EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
Reading List: EP, EvoDevo, & Behavior Genetics
James Brody · 01/01/03 at 2:30 PM ET
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
Evolutionary Psychology and
Behavior Genetics in Clinical Practice
James Brody, Ph. D., Jbrody@compuserve.com 11/1/2002 >b>New Title Standing Recommendation General We are a part of nature rather than apart from her. Thus, we find platforms for our thought and feeling in biology and in descriptions of the order that we observe in physics and chemistry. After all, those domains are the environments in which we evolved and, like water to a fish, so much a part of us that we may be unaware of them until we find them absent. Read Barabasi, Sole & Goodwin, and Sigmund after you read Zimmer. Zimmer, C. (2001) Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. NY: Harper Collins. (P) Companion to the PBS Series. Start here! Comprehensive, well-supported by photos. Barabasi, A-L (2002) Linked: The New Science of Networks. NY: Perseus. A must!!! Bloom, H. (2000) Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. NY: Wiley. Howard analyzes cultural evolution as an emergent of physical events. Entertaining, surprising. He loves his model, I have asked questions, he is cheerfully impervious... Brody, J. F. (In press) From physics and evolutionary neuroscience to psychotherapy: Phase transitions and adaptations, diagnosis and treatment. In G. Cory & R. Gardner (Eds.) The Evolutionary Neuroscience of Paul MacLean: Frontiers & Convergence, Praeger-Greenwood, due November, 2002. The consilience between statistical physics (decision networks), evolution, & psychopathology. A statistical & evolutionary structure for the DSM. Awkward sentences, good paragraph order, marvelous analysis! Sole, R., & Goodwin, B. (2000) Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology. NY: Basic Books. Math simulations, shells, plants, human physiology, brains, & crowds show common patterns and often do so without direction from genes. Lucid, well illustrated. Kauffman, S. (1995) At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self Organization and Complexity. NY: Oxford. Abstruse. But statistical physics has 17+ Nobel Prizes. Applies 3 decades experimentation w transistor networks to genetic activity. Also applies to mentation and decisions. Kauffman is a growing influence in developmental biology and complexity theory. Sigmund, K. (1993) Games of Life: Explorations in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior. NY: Penguin. (P) Small simple rules make complex organizations. Witty, clear, relevant on games and evolutionary processes. Turner, J. Scott (2000) The Extended Organism: The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Turner (and I) argue that organisms choose, modify, and construct environments. Environments compete for the approval of their occupant. Selection's arrow reverses! Good review of physiology, clear application to the webs, nests, reefs, and tunnels that critters assemble for survival, comfort, and making babies. de Waal, F. (2001) The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist. NY: Basic Books. A gentle sell for wary newcomers to evolution: our relatives, furry or feathered, have cultures and work in social networks. Intro to Japanese concepts of primate socialization. Cross-species esthetics. Reminder: little chimps will imitate arduous behavior for years without primary reinforcement. May apply widely to human cultures and to folks in workshops: we do things because someone else did them. A must read... Wright, R. (2000) NonZero: The Logic of Human Destiny. NY: Pantheon. (P) Howard Bloom sez that Bob and he have forever written the same book: compare this one with Global Brain. Bob weaves the history of complex networks in human society. World trade guarantees international integration, save for the "superempowered angry man."
Evolutionary Psychology (Externalism) Barkow, J., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (Eds.) (1992) The Adapted mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. NY: Oxford. (P) The debutante work and the manifesto of EP, many essays by many authors on mating, child rearing, esthetics, and other topics. Oddity: C&T lecture that the "Standard Social Science Model" is wrong, environment did not make us all the same. Instead, evolution made us all the same. They substitute an environment of 200K years for one of 40, one for the species for one that is individual, and dismiss the sky-filling fact that everyone of us is unique, even in our matrix of psychological adaptations. Buss, D. (1999) Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. NY: Doubleday. An undergraduate text, the first and still best. Targeted sentences and paragraphs, little metaphor. Strongest in aggression and mate selection. David writes like his father, Arnold Buss, who pioneered a behavioral and an evolutionary analysis of human aggression and temperament. Buss, D. (1994) The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. NY: Basic Books. (P) Clear, detailed, entertaining, widely-read: how men and women shaped each other. The mate preferences of each gender, and the lies that we tell. (Now under revision) Dawkins, R. (1976/1989) The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford. (P) A popular retelling of William Hamilton's pioneering work. Hard to put down, many surprises. Argues that "genes" are the survival machines and we are their carriers. Will disturb some of you. Gaulin, S. & McBurney, D. (2001) Psychology: An Evolutionary Approach. NY: Prentice Hall. (P) Buss in a different format. Clever layout, slightly more material on domain-specific cognition. Small paperback, can ride in your valise. Uses the standard boring stuff about our original environment of adaptation. Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer (1999) Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants, and Natural Selection. NY: Pantheon Press. (P) The computations that women make in regard to having, keeping, or killing children. Excellent historical review. Judson, O. (2002) Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation. NY: Metropolitan. She brings you up to date on variations in tools and ceremony. International cast of bugs, fur, and feathers that show us strategies with variations in detail: "...when they (women) do fight to the death it's not usually over a man but something more important---like a house." Funny to a newcomer, complex to an evolutionist. Read Matt Ridley, then snack from Olivia. Miller, G. (2000) The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature. NY: Doubleday. Geoff finds that guys do more (arts & athletics) so that women notice us more. Thus, sexual selection drove the evolution of human g. Morgan, E (1990) The Scars of Evolution: What Our Bodies Tell Us About Human Origins. NY: Oxford. (P) Presents 8 or more traits that suggest we walked upright, then spent time in monsoons & surf. Believable & readable but ignored: may yet be vindicated. Pinker, S. (1997) How the Mind Works. NY: Norton. (P) The mechanisms of language and problem solving. Pinker, S. (2002) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. NY: Viking. Starts with blank slate, noble savage, and ghost in the machine: debunks them. Surveys data on neural ontogony, neurolinguistics, and evolutionary psychology. Fun, lucid, controversial. Sad news in the jacket photo: Pinker has some gray... Ridley, M (1996) The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. NY: Penguin. (P) Lively analysis of reciprocity and altruism. People are kinder in sustained relationships rather than transient ones...applies to social groups as well as to how we treat our settings. Implication: control population & stop migration and you stop environmental degradation. Ridley, M (1993) The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. NY: Penguin. (P) Abundance of resources leads to males, scarcity to females. Conflict in reproductive interests permeates our bodies & minds. Systematic and lively but Judson is funnier. Weiner, J. (1994) The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. NY: Knopf. (P) Tells of Rosemary & Peter Grant's decades of research on evolutionary changes in Galapagos finches. Might have been dull except Jonathan Weiner tells the story. Praised by scientists as well as by popular media. Wright, R. (1994) The Moral Animal. The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. New York: Pantheon. (P) Bob is a moralist by his nature. It shows in all three of his books, less so in his articles for Slate or Time. He weaves here 3 tales: The life of Darwin, Victorian culture, and the antic events at Harvard when Bob Trivers, William Hamilton, and many others were young and passionate about evolution and our look in its mirror.
Internalism: Evolutionary-Developmental Biology, Behavior Genetics EP, BG, & evo-devo are now 3 kingdoms: members in one rarely cite members in either of the other two. A pity. Evo-Devo and Emergence Biology expresses rules that limit the choices for selection and the influence of environment. Allport was correct: we are all rebels, deviants, and individualists. Lewontin and Jacob: both small books that transform thoughts and lives. "Evo-devo": evolutionary developmental biology. Gould 2002, Chapter 10, pp 1025-1178, introduces it well. Allport, G. (1955) Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality. New Haven: Yale University Press. (P) Created in '55 and newly salient. "Becoming" applies both to evolution as a process and to all critters who assert themselves. Gould, S. (2002) The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap. (esp. Chapter 10). Organisms do not arrive naked when they present themselves for selection. Discourses for 1433 pages. Perhaps a first draft, completed just before his death from cancer. Rich & magnificent all the more...
Jacob, F. (1998) Of Flies, Mice, and Men. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Short, lyric presentation of genes and traits as combinatorial mosaics. Wonderful book by Nobel Prize winner, inspired translation. Lehn, Jean Marie (2002) Toward self organization and complex matter. Science, 295: 2400-2407. Lewontin, R. (1998/2000) Triple helix: Gene, organism, environment. Cambridge, MA, Harvard. A must! Environments only exist when created by an organism. Short, powerful. Raff, R. (1996) The Shape of Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (P) Founder of evo-devo? Wry, lucid, refreshing once you acquire the language. Rough going for nonbiologists. Sterelny, K., & Griffiths, P. (1999) Sex and Death: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (P) Biologists have difficulties that equal those of psychologists: I often find the former refreshing. Excellent gateway to evolutionary biology. Behavior Genetics Behavior genetics: how variations in behavior relate to variations in both genes and environments. We choose and build our worlds even down to our memories. Bouchard et al., 1990, & David Rowe offer the best starting places. Bouchard TJ, Lykken DT, McGue M, Segal, NL, & Tellegen, A. (1990) Sources of human psychological differences: The Minnesota study of twins reared apart. Science, 250: 223-228. Monozygotic twins reared apart or together are more similar than dizygotic. The ratio of heritabilities for monozygotic twins reared together and MZ reared apart ranged between 0.90 and 1.21 for 16 of 22 measures taken. Classic. Cohen, D. (1994) Out of the Blue: Depression and Human Nature. NY: Norton. (P) Questions environmental contributions to depression, finds genetic ones. Cohen, D. (1999) Stranger in the Nest: Do Parents Really Shape Their Child's Personality, Intelligence, or Character? NY: Wiley. No. David calls upon genetics and intrauterine conditions, Judith Rich Harris (below) calls upon peers. I wish that I could have written this book. I hope every clinician reads it. Gillham, Nicholas W. (2001) A Life of Sir Francis Galton: From African Exploration to the Birth of Eugenics. NY: Oxford. Marvelous narrative! Galton's contributions would be as well regarded as Darwin's had it not been for Karl Pearson and audiences who needed excuses to suppress other people. Harris, J. (1998) The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do. NY: Free Press. Parents matter less than friends. Harris is probably wrong: friends probably matter little more than parents in shaping a child or adolescent for the long term. Friends may be part of our extended phenotype, we pick them in accord with our nature. Her data are salient, so are her criticisms of traditional theories of child rearing. Plomin, R. (1994) Genetics and Experience: The Interplay between Nature and Nurture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (P) Concise, clear. Recent history & introduction to behavior genetics: its techniques, data, and formulae. Redefines environment. Plomin, R., DeFries J, McClearn G, & McGuffin, P. (2000) Behavioral Genetics (4th ed.) NY: Worth. Gives the rules and outcomes for genetic analyses of human personality. There appears to be a G loading for every human act and attitude. Also in a new edition for $87! Desperately needs Jonathan Weiner as a coauthor or final editor. Ridley, M. (2000) Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. NY: Harper Collins. (P) Per Ridley in Publishers Weekly: a mile wide and an inch deep. Lots of fun! Special: startling material on Libertarian MPs blocking pro-eugenics laws in UK. Rowe D. (1994) The Limits of Family Influence: Genes, Experience, and Behavior. NY: Guilford. (P) Children are similar to the extent they have similar genes. Also: we pick our personal niches perhaps for the same reasons that species choose theirs. Similar to but more concise than Harris. Rowe, D. (2002) Biology and Crime. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury. (P) "Difficult" babies more likely to find impulsive, non compliant peers. Impulsive, non compliant adolescents chose friends with the same traits. Interactions of susceptibility and exposure. Weiner, J. (1999) Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior. NY: Knopf. (P) The meandering path of behavior genetics from mice to flies to mice to humans. Biography of Seymour Benzer, his students & colleagues. Touches the behavioral similarities that appear across generations in the absence of direct contact. Wright, L. (1997) Twins: And What They Tell Us about Who We Are. NY: Wiley. "In the purely environmental perspective, there is no innate genetic drive demanding to be expressed. People are blank slates who are conditioned by environment to react in expectable ways. It's almost as if there is no self except for the shadow that is cast on the environment." (p. 156).
Clinical Beck, A. (1998) Cognitive aspects of personality disorders and their relation to syndromal disorders: A psychoevolutionary approach. In R. Cloninger, (Ed.) Personality and Psychopathology. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, D. C., pp 411-429. Fine paper. Rumor: Beck got substantial rebuke from colleagues who presume cognition to be domain general and detached from adaptive biases. Beck also wrote a very brief presentation of the possible evolutionary bases of PDs for chapter 2 of: Beck, A., & Freeman, A. (1991) Cognitive Therapy of the Personality Disorders. NY: Guilford. Brody, J. (1997) Bait poisoning and why kids complain about their medication. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. 7(1): 71-72. (reprints avail.) Brody, J. (2001) Evolutionary recasting: ADHD, mania and its variants. Journal of Affective Disorders. 65: 197-215.(reprints avail) Glantz, K., & Pearce, J. (1989) Exiles from Eden: Psychotherapy from an Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Norton. The first clinical translation of EP into therapy: Kalman saw the powerful applications of "cheater detectors." Remaindered early per John but can still be found. Rewrite! McGuire, M., & Troisi, A. (1998) Darwinian Psychiatry. NY: Oxford. Research based. Plausible. Limited material on applications. Stevens, A., & Price, J. (2000) Evolutionary Psychiatry: A New Beginning (2nd ed.). NY: Routledge. (P) Integrates MacLean triune brain with psychopathology and adaptations. Idiosyncratic but thought-provoking. Explains how we can be depressed in spite of great expectations. above material, Copyright, James Brody, 2002, all rights reserved. Lists Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychiatry. Both run by Ian.Pitchford, ian.pitchford@scientist.com. Ian usually sends 10-20 postings per day, culled from journal contents and from the general press. He gives the first 15 lines of an abstract or article and the URL for the full piece. The list is moderated. He established the Human Nature site at http://human-nature.com and is starting a new journal, Evolutionary Psychology. HBE-L is the discussion list for HBES. It is unmoderated and sometimes has spam attacks. Frank Foreman donates 10 articles per day, culled from the popular press, and sometimes the first chapter of a new book on evolution. To subscribe, send email to (hbe-request@a3.com) with the following word as the subject: subscribe. Membership is not required. HBES-L is primarily for conference announcements. HBES membership is required for using the HBES-L
Paleopsych is Howard Bloom's list. He often interviews list applicants. He also puts up chapters for general comment from whatever book he is writing. Contact him at howlbloom@aol.com. Join if you enjoyed either The Lucifer Principle or Global Brain.
Journals Evolution & Human Behavior: comes with payment of dues to HBES. Evolutionary Psychology. A peer-reviewed, on line journal. Contact Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com Science $128 per annum, a collection of bon bons or yawns depending on issue and your passions. Includes access to archives. Weekly. Nature $140 per annum. Ditto Science but more dynamic in format & style. The Brits are #1. Provides survey of newsworthy scientific events. Weekly. Web Sites New web sites are listed in most issues of Nature & Science. Course outlines are often available at many university sites. Many authors list their publications, others give you access to PDF versions of their articles. First stop for new queries: Google search (www.google.com) www.HBES.com: Home page for the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. A bumper crop of current texts on human evolution. Abstracts of former conferences. Conference photos by J. Brody. Membership directory for members only. Brody, J. (1996-present) Editor and host, Evolutionary Psychology and Clinical Sociobiology Forum...www.behavior.net/forums/evolutionary. Short comments on psychological adaptations, mismatch, and other topics in EP/BG and, lately, evo-devo. Also remarks about contemporary events. Many contributors. Also: Links from www.behavior.net/column/brody/evpsychlinks.html. Spriggs, W., evoyage.com. Bill is a postal employee in Colorado and developed his site on "evolution for the common man" perhaps 8 years ago. Clear, methodical, sometimes at variance with mainstream thinking but he tells you when the interpretations are his own. (He also displays some of my pictures!) Internet Links Thank you Todd Stark for assembling this list! His Amazon EP list is at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/UF9GLQNJQZR/ref=cm_aya_av.lm_more/103-4838110-3418224 Ian Pitchford's amazing virtual library of gossip, research summaries, & book reviews:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology/ EP at University of Texas/Austin
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/HomePage/DeptArea/IDEP/ The Immoral Animal: _Skeptic_ article on EP
http://www.skeptic.com/04.1.miele-immoral.html Santa Barbara Center
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/h1.html Santa Barbara critique of Rushton Genetic Similarity Theory
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/rushton.html Ed Hagen EP FAQ
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/evpsychfaq.html CogWeb EP page
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/EP/ Simon Fraser University EP Research Group
http://www.sfu.ca/~janicki/ Leda Cosmides interview
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/ledainterview.htm Harpaz , Evolutionary psychology (EP): innate vs. learned [Critical of extreme innateness]
http://www.human-brain.org/evolpsy2.html Nick Neave presentation on EP
http://psychology.unn.ac.uk/nick/EPpp02/index.htm Has Natural Selection Shaped How Humans Reason? C & T audio lecture
http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/colloq/cosmides1/ Descent of Man, EP audio lectures
http://www.abc.net.au/science/descent/ Sarah Hrdy audio lecture
http://www.wamu.org/dr/shows/drarc_000228.html Cheating and altruism: A methodological critique of Cosmides' procedures
http://www.mgmt.utoronto.ca/~evans/evol/altmeth.htm On the detection of cheating and altruism
http://www.mgmt.utoronto.ca/~evans/evol/altruis2.htm Great Ideas in Personality
http://www.personalityresearch.org/evolutionary.html John Stewart critique
http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/evpsy.htm Anthro Net EP Links
http://home1.gte.net/ericjw1/evpsych.html Ed Hagen tutorial
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/hagen/tutorial/tutorial.pdf
Carroll, Sean, Grenier, J., & Weatherbee, S. (2001) From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Carl Zimmer has a wonderful introduction to evolution, one that he wrote for PBS. He announces the themes that I explore in my course outline. Aside from Zimmer's book, I listed the gateway texts and the ones that most influenced my thinking about human evolution, behavior genetics, and clinical practice. Most of the authors write well: active voice, many images, short paragraphs, linear sequences. (P): paper.
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