Evolutionary accounts of human behavioural diversity

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Volumn 366, Issue 1563, 2011, Pages 313-324

  Brown, Gillian R ^a   Dickins, Thomas E ^b,c   Sear, Rebecca ^c   Laland, Kevin N ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^c LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Behaviour; Cognition; Culture; Diversity; Evolution; Human beings

Indexed keywords

BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY; COGNITION; CULTURE; EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY; EVOLUTIONARY THEORY; HUMAN BEHAVIOR; LEARNING; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR;

EID: 79951822456     PISSN: 09628436     EISSN: 14712970     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0267     Document Type: Review

References (123)

1. Harris, M. 2001 The rise of anthropological theory: a history of theories of culture. London, UK: AltaMira Press.
2. Eysenck, M. W. 1994 Individual differences: normal and abnormal. Hove, UK: Erlbaum.
3. Laland, K. N. & Brown, G. R. 2002 Sense and nonsense: evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
4. Sear, R., Lawson, D. W. & Dickins, T. E. 2007 Synthesis in the human evolutionary behavioural sciences. J. Evol. Psychol. 5, 3-28. (doi:10.1556/JEP.2007.1019)
5. Smith, E. A., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Hill, K. 2001 Controversies in the evolutionary social sciences: a guide for (Pubitemid 32149936)
6. Tinbergen, N. 1963 On aims and methods of ethology. Z. Tierpsychol. 20, 410-433. (doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310. 1963.tb01161.x)
7. Lorenz, K. 1950 The comparative method of studying innate behavioural patterns. Sym. Soc. Exp. Biol. 4, 221-268.
8. Tinbergen, N. 1951 The study of instinct. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
9. Lehrman, D. S. 1953 A critique of Konrad Lorenz's theory of instinctive behavior. Quart. Rev. Biol. 28, 337-363.
10. Dawkins, R. 1976 The selfish gene. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
11. Williams, G. C. 1966 Adaptation and natural selection: a critique of some current evolutionary thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
12. Wilson, E. O. 1975 Sociobiology: the new synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
13. Rose, S., Lewontin, R. C. & Kamin, L. J. 1984 Not in our genes: biology, ideology, and human nature. London, UK: Penguin.
14. Segestråle, U. 2000 Defenders of the truth: the sociobiology debate. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
15. Wilson, E. O. 1978 On human nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
16. Alexander, R. D. 1979 Darwinism and human affairs. London, UK: Pitman.
17. Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. 1987 From evolution to behaviour: evolutionary psychology as the missing link. In The latest on the best: essays on evolution and optimality (ed. J. Dupre), pp. 277-306. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
18. Brown, D. E. 1991 Human universals. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
19. Lumsden, C. J. & Wilson, E. O. 1981 Genes, mind and culture: the coevolutionary process. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20. Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. 1985 Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
21. Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. & Feldman, M. W. 1981 Cultural transmission and evolution: a quantitative approach. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
22. Smith, E. A. 2000 Three styles in the evolutionary analysis of human behavior. In Adaptation and human behavior: an anthropological perspective (eds L. Cronk, N. Chagnon & W. Irons), pp. 27-46. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
23. Borgerhoff Mulder, M. 1991 Human behavioural ecology. In Behavioural ecology: an evolutionary approach (eds J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies), Oxford, UK: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
24. Cronk, L., Chagnon, N. & Irons, W. (eds) 2000 Adaptation and human behavior: an anthropological perspective. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
25. Smith, E. A. 1985 Inuit foraging groups: some simple models incorporating conflicts of interest, relatedness, and central place sharing. Ethol. Sociobiol. 6, 27-47. (doi:10.1016/0162-3095 (85) 90039-1)
26. Borgerhoff Mulder, M. 1990 Kipsigis women's preferences for wealthy men: evidence for female choice in mammals? Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 27, 255-264. (doi:10.1007/BF00164897)
27. Blurton Jones, N. 1986 Bushman birth spacing: a test for optimal interbirth interval. Ethol. Sociobiol. 7, 91-105.
28. Kaplan, H. S. & Gangestad, S. W. 2005 Life history theory and evolutionary psychology. In Handbook of evolutionary psychology (ed. D. M. Buss), pp. 68-95. New York, NY: Wiley.
29. Borgerhoff Mulder, M. 2004 Human behavioural ecology. Nat. Encycl. Life Sci. See http://www.els.net/. (doi:10.1038/npg.els.0003671)
30. Grafen, A. 1984 Natural selection, kin selection and group selection. In Behavioral ecology: an evolutionary approach (eds J. Krebs & N. B. Davies), 2nd edn. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
31. Boakes, R. 1984 From Darwin to behaviourism: psychology and the minds of animals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
32. Plotkin, H. 2004 Evolutionary thought in psychology: a brief history. London, UK: Blackwell.
33. Baars, B. J. 1986 The cognitive revolution in psychology. New York, NY: Guildford Press.
34. Garcia, J. & Koelling, R. A. 1966 Prolonged relation of cue to consequence in avoidance learning. Psychonomic Sci. 4, 123-124.
35. Buss, D. M. (ed.) 2005 The handbook of evolutionary psychology. New Jersey, NJ: Wiley & Sons.
36. Pinker, S. 2002 The blank slate. London, UK: Penguin.
37. Gangestad, S. W. & Simpson, J. A. 2000 The evolution of human mating: trade-offs and strategic pluralism. Behav. Brain Sci. 23, 573-644. (doi:10.1017/S0140525X0000337X)
38. Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. 1992 The psychological foundations of culture. In The adapted mind: evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (eds J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides & J. Tooby), pp. 19-136. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
39. Gangestad, S. W., Haselton, M. G. & Buss, D. M. 2006 Evolutionary foundations of cultural variation: evoked culture and mate preferences. Psychol. Inquiry 17, 75-95. (doi:10.1207/s15327965pli1702-1) (Pubitemid 44672737)
40. Nettle, D. 2009 Beyond nature versus culture: cultural variation as an evolved characteristic. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 15, 223-240. (doi:10.1111/j.1467- 9655.2009.01561.x)
41. Gangestad, S. W., Haselton, M. G. & Buss, D. M. 2006 Toward an integrative understanding of evoked and transmitted culture: the importance of specialized psychological design. Psychol. Inquiry 17, 138-151. (doi:10.1207/s15327965pli1702-3) (Pubitemid 44672746)
42. Buss, D. M. 2001 Human nature and culture: an evolutionary psychological perspective. J. Personal 69, 955-978. (doi:10.1111/1467-6494.696171)
43. Tylor, E. B. 1871 Primitive culture: researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom. London, UK: John Murray.
44. Carneiro, R. L. 2003 Evolutionism in cultural anthropology. Boulder, CO: Westview.
45. Feldman, M. W. & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. 1976 Cultural and biological evolutionary processes, selection for a trait under complex transmission. Theor. Popul. Biol. 9, 238-259. (doi:10.1016/0040-5809 (76) 90047-2)
46. Richerson, P. & Boyd, R. 2005 Not by genes alone: how culture transformed human evolution. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
47. Feldman, M. W. & Laland, K. N. 1996 Gene-culture coevolutionary theory. Trends Ecol. Evol. 11, 453-457. (doi:10.1016/0169-5347 (96) 10052-5) (Pubitemid 126409739)
48. Durham, W. H. 1991 Co-evolution: genes, culture and human diversity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
49. Holden, C. & Mace, R. 1997 Phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of lactose digestion in adults. Hum. Biol. 69, 605-628. (Pubitemid 27383842)
50. Itan, Y., Powell, A., Beaumont, M. A., Burger, J. & Thomas, M. G. 2009 The origins of lactase persistence in Europe. PLoS Comput. Biol. 5, e1000491. (doi:10. 1371/journal.pcbi.1000491)
51. Laland, K. N., Odling-Smee, J. & Myles, S. 2010 How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together. Nature Rev. Genet. 11, 137-148. (doi:10.1038/nrg2734)
52. Daly, M. & Wilson, M. I. 1999 Human evolutionary psychology and animal behaviour. Anim. Behav. 57, 509-519. (doi:10.1006/anbe.1998.1027) (Pubitemid 29245128)
53. Daly, M. & Wilson, M. 2000 Reply to Smith et al. Anim. Behav. 60, F27-F29.
54. Smith, E. A., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Hill, K. 2000 Evolutionary analyses of human behaviour: a commentary on Daly and Wilson. Anim. Behav. 60, F21-F26.
55. Crawford, C. & Krebs, D. (eds) 2008 Foundations of evolutionary psychology. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
56. Dunbar, R. & Barrett, L. 2007 Evolutionary psychology in the round. In The oxford handbook of evolutionary psychology (eds R. I. M. Dunbar & L. Barrett), pp. 3-9. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
57. Gangestad, S. W. & Simpson, J. A. 2007 The evolution of mind: fundamental questions and controversies. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
58. Hill, K. 2007 Evolutionary biology, cognitive adaptations, and human culture. In Evolution in mind (eds S. W. Gangestad & J. A. Simpson), pp. 348-356. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
59. Fincher, C. L., Thornhill, R., Murray, D. R. & Schaller, M. 2008 Pathogen prevalence predicts human crosscultural variability in individualism/collectivism. Proc. R. Soc. B 275, 1279-1285. (doi:10.1098/rspb. 2008.0094) (Pubitemid 351581475)
60. Little, A. C., Cohen, D. L., Jones, B. C. & Belsky, J. 2007 Human preferences for facial masculinity change with relationship type and environmental harshness. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 61, 967-973. (doi:10.1007/s00265-006-0325-7) (Pubitemid 46376517)
61. Nettle, D. 2009 Ecological influences on human behavioural diversity: a review of recent findings. Trends Ecol. Evol. 24, 618-624. (doi:10.1016/j.tree. 2009.05.013)
62. Schaller, M. & Murray, D. R. 2008 Pathogens, personality, and culture: disease prevalence predicts worldwide variability in sociosexuality, extraversion, and openness to experience. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 95, 212-221.
63. Nettle, D. 2011 Flexibility in reproductive timing in human females: integrating ultimate and proximate explanations. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 357-365. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0073)
64. Belsky, J., Steinberg, L. & Draper, P. 1991 Childhood experience, interpersonal development, and reproductive strategy: an evolutionary theory of socialization. Child Dev. 62, 647-670. (doi:10.2307/1131166)
65. Belsky, J. & Pluess, M. 2009 The nature (and nurture?) of plasticity in early human development. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 4, 345-351. (doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924. 2009.01136.x)
66. Dickins, T. E. In press. Evolutionary approaches to behaviour. In Evolutionary psychology: a critical introduction (eds A. Clow & V. Swami), Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
67. Laland, K. N. & Brown, G. R. In press. The future of evolutionary psychology. In Evolutionary psychology: a critical introduction (eds A. Clow & V. Swami), Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
68. Richardson, R. C. 2007 Evolutionary psychology as maladapted psychology. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, MIT Press.
69. Lickliter, R. 2008 The growth of developmental thought: implications for a new evolutionary psychology. New Ideas Psychol. 26, 353-369. (doi:10. 1016/j.newideapsych.2007.07.015)
70. Lickliter, R. & Honeycutt, H. 2003 Developmental dynamics: towards a biologically plausible evolutionary psychology. Psychol. Bull 129, 819-835. (doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.6.819) (Pubitemid 37398626)
71. Mace, R. & Jordan, F. M. 2011 Macro-evolutionarystudies of cultural diversity: a review of empirical studies of cultural transmission and cultural adaptation. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 402-411. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0238)
72. Tomasello, M. & Call, J. 1997 Primate cognition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
73. Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Beheim, B. A. 2011 Understanding the nature of wealth and its effects on human fitness. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 344-356. (doi:10. 1098/rstb.2010.0231)
74. Borgerhoff Mulder, M. et al. 2009 Intergenerational wealth transmission and the dynamics of inequality in small-scale societies. Science 326, 682-688. (doi:10. 1126/science.1178336)
75. Lawson, D. W. & Mace, R. 2011 Parental investment and the optimization of human family size. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 333-343. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0297)
76. Alvard, M. S. 2003 The adaptive nature of culture. Evol. Anthropol. 12, 136-149. (doi:10.1002/evan. 10109)
77. Laland, K. N. & Brown, G. R. 2006 Niche construction, human behaviour and the adaptive-lag hypothesis. Evol. Anthropol. 15, 95-104. (doi:10.1002/evan. 20093) (Pubitemid 44085995)
78. Smith, E. A. 2011 Endless forms: human behavioural diversity and evolved universals. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 325-332. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0233)
79. Cochran, G., Hardy, J. & Harpending, H. 2006 Natural history of Ashkenazi intelligence. J. Biosoc. Sci. 38, 659-693. (doi:10.1017/ S0021932005027069) (Pubitemid 44464950)
80. Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., McClearn, G. E. & McGuffin, P. 2000 Behavioral genetics, 4th edn. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
81. Buss, D. M. 2009 How can evolutionary psychology successfully explain personality and individual differences? Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 4, 359-366. (doi:10. 1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01138.x)
82. Buss, D. M. & Greiling, H. 1999 Adaptive individual differences. J. Personal. 67, 209-243. (doi:10.1111/1467-6494.00053)
83. Nettle, D. 2006 The evolution of personality variation in humans and other animals. Am. Psychol. 61, 622-631. (doi:10.1037/0003-066X.61.6.622) (Pubitemid 44413251)
84. Penke, L., Denissen, J. J. A. & Miller, G. F. 2007 The evolutionary genetics of personality. Eur. J. Personal. 21, 549-587. (doi:10.1002/per.629)
85. Wilson, D. S. 1994 Adaptive genetic variation and human evolutionary psychology. Ethol. Sociobiol. 15, 219-235.
86. Rosenberg, N. A., Pritchard, J. K., Weber, J. L., Cann, H. M., Kidd, K. K., Zhivotovsky, L. A. & Feldman, M. W. 2002 Genetic structure of human populations. Science 298, 2381-2385. (doi:10.1126/science.1078311) (Pubitemid 36014209)
87. Williamson, S. H., Hubisz, M. J., Clark, A. G., Payseur, B. A., Bustamante, C. D. & Nielsen, R. 2007 Localizing recent adaptive evolution in the human genome. PLoS. Genet. 3, e90. (doi:10.1371/journal.pgen. 0030090)
88. Voight, B. F., Kudaravalli, S., Wen, X. & Pritchard, J. K. 2006 A map of recent positive selection in the human genome. PLOS Biol. 4, 446-458.
89. Wang, E. T., Kodama, G., Baldi, P. & Moyzis, R. K. 2006 Global landscape of recent inferred Darwinian selection for Homo sapiens. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 103, 135-140. (doi:10.1073/pnas.0509691102) (Pubitemid 43076117)
90. Coop, G. et al. 2009 The role of geography in human adaptation. PLoS Genet. 5, e1000500. (doi:10.1371/journal.pgen. 1000500)
91. Pickrell, J. K. et al. 2009 Signals of recent positive selection in a worldwide sample of human populations. Genome Res. 19, 826-837. (doi:10.1101/gr.087577.108)
92. Brown, G. R., Laland, K. N. & Borgerhoff Mulder, M. 2009 Bateman's principles and human sex roles. Trends Ecol. Evol. 24, 297-304. (doi:10.1016/j.tree.2009.02.005)
93. Henrich, J., Heine, S. J. & Norenzayan, A. 2010 The wierdest people in the world? Behav. Brain Sci. 33, 61-135. (doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999152X)
94. Nisbett, R. E. 2003 The geography of thought. New York, NY: Free Press.
95. Norenzayan, A. & Heine, S. J. 2005 Psychological universals: what are they and how do we know? Psychol. Bull. 131, 763-784. (doi:10.1037/0033-2909. 131.5.763) (Pubitemid 41463586)
96. Boesch, C. 2007 What makes us human (Homo sapiens)? The challenge of cognitive cross-species comparison. J. Comp. Psychol. 121, 227-240. (doi:10. 1037/0735-7036.121.3.227)
97. Fessler, D. & Machery, E. In press. Culture and cognition. In The Oxford handbook of philosophy of cognitive science (eds E. Margolis, R. Samuels & S. Stich), Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
98. Schaller, M. 2007 Turning garbage into gold: evolutionary universals and cross-cultural differences. In The evolution of mind: fundamental questions and controversies (eds S. W. Gangestad & J. A. Simpson), pp. 363-371. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
99. Linquist, S., Machery, E., Griffiths, P. E. & Stotz, K. 2011 Exploring the folkbiological conception of human nature. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 444-453. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0224)
100. Mameli, M. & Bateson, P. 2011 An evaluation of the concept of innateness. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 436-443. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0174)
101. Henrich, J. & McElreath, R. 2003 The evolution of cultural evolution. Evol. Anthropol. 12, 123-135. (doi:10.1002/evan. 10110)
102. Enquist, M., Ghirlanda, S. & Eriksson, K. 2011 Modelling the evolution and diversity of cumulative culture. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 412-423. (doi:10.1098/rstb. 2010.0132)
103. Lehmann, L., Aoki, K. & Feldman, M. W. 2011 On the number of independent cultural traits carried by individuals and populations. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 424-435. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0313)
104. Laland, K. N. 2004 Social learning strategies. Learn. Behav. 32, 4-14. (Pubitemid 38585874)
105. Curtis, V., de Barra, M. & Aunger, R. 2011 Disgust as an adaptive system for disease avoidance behaviour. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 389-401. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0117)
106. Little, A. C., Jones, B. C., DeBruine, L. M. & Caldwell, C. A. 2011 Social learning and human mate preferences: a potential mechanism for generating and maintaining between-population diversity in attraction. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 366-375. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0192)
107. Atkinson, A. P. & Wheeler, M. 2004 The grain of domains: the evolutionary-psychological case against domain-general cognition. Mind Lang. 19, 147-176. (Pubitemid 38516490)
108. Chiappe, D. & MacDonald, K. 2005 The evolution of domain-general mechanisms in intelligence and learning. J. Gen. Psychol. 132, 5-40. (doi:10.3200/GENP.132. 1.5-40) (Pubitemid 40166979)
109. Fitch, W. T. 2011 Unity and diversity in human language. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 376-388. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0223)
110. Mameli, M. 2007 Evolution and psychology in philosophical perspective. In The Oxford handbook of evolutionary psychology (eds R. I. M. Dunbar & L. Barrett), pp. 21-34. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
111. Daly, M. 1982 Some caveats about cultural transmission models. Hum. Ecol. 10, 401-408. (doi:10. 1007/BF01531193)
112. Ingold, T. 2007 The trouble with 'evolutionary biology'. Anthropol. Today 23, 13-17. (doi:10.1111/j. 1467-8322.2007.00497.x)
113. Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A. & Laland, K. N. 2006 Towards a unified science of cultural evolution. Behav. Brain Sci. 29, 329-383.
114. Mesoudi, A. 2009 How cultural evolutionary theory can inform social psychology and vice versa. Psychol. Rev. 116, 929-952. (doi:10.1037/a0017062)
115. Plotkin, H. 2011 Human nature, cultural diversity and evolutionary theory. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 454-463. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0160)
116. Richerson, P. J., Boyd, R. & Henrich, J. 2010. Geneculture coevolution in the age of genomics. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107. (doi:10.1073/pnas.0914631107)
117. Karmiloff-Smith, A. 2000 Why babies' minds aren't Swiss Army Knives. In Alas poor Darwin: arguments against evolutionary psychology (eds H. Rose & S. Rose), pp. 144-156. London, UK: Cape.
118. Odling-Smee, J., Laland, K. N. & Feldman, M. W. 2003 Niche construction: the neglected process in evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
119. Oyama, S., Gray, R. & Griffiths, P. 2001 Cycles of contingency: developmental systems and evolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
120. West-Eberhard, M. J. 2003 Developmental plasticity and evolution. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
121. Jablonka, E. & Lamb, M. 2005 Evolution in four dimensions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
122. Plotkin, H. 2002 The imagined world made real: towards a natural science of culture. London, UK: Penguin.
123. Dickins, T. E. & Dickins, B. J. A. 2008 Mother Nature's tolerant ways: why non-genetic inheritance has nothing to do with evolution. New Ideas Psychol. 26, 41-54. (doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych. 2007.03.004)