Evolution
and Psychological Behavior
Evolutionary Psychology is the thought that as humans evolved into what they are now, there
were mutations and adaptions in the gene pool. Some were helpful to the
survival to the person and they passed their genes on. The unhelpful ones or
the mutations died out and they were unsuccessful in passing their genes on to
the next generation. In the beginning, they weren’t as adapted to the
environment as we are now because of this process of natural selection.
Instincts
are behaviors that are performed without based upon prior experience. Instincts
are something that all animals have, from bacteria reproducing to baby turtles
drawling out of their nest and running towards the water. Because animals have
them, we do too. Some examples of these instincts are the instinct to crave
salts and sugars and sex. Humans evolved to crave salts and sugars because if
they didn’t, they wouldn’t get enough and they would become undernourished and
that trait would die out. Sex is a huge part of human instincts because of
similar reasons like the salt. If human didn’t crave sex, then they wouldn’t
reproduce and be successful in transferring their genes on.
A universal trait
is a trait that every single (with some exception) organism of certain species
has the same trait. Determining if something is truly a universal trait is a
colossal challenge. Why? Jus think of how many people you would need to collet
data from to get a truly universal trait. Travelling around the world to tons
of different countries would be expensive and would take lots of time. Because
of this, not many behaviors have been labeled universal, and the ones that are,
can be challenged because several of the scientists just decided to skip this
step out of convenience; therefore labeling wrong universal traits.
Homosexuality is
controversial topic and can be somewhat explained by evolution, also a
controversial topic. In terms of natural selection, homosexuality should have
been wiped out of the human race thousands of years ago. The humans who were
homosexual wouldn’t have reproduced and been successful in passing on their
genes so eventually they would be naturally selected out. Well, today 15% of
the world’s population is known to be homosexual. Why? There is a theory that
thousands of years ago, the human who wasn’t attracted to the opposite sex,
would then stay with the children and take care of them. Because the children
and the human were related, they had the same homosexual gene in them so with
this interaction, the gene would show in the child and they would be
homosexual. This gene may even have an evolutionary advantage because the human
would then take care of children whose parents died, couldn’t take care of
their kids, or had a kid who needed extra attention. Maybe. No one can prove or
disprove these ideas so it remains a strong theory.
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