Evolutionary Approach to Psychology

"Who's Better At Giving Directions,
Men or Women?"
by Corey Binns
Popular Science
April 2008, Pages 90-91

Summary: This article discusses the differences in how men and women give directions. Based on an observational study, Dr. Deborah Saucier saw that men usually focus on compass directions and distances measured in minutes or miles where women typically focus on landmarks and left and right turns. Dr. Saucier theorizes that the differences date back to our hunting ancestors. While on a hunt, men would rely on tracking the position of the sun to find their way home after straying into unfamiliar territory. Meanwhile, women, who gathered food, may have found their way to and from the most bountiful plants by the use of landmarks. This theory was tested in a farmer's market. After one tasting tour, the women could point to stalls visited noting the foods with high energy content. With the benefit of food stalls as landmarks, the women found their way better than the men.
Connection to Psychology: This relates to Chapter 1 where the textbook introduces the evolutionary approach to psychology. This approach emphasizes the inherited, adaptive aspects of behavior and mental processes. Since men and women are still exhibiting the same basic skills of finding their way as our hunting ancestors did, this demonstrates the evolutionary thinking that the fittest survived. That is, the ones who could not adapt to using the two methods of directions used by men and women did not survive. This is shown in the methods that men and women still use today to get around.

Stereotypes

"Study: Girls can add just as well as boys"
by Wendy Hansen
The Charlotte Observer

Front Page, Friday, July 25, 2008

Summary: This newspaper article reports that a study of standardized test scores of U.S. students in grades 2 through 11 found no difference in math scores for boys and girls. The study also undermines the theory that boys are more likely to be math geniuses. Girls scored in the top 5% almost as often as the boys. The improvement of test scores may be attributable to pressures to get into selective colleges prompting the girls to take more advanced math classes, such as calculus.
Connection to Psychology: This article relates to the section on Stereotypes in Chapter 14 of our textbook. A stereotype is a false assumption that all members of a group share the same characteristics. The stereotype that girls can not do math as well as boys has been a pervasive belief for many years. The stereotype was so strong that Mattel felt impelled to create a talking Barbie doll that had a recording saying "Math class is hard." It is great to see an article that refutes this stereotype.

Memory

"Meet the Memory Woman"
20/20 Segment; Air Date: May 9, 2008 on ABC
Correspondent: Diane Sawyer

Summary: Diane Sawyer presents the story of Jill Price who can recall every moment of her life, since the age 14, even reliving the feelings she felt as if it were that moment again. Ms. Price explains it as having "a split screen in my head. I always explain it to people like I'm walking around with a video camera on my shoulder. And every day is a videotape. So if you throw a date out at me, it's as if I pulled a videotape out, put in a VCR and just watched the day. As it happened. From my point of view. I walk around with my life right next to me." Ms. Price is the first documented person with hyperthymestic syndrome, a condition in which autobiographical memories cannot be forgotten. This is an amazing story, so please visit "Meet the Memory Woman" where you can view the segment that was aired on ABC's 20/20.

Connection to Psychology: This story relates to pretty much all aspects of memory that we studied in Chapter 6. Ms. Price's ability to retrieve memories in such detail is being studied in hopes of helping Alzheimer's patients. Parts of Ms. Price's brain are 3 times the size of other women her age. The enlarged parts of her brain control memory and areas associated with OCD. Since some doctors feel Price "hoards" memories and hoarding is one sign of OCD, this story can also relate to Chapter 12 where we studied anxiety disorders.

Id, Ego, and Superego

Parade magazine
July 27, 2008 Edition
Advertisement: Page 11

Summary: The advertisement shows Hershey's Special Dark and Extra Dark candy bars. The advertisement reads:

"DARK. DECADENT. DELICIOUS.
DELIGHTFULLY GOOD FOR YOU.

Hershey's Extra Dark and Special Dark chocolates are full of good-for-you antioxidants, like those found in blueberries and red wine. And it's from Hershey's, so you know it's delicious."

Connection to Psychology: The advertisement demonstrates the ego moderating between the id and the superego, as discussed in Chapter 11, page 421. The ad appeals to our id, which operates on the pleasure principle, with the pleasure that eating chocolate brings. However, the superego, acting as our "moral guide," tells that we should not eat chocolate as it is "bad" for us. Because the ad tells of the "good-for-you antioxidants" found in the chocolate, our ego can justify to the superego to allow the id to indulge in the pleasure of eating chocolate.

The Oedipus Complex

Summary: In San Francisco, California, Julie Ransom's life is just getting back to normal after her husband, a psychic medium, was brutally murdered. However, she does not achieve normalcy when someone attempts to kill her and she is saved by an FBI agent. On the other side of the country, in Maestro, Virginia, Sheriff Dixon Noble is still mourning his wife, Christie, who disappeared three years earlier. He receives a report that Christie has been spotted in San Francisco going by the name of Charlotte Pallack. Noble heads across the country to investigate. With the help of FBI agents, the mystery behind Charlotte Pallack's identity is unlocked as well as the forces behind Jule Ransom's attempted murder.
Connection to Psychology: The villain in this book is a man who speaks to his dead mother through a psychic medium and seeks out women who bear a resemblance to his dead mother. The villain is a classic example of someone who is fixated in the Phallic Stage of development. Freud's psychosexual stages were discussed in Chapter 11 starting on page 423 of our textbook. The Phallic Stage is the stage between 3 and 5 years of age when a boy experiences sexual feelings for his mother and competes with his father for the mother's affection. Freud called this set of impulses the Oedipus complex.