Another major theme of the essay is the critique of what Tooby and Cosmides call 'domain-general psychological mechanisms': the psychological faculties which according to the SSSM comprise the human mind. These are general-purpose mechanisms, devoid of situational content, and function equally well regardless of behavioral domain. For example the so called 'problem-solving methods' with which cognitive psychologists have traditionally busied themselves are abstract rational strategies (e.g. break the problem into smaller parts or start working backwards from the desired end to the present state) that supposedly work the same regardless of if one wants to play a game of chess, order a pizza or find a sexual partner. This academic preoccupation with domain-general mechanisms, they suggest, stems directly from the folk notion of man as a rational being that has largely lost or suppressed its animalesque instincts and now operates primarily according to reason.
Tooby and Cosmides devote the larger part of their essay to establishing that the human mind cannot consist exclusively or even primarily, of domain-general mechanisms. The argument may be summarised as follows: since domain-general mechanisms come without innate content, they must work out the solution to each problem from scratch through costly and potentially lethal trial-and-error. Domain-specific mechanisms, on the other hand, come with content that is specialized for their domain (e.g. mating, foraging, theory of mind etc.) and can therefore immediately dismiss a staggering number of plausible courses of action (which by definition a domain-general mechanism would have to examine one by one) for one or a few favoured alternatives. For this reason domain-specific mechanisms are faster and more effective than their domain-general counterparts and we should expect natural selection to have favoured them.
The authors conclude that the flexible and highly intelligent appearance of human behaviour is not the result of domain-general mechanisms having taken over from older domain-specific mechanisms (or 'instincts'), but the exact opposite; human domain-specific mechanisms have proliferated to the point where man has become competent in an unprecedented number of domains, and can therefore usually employ some motley assortment of these specialized mechanisms for his own novel needs (e.g. he has combined lingual, visual and motor skills to invent the written word, for which no specialized psychological mechanism exists).
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Significance
Upon its release The Adapted Mind met with a cool reception from the scientists who had been involved in evolutionary explanations of human behavior since the late 1970's. Five years prior to the publication of the book Tooby, Cosmides and especially Symons had launched a series of polemical papers in which they rejected the then established models of sociobiology and behavioral ecology.
Contents
Introduction: Evolutionary Psychology and Conceptual Integration. Leda Cosmides, John Tooby and Jerome H.
Barkow, p.3.
I. THE EVOLUTIONARY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 1. The Psychological Foundations of Culture [2]. John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, p.19.
2.On the Use and Misuse of Darwinism in the Study of Human Behavior. Donald Symons, p.137.
II. COOPERATION
3. Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange [3]. Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, p.163.
4.Two Nonhuman Primate Models for the Evolution of Human Food Sharing: Chimpanzees and Callitrichids.
W.C.McGrew and Anna T.C.Feistner, p.229.
III. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MATING AND SEX
5.Mate Preference Mechanisms: Consequences for Partner Choice and Intrasexual Competition. David M. Buss, p.249.
6.The Evolution of Sexual Attraction: Evaluative Mechanisms in Women. Bruce J. Ellis, p.267.
7. The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Chattel [4]. Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, p.289.
IV. PARENTAL CARE AND CHILDREN
8.Pregnancy Sickness as Adaptation: A Deterrent to Maternal Ingestion of Teratogens. Margie Profet, p.327.
9.Nurturance or Negligence: Maternal Psychology and Behavioral Preference Among Preterm Twins. Janet Mann, p.367.
10.Human Maternal Vocalizations to Infants as Biologically Relevant Signals: An Evolutionary Perspective. Anne Fernald, p.391.
11.The Social Nature of Play Fighting and Play Chasing: Mechanisms and Strategies Underlying Cooperation and Compromise. Michael J. Boulton and Peter K. Smith, p.429.
V. PERCEPTION AND LANGUAGE AS ADAPTATIONS
12. Natural Language and Natural Selection [5]. Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom, p.451.
13.The Perceptual Organization of Colors: An Adaptation to Regularities of the Terrestrial World? Roger N.
Shepard, p.495.
14.Sex Differences in Spatial Abilities: Evolutionary Theory and Data. Irwin Silverman and Marion Eals, p.533.
VI. ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS
15.Evolved Responses to Landscapes. Gordon H. Orians and Judith H. Heerwagen. p.555.
16.Environmental Preferences in a Knowledge-Seeking, Knowledge-Using Organism. Stephen Kaplan, p.581.
VII. INTRAPSYCHIC PROCESSES
17.The Evolution of Psychodynamic Mechanisms. Randolph M. Nesse and Alan T. Lloyd, p.601.
VIII. NEW THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO CULTURAL PHENOMENA
18. Beneath New Culture is Old Psychology: Gossip and Social Stratification. Jerome H. Barkow, p.627.
The Adapted Mind 162
External links
Evolutionary Psychology:A Primer [6], by Leda Cosmides & John Tooby.
References
[1] Jerome H. Barkow; Leda Cosmides; & John Tooby (editors) (1992), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (http://books.google.com.au/books?id=SxX4gRzOS6oC&dq="The+adapted+mind"&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&
hl=en&ei=DwzyS76pBc6HkAXZx6ToDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&
f=false), Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-510107-3, [2] http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/pfc92.pdf
[3] http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/Cogadapt.pdf [4] http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/TheManWho.pdf
[5] http://www.phonetik.uni-muenchen.de/~hoole/kurse/hs_evolution/pinkerbloom_bbs_13_4_1990.pdf [6] http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/steen/cogweb/ep/EP-primer.html