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Animals in psychological research
Published in Clive R. Hollin, An Introduction to Human–Animal Relationships, 2021
The notion of comparative psychology has been with us for some time (Morgan, 1902). Dewsbury (2003) notes that contemporary comparative psychology is the study of the functioning of non-human animals which has its roots in several traditions, namely: (i) European Ethology exemplified by the work of Lorenz and Tinbergen as discussed above; (ii) Sociobiology, which seeks to understand social behaviour in evolutionary terms (Wilson, 1975) extending to Behavioural Ecology, the study of influence of ecological forces on the evolution of animal behaviour (Davies, Krebs, & West, 2012); (iii) Evolutionary Psychology, the product of merging psychology with evolutionary biology (Dunbar & Barrett, 2007).
Genes
Published in Lisa Jean Moore, Monica J. Casper, The Body, 2014
Lisa Jean Moore, Monica J. Casper
During the 1970s, sociobiology, or the study of the biological basis for human behavior, was quite popular. Sociobiology, popularized by Edward O. Wilson (1975), explains there are genetic imperatives that have been inherited through generations, and behavior is thus an effort to promote one’s genes. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (1976) goes further: “We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.”
Neonaticide in Theory and in History: Who Are the Perpetrators?
Published in Lita Linzer Schwartz, Natalie K. Isser, Endangered Children, 2011
Lita Linzer Schwartz, Natalie K. Isser
This newer form of analysis, known as evolutionary biology or sociobiology, is a systematic study of the biological basis of all forms of social behavior including sexual and parental behavior for all living things. Destruction is not uniquely human; it occurs in living organisms among plants and animals, including primates. Most sociobiologists were more interested in animals than plants and were primarily zoologists. Older notions of animals’ lack of cruelty, hierarchy, and even murder had to be discarded as sociobiologists observed animal behavior more closely.
Celebrating Ann Wilcock: A call to action
Published in Journal of Occupational Science, 2020
Wilcock’s (1998, 2006; Wilcock & Hocking, 2015) occupational theory of human nature is breathtaking in its scope. The scholarship informing it spans evolutionary, biological, and social sciences, cognitive and neuropsychology, ethics, health, history, occupational science, occupational therapy, philosophy, and sociobiology. What it delivers is an integrative explanation of the linkage of evolved human capacities that enable occupation—bipedalism, binocular vision, opposable thumbs, self-consciousness, language—to the occupational structures, technologies, and economic and sociopolitical systems that assist, reward, organise, constrain, and give meaning to human doing. As such, it is a ‘grand theory’, in the tradition of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which might justifiably be both applauded and critiqued as utopian and Romantic. Indeed, Wilcock drew inspiration from noted utopian thinkers and social reformers, including Sir Thomas More, William Morris, Marx, Robert Owen, Jane Addams, and Octavia Hill (Wilcock, 1998, 2001b). Equally, her recourse to occupation as “a natural mechanism for health” (Wilcock, 2001a, p. 10) and the innate biological features of homo sapiens as a species has also earned critique for insulating her ideas from critical questions, for what apart from nature can stand in the face of social forces that alienate humans from their biological needs and create systemic injustices (Sellar, 2012).
Sex differences in maturation and aging of human personality on the basis of a recently developed complex hierarchical model of temperament and character
Published in International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 2022
Konstantinos N. Fountoulakis, Xenia Gonda
An important interpretation of the above results suggests that males and females start from a different starting point with different basic psychological traits. For males, it is Social Emotionality (SE) while for females it is Interpersonal Cognition (IC). Essentially it seems that males are hard-wired towards physical action while females for social interaction. This is largely in accord with theories of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology (Fountoulakis 2019) concerning the traits and behaviours related to language, neurocognition, social and gender skills and roles (Berent et al. 2008; Chomsky 2005; Schwartz et al. 2003; Smith 2011; Sugiyama 2003).
Marla Sokolowski Retrospectively
Published in Journal of Neurogenetics, 2021
The significance of the discovery that a single gene can determine survival-related behaviour in natural populations deserves emphasis. In the late 1970s and 1980s, controversy swirled around the role of evolution and its genetic components in shaping animal and human behaviour. The eminent naturalist and biologist Edward O. Wilson published his book ‘Sociobiology: The New Synthesis’ in 1975; in it, he amassed and reviewed the evidence for a genetic contribution to social behaviour in all organisms that could even remotely be thought of as ‘social’, ending with a chapter on humans. It was this final chapter on humans (provocatively titled ‘Man: from sociobiology to sociology’) that ignited controversy. Many sociologists and even groups of biologists, including some at Wilson’s home base in Harvard University, vigorously opposed including an hereditary component for human nature, since the prevailing sociological view was that human nature is based almost entirely on experience and environment, and therefore extremely malleable, and not highly subject to genetic ‘interference’. Parenthetically, I have encountered contrarian psychologists at the University of Toronto who steadfastly maintained that behavioural responses are all learned, even in less complex organisms such as nematode worms and fruit flies. (Whether such views represented genuine conviction or grandstanding is an open question.) Wilson actually took an intermediate position, recognizing both genetic and environmental contributions, as summarized in his autobiographical account (Naturalist, published in 1994): ‘ — I conjectured that there might be single, still unidentified genes affecting aggression, altruism, and other behaviours. I was well aware that such traits are usually affected by multiple genes, often scattered across many chromosomes, and that environment plays a major role in creating variation among individuals and societies. Yet whatever the exact nature of the genetic controls, I contended, the important point is that heredity interacts with environment to create a gravitational pull toward a fixed mean.’ Marla’s discovery of the foraging gene in Drosophila, very timely given the ongoing sociobiology controversy, supported with concrete evidence the occurrence of ‘single, still unidentified genes’ having major effects on behaviours crucial for survival.