Evolutionary Psychology in Sociological Theory

What is evolutionary psychology?

• Uses our evolutionary background, and the inferred effect this has had on our current psychology, to explain and understand sociological phenomena (especially in individual terms - it links to methodological individualism because of this) and our current behaviours and psychology etc
• Behaviours that were helpful during the Pleistocene were selected for then, and because not that much time has passed since then, behaviour-wise and psychologically, we remain the same as Pleistocene-era humans, and that is why we behave the way we do and do the things we do today

Strengths of evolutionary psychology

• Can (at least try to) explain a large range of modern sociological phenomena (e.g. patriarchy, economic behaviour, reproduction)
• Is able to tie a range of academic disciplines (evolutionary biology, psychology, sociology) together quite neatly (unlike, for example, RCT)
• Has a real-world, evidence-based basis (unlike RCT, which has more of a purely mathematic/economic one), and is able to deal with and cope with real-world, everyday complexity
• Incorporates both the 'actor' and the scientific background into the theory in a logical and sensible way (Hopcroft 2009)
• Has been able to lead to some very useful 'real-world' research (e.g. the case studies in Barkow, Cosmides & Tooby 1992)
• It…