3 credits, graded: 2 weekly meetings of 1.5 hours each

Class will meet Tu and Th 2:30-3:50 in Room 315 Guthrie Hall

Course overview. The new field of evolutionary psychology explores whether and how human behavior can be explained as a resulting from biological evolution. This field is growing rapidly, and has attracted widespread interest from Psychologists and from behavioral scientists of other disciplines, including Zoology, Anthropology, and Sociology. This course will be designed to suit the needs of graduate students from a wide range of behavioral sciences who seek an introduction to this important topic.

The course will cover some of the core issues that are addressed by evolutionary psychology researchers: aspects of human behavior that are directly related to reproduction. This focus is narrow enough to permit continuity and focus throughout the academic quarter, but broad enough that a wide range of topics, of interest to students from diverse subdisciplines, can be addressed.

Format. Two weekly meetings will comprise a combination of open discussions and student presentations. Each week we will cover a single topic in the two meetings. For the first introductory meeting, we will read and discuss a chapter in the Buss textbook and/or a review paper on the topic.

The second meeting will be led by teams of students (probably two students for most meetings), who will select one or two recent papers from the primary literature to be read and discussed by the group. Each registered student will be responsible for joining a group to lead one of the weekly second-meeting discussions. Discussion leaders should read more broadly and be prepared to discuss their topic in some detail, addressing issues relevant to, but not necessarily covered, by the assigned paper. The discussion leaders will provide me and the other students with a brief bibliography related to their topic.

Readings. The required text for the course is D.M. Buss (2004) Evolutionary Psychology. Second Edition. Allyn & Bacon, 455 pp.

Other papers will be taken from the primary and secondary literature.

Grading. The course grade will be based mainly on the quality of your presentation, and to a lesser degree on regular participation in discussions and attendance.

Approximate course calendar for Evolutionary Psychology of Gender, Mating, and Reproduction

Week, Topic, Readings in textbook/other readings

1 Student independent discussions of readings supplied by instructor

2 Background and theoretical framework

-Buss Chapters 1 & 2

Human behavioral genetics: raw material for natural selection

-Wahlsten, D. 1999. Single-gene influences on brain and behavior. Ann. Rev. Psychol. 50: 599-624.

-Others; Plomin and Tempelton likely

3 Fitness: What are humans maximizing?

-Boehm, C. 1999. The natural selection of altruistic traits. In: Human nature: an interdisciplinary biosocial perspective 10: 205-252.

-Fiske, A.P. 2000. Complementarity theory: Why human social capacities evolved to require cultural complements. Pers. Soc. Psych. Rev. 4: 76-94.

Student group-led discussion

4 Short-term human sexual strategies

-Buss Chapter 6

Student group-led discussion

5 Male mating strategies

-Buss Chapter 5

Student group-led discussion

6 Female mating strategies

-Buss Chapter 4

Student group-led discussion

7 Parental care and investment

-Buss Chapter 7

Student group-led discussion

8 Familial and other kinship issues

-Buss Chapter 8

Student group-led discussion

9 Gender conflict and gender roles

-Buss Chapter 11

Student group-led discussion

10 Sexual selection and social status

-Buss Chapter 12

Student group-led discussion