EVOL.PSY Glossary

• Different versions of the same gene are called alleles (pronounced 'al-eels'). For example, the gene for eye colour has an allele for blue eye colour and an allele for brown. For any gene, a person may have the same two alleles or two different ones.
• 

• To an evolutionary psychologist true
• altruism involves behaviour that promotes the
• inclusive fitness of another at a cost to oneself.
• 

 The theory that the variation seen in customs and practices between cultures may be traced back to arbitrary events rather than being related to human adaptations

• The phenomenon of achange or improvement on one side of a competitionleading to change or improvement in theother. Applied particularly, but notexclusively, to predator/prey andhost/parasite relationships.
• 

• Asperger’s syndrome A condition like autism but sufferers are usually less intellectually 
• impaired. Technically Asperger’s syndrome differs from autism in that sufferers from Asperger’s syndrome do not suffer impaired language or language delay.

• 1. Autism
• 2. Theory of mind is the ability to infer the mental states of others

The proportion of genes shared between two relatives,measured on a scale of 0–1.

The belief that the mind can be described as a typeof computation produced by the brain.

A position held by Piaget which proposes that development occurs as a result of an interaction between innate principles and experience. VS Nativism and Empiricism.

• The observation that male animals (including humans), following mating, demonstrate renewed sexual potency when a novel receptive femaleappears.
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• Nerve fibres in the brain, connecting the cerebral hemispheres
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During an injury

A developmental period within which certain experiences must be had in order for them to be learned. There is evidence to suggest that in the development of the visual system, for example, certain inputs have to be experienced before a certain age in order for vision to develop normally

• The exchange of genes between two homologous chromosomes prior to gamete formation.
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Notion that humans unlike other animals do not display estrus, thus seem like they are able to conceive any time.

• A unit of cultural inheritance
• AKA Meme

In language this is the way in which words are modified by the addition of morphemes to make new words. For example the recent coinage ‘microwaveable’ is made up of three morphemes, ‘micro’, ‘wave’ and ‘able’.

The theory that malleability is built into development as an adaptation.

An organism is diploid if it has two pairs of chromosomes in each cell. Ina species that reproduces sexually one of each pair of chromosomes comes from each parent.

The unwritten rules that determine the extent to which emotions maybe exhibited publicly in a given society.

• The chemical of which genes are composed. Physically it is a giant double helix molecule.
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A theory proposed by Boyd and Richerson, who argue thathumans have two sources of inheritance, via the genes and via culture. In their theory culture evolved as a way of enabling humans to change more rapidly in an uncertain world

• Environmental of Evolutionary Adaptiveness. 
• A combination of the time, place and ecological pressures faced by our species during its evolution.

A practice whereby humans are ‘selectively bred’ for the good of humanity. So-called positive eugenics attempts to mate people with positive characteristics (e.g. people who are industrious or intelligent), negative eugenics, on the other hand, seeks to prevent people deemed unfit from breeding.

Tooby and Cosmides suggest that certain cultural phenomena mightbe innate and are triggered by the environment; these are known as evoked culturalphenomena

• A strategy that is successful in a population where that strategy is most common.
• (Examples?)

The theory that females should be more selective than males when it comes to choosing a sexual partner because they invest more heavily in offspring.

A measure of the number of offspring produced, or, in the view of some evolutionists, the proportion of genes passed on to future generations.

Gamete

• Gene(s)
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• The notion that natural selection occurs at the level of the gene.
• Dawkin's Selfish Gene

E. O.Wilson’s suggestion of how genes and culture interact. Culture, he argues, is constrained by the genes.

Genome

The genetic constitution of an organism encoded in the nucleus of each cell of the body.

Great Chain of Being, AKA Scala Naturae

Group Socialisation Theory

The theory that males develop an impediment such as elaborate tail feathers in order to demonstrate to potential mates their ability to survive despite having such a handicap. First proposed by Amotz Zahavi in 1975.

The sexy son hypothesis suggests that a female optimal choice among potential mates is a male whose genes will produce male offspring with the best chance of reproductive success by having trait(s) being attractive to other females. Sometimes the trait may have no reproductive benefit in itself, apart from attracting females, because of Fisherian runaway. The peacock's tail may be one example. It has also been seen as an example of the handicap principle.

An organism is said to be haploid if it has a single set of chromosomes in each cell. Sex cells (i.e. sperm and ova) are also haploid in sexually reproducing diploid (e.g. humans) species.

The extent to which a characteristic is due to genetic rather than environmental components.

• Having different alleles at the same locus on each of the paired chromosomes in a cell’s nucleus.
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A ‘rule of thumb’ used for achieving some end such as solving a problem.Heuristics are normally fast and computationally inexpensive even though theymight not always work. They are usually contrasted with algorithms, which guarantee the correct solution if there is one but are often costly and time consuming to use.

Hominid

• 1. Homo habilis An early ancestor of humans living around two million years ago.
• 2. Homo erectus An early ancestor of humans living around 1.8 million to less than 100,000 years ago.
• 3. Homo sapiens The species to which we belong. Evolved less than 400,000 years ago.

Hormones