The evolutionary psychology framework

Abstract

This chapter presents the brain as an evolved adaptation, shaped over millions of years by natural selection to solve recurrent problems of survival and reproduction. It introduces the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness as the framework within which ancestral psychological mechanisms were calibrated, and examines critiques of adaptationism including spandrels, exaptations, genetic drift, and the debate over massive modularity. The chapter traces human brain expansion and its metabolic costs, evaluating the cooking hypothesis and the social brain hypothesis as competing and complementary explanations for encephalization. It introduces gene-culture coevolution, niche construction, and dual inheritance theory as frameworks for understanding how cultural and biological evolution interact. Finally, the chapter distinguishes evoked from transmitted culture, showing how both shape the expression of evolved psychological mechanisms across populations and environments.