Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: Who is the founder of evolutionary psychology?
The history of evolutionary psychology began with Charles Darwin, who said that humans have social instincts that evolved by natural selection. Darwin's work inspired later psychologists such as William James and Sigmund Freud but for most of the 20th century psychologists focused more on behaviorism and proximate explanations for human behavior. E. O. Wilson's landmark 1975 book, "", synthesized recent theoretical advances in evolutionary theory to explain social behavior in animals, including humans. Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby popularized the term "evolutionary psychology" in their 1992 book "The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and The Generation of Culture". Like sociobiology before it, evolutionary psychology has been embroiled in controversy, but evolutionary psychologists see their field as gaining increased acceptance overall.
Fechner, along with Wilhelm Wundt and Hermann von Helmholtz, is recognized as one of the founders of modern experimental psychology. His clearest contribution was the demonstration that because the mind was susceptible to measurement and mathematical treatment, psychology had the potential to become a quantified science. Theorists such as Immanuel Kant had long stated that this was impossible, and that therefore, a science of psychology was also impossible.
Ernst Heinrich Weber (24 June 1795 – 26 January 1878) was a German physician who is considered one of the founders of experimental psychology. He was an influential and important figure in the areas of physiology and psychology during his lifetime and beyond. His studies on sensation and touch, along with his emphasis on good experimental techniques gave way to new directions and areas of study for future psychologists, physiologists, and anatomists.
Edward Tyson is regarded as the founder of modern comparative anatomy. He is credited with determining that whales and dolphins are, in fact, mammals. Also, he concluded that chimpanzees are more similar to humans than to monkeys because of their arms. Marco Aurelio Severino also compared various animals, including birds, in his "Zootomia democritaea", one of the first works of comparative anatomy. In the 18th and 19th century, great anatomists like George Cuvier, Richard Owen and Thomas Henry Huxley revolutionized our understanding of the basic build and systematics of vertebrates, laying the foundation for Charles Darwin's work on evolution. An example of a 20th-century comparative anatomist is Victor Negus, who worked on the structure and evolution of the larynx. Until the advent of genetic techniques like DNA sequencing, comparative anatomy together with embryology were the primary tools for understanding phylogeny, as exemplified by the work of Alfred Romer.
Attachment theory, originating in the work of John Bowlby and developed by Mary Ainsworth, is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory that provides a descriptive and explanatory framework for understanding interpersonal relationships between human beings. Bowlby's observations of close attachments led him to believe that close emotional bonds or “attachments” between an infant and their primary caregiver is an important requirement that is necessary to form “normal social and emotional development”.
Edward John Mostyn Bowlby CBE, MA (Cantab), BChir, MD, MRCP, FRCP, FRCPsych, Hon ScD (; 26 February 1907 – 2 September 1990) was a British psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory. A "Review of General Psychology" survey, published in 2002, ranked Bowlby as the 49th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Inclusive fitness theory, proposed by William D. Hamilton, emphasized a "gene's-eye" view of evolution. Hamilton noted that what evolution ultimately selects are genes, not groups or species. From this perspective, individuals can increase the replication of their genes into the next generation not only directly via reproduction, by also indirectly helping close relatives with whom they share genes survive and reproduce. General evolutionary theory, in its modern form, "is" essentially inclusive fitness theory.
The formal study of adolescent psychology began with the publication of G. Stanley Hall's "Adolescence in 1904". Hall, who was the first president of the American Psychological Association, viewed adolescence primarily as a time of internal turmoil and upheaval ("sturm und drang"). This understanding of youth was based on two then new ways of understanding human behavior: Darwin's evolutionary theory and Freud's psychodynamic theory. He believed that adolescence was a representation of our human ancestors' phylogenetic shift from being primitive to being civilized. Hall's assertions stood relatively uncontested until the 1950s when psychologists such as Erik Erikson and Anna Freud started to formulate their theories about adolescence. Freud believed that the psychological disturbances associated with youth were biologically based and culturally universal while Erikson focused on the dichotomy between identity formation and role fulfillment. Even with their different theories, these three psychologists agreed that adolescence was inherently a time of disturbance and psychological confusion. The less turbulent aspects of adolescence, such as peer relations and cultural influence, were left largely ignored until the 1980s. From the '50s until the '80s, the focus of the field was mainly on describing patterns of behavior as opposed to explaining them.
Comparative psychology refers to the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. Research in this area explores the behavior of many species, from insects to primates. It is closely related to other disciplines that study animal behavior such as ethology. Research in comparative psychology sometimes appears to shed light on human behavior, but some attempts to connect the two have been quite controversial, for example the Sociobiology of E.O. Wilson. Animal models are often used to study neural processes related to human behavior, e.g. in cognitive neuroscience.
Comparative psychology refers to the study of the behavior and mental life of animals other than human beings. It is related to disciplines outside of psychology that study animal behavior such as ethology. Although the field of psychology is primarily concerned with humans the behavior and mental processes of animals is also an important part of psychological research. This being either as a subject in its own right (e.g., animal cognition and ethology) or with strong emphasis about evolutionary links, and somewhat more controversially, as a way of gaining an insight into human psychology. This is achieved by means of comparison or via animal models of emotional and behavior systems as seen in neuroscience of psychology (e.g., affective neuroscience and social neuroscience).
Christian von Ehrenfels (also "Maria Christian Julius Leopold Freiherr von Ehrenfels"; 20 June 1859 – 8 September 1932) was an Austrian philosopher, and is known as one of the founders and precursors of Gestalt psychology.
Eugene Galanter was one of the modern founders of cognitive psychology. He was an academic in the field of experimental psychology and an author. Dr. Galanter was Professor Emeritus of Psychology end Quondam Director of the Psychophysics Laboratory at Columbia University. He was also the co-founder, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Scientific Officer of Children’s Progress, an award-winning New York City-based company that specializes in the use of computer technology in early education. The company's assessments and reports have been used in 40 states and 9 countries.
While Darwin had been somewhat coy about human origins, not identifying any explicit conclusion on the matter in his book, he had dropped enough hints about human's animal ancestry for the inference to be made, and the first review claimed it made a creed of the "men from monkeys" idea from "Vestiges". Human evolution became central to the debate and was strongly argued by Huxley who featured it in his popular "working-men's lectures". Darwin did not publish his own views on this until 1871.
The founding father of the independent Psychology major, available from the turn of the millennium, is Professor Csaba Pléh, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, who organized the Cognitive Science Group at the Department of Psychology, and in 1999, started the Cognitive Science and Neuropsychology Program of Szeged, or in short, the Cognitive Program. He laid the foundation for a professional psychology training course at the University of Szeged. The university's Medical Faculty and the Cognitive Science Group, led by Csaba Pléh, organized the VIII. Conference of the Hungarian Cognitive Science Association (MAKOG), titled The Development and Disorders of Cognitive Functions for 4–6 February 2000 in Szeged.
In 1893, fourteen years after Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychology laboratory in the world, a Psychology Laboratory was built in Nassau Hall, the oldest building in the university, under the leadership of J. Mark Baldwin. In 1915, psychology received recognition in the title when the department was renamed Department of Philosophy and Psychology. It was not until 1920, however, that the Department of Psychology was established with Howard Warren as its first chairman. In 1924, Eno Hall was constructed to house the department. The building was named in honor of Henry Eno, the principal donor and research associate in psychology. Warren was also a donor, but he chose to keep his donation anonymous at the time. He commented that it was "the first laboratory in this country, if not in the world, dedicated solely to the teaching and investigation of scientific psychology." According to university president John Hibben, the laboratory was the realization of a dream that Warren had cherished for a long time.
An important event in the interchange of East and West occurred when American psychologist William James invited the Sri Lankan Buddhist Anagarika Dharmapala to lecture in his classes at Harvard University in December 1903. After Dharmapala lectured on Buddhism, James remarked, “This is the psychology everybody will be studying 25 years from now.” Later scholars such as David Kalupahana (The principles of Buddhist psychology, 1987), Padmal de Silva (Buddhism and behaviour modification, 1984), Edwina Pio (Buddhist Psychology: A Modern Perspective, 1988) and Hubert Benoit (Zen and the Psychology of Transformation, 1990) wrote about and compared Buddhism and Psychology directly. Writers in the field of Transpersonal psychology (which deals with religious experience, altered states of consciousness and similar topics) such as Ken Wilber also integrated Buddhist thought and practice into their work.
Edward Tyson (20 January 1651 – 1 August 1708) was a British scientist and physician, commonly regarded as the founder of modern comparative anatomy, which compares the anatomy between species.
Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist is a book written by zoologist and evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, first published in 1942 by Columbia University Press. The book became one of the canonical publications on the modern synthesis.
Psychology of religion and spirituality is the psychological study of religious and spiritual experiences, beliefs, activities, and feelings. This subfield has existed since modern psychology's early days, and is the focus of Division 36 of the American Psychological Association. William James (1842–1910) is regarded by most psychologists of religion/spirituality as the founder of the field, and his "Varieties of Religious Experience" is considered to be a classic work in the field. Since 2008, the American Psychological Association has published a journal dedicated to this subfield, entitled the "Psychology of Religion and Spirituality". In recent decades, scholars have increasingly conceptualized religion as a way of living, rather than merely a belief system or institution. Religion and spirituality are commonly viewed as distinct but overlapping constructs. Surveys indicate that large majorities of US adults consider religion and/or spirituality to be very important in their lives. Scientific and psychological interest in the psychology of religion/spirituality has increased substantially in recent decades. The American Psychological Association now publishes many books on the topic of religion/spirituality.
The Association's publications include the recent (2013) two-volume "Handbook of Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality", with Volume One focusing on theory, and Volume Two focusing on applications.
The history of genetics dates from the classical era with contributions by Hippocrates, Aristotle and Epicurus. Modern biology began with the work of the Augustinian friar Gregor Johann Mendel. His work on pea plants, published in 1866,what is now Mendelian inheritance. Some theories of heredity suggest in the centuries before and for several decades after Mendel's work.
The year 1900 marked the "rediscovery of Mendel" by Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and Erich von Tschermak, and by 1915 the basic principles of Mendelian genetics had been applied to a wide variety of organisms—most notably the fruit fly "Drosophila melanogaster". Led by Thomas Hunt Morgan and his fellow "drosophilists", geneticists developed the Mendelian model, which was widely accepted by 1925. Alongside experimental work, mathematicians developed the statistical framework of population genetics, bringing genetic explanations into the study of evolution.
The position is credited to English biologist Thomas Huxley (Huxley 1874), who analogised mental properties to the whistle on a steam locomotive. The position found favour amongst scientific behaviourists over the next few decades, until behaviourism itself fell to the cognitive revolution in the 1960s. Recently, epiphenomenalism has gained popularity with those struggling to reconcile non-reductive physicalism and mental causation.
In the paper "Epiphenomenal Qualia" and later "What Mary Didn't Know" Frank Jackson made the so-called knowledge argument against physicalism. The thought experiment was originally proposed by Frank Jackson as follows:
Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature is a book published by MIT Press written by philosopher of science David Buller, piecing together his criticism of evolutionary psychology. A large portion of the book is dedicated to a critique of empirical findings from three research groups in the field: that of David Buss, that of Cosmides and Tooby, and that of Daly and Wilson. Buller argues that the evolutionary psychology paradigms are "mistaken in almost every detail."
The book got a strongly negative review from anthropologist Clark Barrett in the "American Journal of Human Biology" who wrote: "Buller’s book has many useful elements, but it is based on simplistic assumptions and fallacious arguments that lead to faulty conclusions. If taken seriously, Buller’s denial of human nature would invalidate not only evolutionary psychology but also any field that attempts to produce generalizable knowledge about humans, including behavioral ecology, biological anthropology, and most branches of psychology, not to mention medicine."
Steven Forrest (born January 6, 1949) is an American astrologer, author and lecturer. He is the author of nearly a dozen astrological books and one of the founders of the school of Evolutionary Astrology, described by Forrest as "a form of psychological astrology which is integrated with metaphysics. Where a twentieth century psychological astrologer might focus on the dynamics of childhood, the evolutionary astrologer focuses on the "childhood of the soul"—prior lifetimes, and the issues left unresolved from them."
Symons, along with Tooby and Cosmides, were amongst the founders of the emerging school of evolutionary psychology, whose aim has been to focus more on these hypothesized proximate psychological mechanisms.
Evolutionary psychology explores the evolutionary roots of mental and behavioral patterns, and posits that common patterns may have emerged because they were highly adaptive for humans in the environments of their evolutionary past—even if some of these patterns are maladaptive in today's environments. Fields closely related to evolutionary psychology are animal behavioral ecology, human behavioral ecology, dual inheritance theory, and sociobiology. Evolutionary psychology is distinct from, although related to, behavioral genetics. Memetics, founded by Richard Dawkins, is a related but competing field that proposes that cultural evolution can occur in a Darwinian sense but independently of Mendelian mechanisms; it therefore examines the ways in which thoughts, or memes, may evolve independently of genes.