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Jeeves And Brown: Evolutionary Psychology

Decent Essays

As mentioned previously in Jeeves and Brown’s book, the field of evolutionary psychology is one of two divisions within neuroscience receiving a lot of attention for its cutting edge research and controversial conclusions. At the beginning of chapter 6, the authors reference evolutionary psychology’s growing popularity, citing particular news articles in prevalent magazines such as Times and Der Spiegel. However, these snippets of debated discoveries in evolutionary psychology should be interpreted with a keen eye. With so much hype and excitement surrounding the field, the scientific basis of evolutionary psychology becomes, at times, distorted. Thus, Jeeves and Brown discuss the true scientific roots of evolutionary psychology in chapter …show more content…

According to Jeeves and Brown “theory of mind” occurs when, “We represent what people are doing in terms of what we believe they want and of what they known and do not know” (Jeeves and Brown, 2009, 73). Evolutionary psychologist became interesting in the study of “theory of mind” because they were curious if it applied to primates as well. However, studying the “theory of mind” of primates proves difficult because primates lack the ability to communicate with language. As mentioned above, the primary evidence supporting primate’s “theory of mind” emanates from observational studies. Specifically, “theory of mind” is represented in the forbidden mating habits of baboons. Yet, observation of such characteristics raises unanswerable questions concerning the rationale behind the young male baboon’s actions. Many difficult questions arise from observational studies because they lack empirical evidence to prove their bold claims. However, recent advances in neuroscience may provide answers to some of the difficult questions regarding “theory of mind.” Mirror neurons are an exciting new discovery in the field of neuroscience because they “possess functional properties not previously observed.” “The unusual property of these cells was that they were active not only when a monkey initiated a particular action but also when the animal observed another monkey initiating and carrying out the same action” (Jeeves and Brown, 2009, 78). Many neuroscientists believe mirror neurons will change the game and our understanding of how evolutionary psychology interprets the “theory of mind” across

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