Socy 4090/5090

Study Guide For Exam 1 

• You should be able to contrast the view of humans as having evolved tendencies (psychological mechanisms) with the view of human nature as a blank slate 
• Name the four primary adaptive problems faced by individuals in the evolutionary environment
• Say what the evolutionary environment was
• Say what an evolved psychological mechanism is and how it works
• List some common misunderstandings about evolutionary theory
• What is inclusive fitness?
• What is the primary advantage of sexual reproduction (as compared to asexual reproduction or cloning)?
• In humans, who has the greater initial fixed investment in offspring, moms or dads, and why?
• Who is choosier when it comes to mating, males or females, and why?
• Evolutionary psychology suggests females have tendencies to value what characteristics in a long-term mate? Why those characteristics?
• Evolutionary psychology suggests that males have tendencies to value what characteristics in a long-term mate. Which ones are most important? Why those characteristics?
• Do gentlemen prefer blondes (or at least light skin)? Why?
• What is paternity uncertainty? How does it affect males' choice of a long-term mate?
• What is beauty? Why do we like it? Why is it so important for women?
• What are the characteristics of a beautiful baby?
• What are the characteristics of a beautiful adult?
• How is adult male beauty different to adult female beauty?
• What is the waist to hip ratio and how does it affect judgments of female attractiveness? Why?
• Can babies distinguish a beautiful face?
• Are standards of beauty fairly consistent across cultures?
• According to selfish gene theory, who is going to be more interested in casual sex, men or women? Why?

Study Guide for Test 2 

• What are the costs of casual sex for males?
• What psychological mechanisms appear to have evolved to help males overlook the costs of casual sex?
• What evidence is there of these psychological mechanisms in males?
• What is the closing time phenomenon?
• What behaviors are indicative of males' interest in casual sex?
• What are the costs of casual sex for females?
• What might be some of the advantages of casual sex for females?
• What is the physiological evidence of short-term mating by females in the ancestral environment?
• Why are men faster than women and have greater upper body strength (give the evolutionary reason)?
• Why do women (on average) have smaller chins, noses, larger eyes, lighter skins and higher voices than men (give the evolutionary reason)?
• Why do women live longer than men (give the evolutionary reason)?
• Who has a better sense of taste (on average)? Smell? Distance sight? Why?
• What sex differences in brain function are revealed by brain scans?
• What sex differences in aptitudes are revealed by tests?
• How do testosterone levels influence spatial skills?
• What is field independence? Who is more field independent, men or women?
• Two activities show pronounced gender specialization cross-culturally. What are those two activities?
• Who has more problems in elementary school, boys or girls?
• Who has more problems in adolescence, boys or girls?
• Why has the age of menarche (first menstruation) fallen in all the developed countries?
• Among young adults, who has the highest mortality rates (from all causes), males or females?
• How does evolutionary theory explain sickness during pregnancy?
• Infanticide is rare, but when it happens, who is most likely to commit it?
• What happened to communal child rearing in the Israeli Kibbutzim?
• Men are most likely to invest in their offspring under what circumstances?
• How does evolutionary theory explain menopause in women?
• What would have been some of the benefits of aggression in the evolutionary environment?
• Who is more violently aggressive, on average, males or females? How does evolutionary psychology explain this?
• In all cultures, who commits the majority of all same-sex homicides?
• How does male aggression differ from female aggression?
• What contexts often trigger male aggression against males?  Female aggression against females? Male aggression against females? Female aggression against males?
• Who is more concerned with attaining status and being dominant, on average, males or females? Why?
• What are two of the possible biochemical basis of dominance behaviors?

Study Guide for Test 3 

• Who feels emotions most intensely (on average), males or females?
• Who is more likely to suffer mental illness, males or females?
• What sorts of psychological problems affect women more than men?
• What can evolutionary theory tell us about why patriarchy is so common in human societies?
• How does evolutionary theory explain parent/child conflict? Sibling rivalry?
• Who are parents most likely to invest in, boys or girls, and why?
• What is the Trivers Willard hypothesis? Is there any evidence of this?
• Which children are most likely to be neglected by their parents?
• How are parents likely to socialize boys and girls differently?
• Who has more problems in school, on average, boys or girls? Who is now less likely to go to college, boys or girls?
• Who engages in more extra-curricular activities at school, boys or girls?
• One recent major study found that young men who lived in homes without fathers were twice as likely to have spent time in jail, even adjusting for race and class factors. True or false?
• What kinds of teaching methods appear to work best with boys? With girls?
• What is a basic source of conflict between males and females?
•  Who is more likely to infer sexual intent from an interaction, males or females?
•  Who is most likely deceive a partner about their commitment to them in order to gain sexual access, males or females?
•  Who is most likely to be a victim of sexual harassment?
• Which wives are most at risk for uxoricide (wife killing)?
•  According to the linguist Deborah Tannen, how do men's and women's conversational styles differ?