. Dynamic State Variable Models in Ecology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
32 Crawford C, Krebs D. 2008. Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New York, NY
33 Darwin CR. 1859. On the Origin of Species. John Murray, London
34 Dennett DC. 1995. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: the Evolution and Meanings of Life. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY
35 Dunbar RIM, Barrett L. 2007. The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
36 Fisher RA. 1930. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford University Press, Oxford
37 Smith EA. 2000. Three styles in the evolutionary analysis of human behavior. In: Adaptation and Human Behavior: an Anthropological Perspective (Cronk L, Chagnon N, Irons W, eds). Aldine de Gruyter, New York, pp 27-46
38 Smith EA, Borgerhoff Mulder M, Hill K. 2000. Evolutionary analyses of human behaviour: a commentary on Daly and Wilson. Anim Behav 60: F21-F26
39 Hamilton WD. 1964. The genetical evolution of social behavior. I & II. J Theor Biol 7: 1-52
40 Gaulin SJC, McBurney DH. 2001. Psychology: an Evolutionary Approach. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
41 Kacelnik A, Krebs JR. 1997. Yanomamő dreams and starling payloads: the logic of optimality. In: Human Nature (Betzig L, ed). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp 21-35
42 Kaplan HS, Gangestad SW. 2005. Life history theory and evolutionary psychology. In: The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (Buss DM, ed). John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, pp 68-95
43 Kaplan HS, Gangestad SW. 2007 Optimality approaches and evolutionary psychology: A call for synthesis. In: The Evolution of Mind: Fundamental Questions and Controversies (Gangestad SW, Simpson JA, eds). Guilford Press, New York, pp 121-129
44 Krebs JR, Kacelnik A. 1991. Decision-making. In: Behavioural Ecology: an Evolutionary Approach (Davis NR, Krebs JR, eds). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp 105-136
45 Laland KN, Brown GR. 2002. Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour. Oxford University Press, Oxford