Reading Comprehension

PT134 · S4 · P3 · Q14 Evolutionary Psychology

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Passage A Evolutionary psychology has taught us to examine human behavior from the standpoint of the theory of evolution—to explain a given type of human behavior by examining how it contributes to the reproductive success of individuals exhibiting the behavior, and thereby to the proliferation of the genetic material responsible for causing that behavior.

Passage A

The first paragraph introduces us to the concept of Evolutionary Psychology, which tries to explain behaviors based on how they would have contributed to the reproductive success of the individual behaving that way.

At the end of the 1st, the author asks a Puzzling Question: how can altruism (self-sacrifice) help the reproductive success of an individual?

The 2nd paragraph begins, the answer probably lies in identification / empathy.

So our reading goal is to understand how identification/empathy make it so that altruism helps the reproductive success of an individual. The story seems to be that we can visually identify people who resemble us (and thus who are likely to share some of our genes), and this makes us empathize with them and want to help them more. In the end, I guess the explanation is that we learn to be altruistic to people who look like us, because if they are related to us, then saving them is technically helping the reproductive success of our genes (since they share many of our genes).

The 3rd paragraph is saying that once this mechanism existed (so that we'd be more likely to help our our genetic relatives), it got co-opted more socially within our kin-based groups turned into bigger groups that included non-relatives. Altruism may end up helping strangers in a way that looks "unselfish", but it arose for selfish reasons (trying to save "your genes" by helping someone near you who shared some of your genes).

Passage B

Right away we see there's a Topic Overlap with Evolutionary Psychology. However, this author seems to be against it, not using it. She calls it a "conspiracy theory", which sounds negative.

There's also some saucy attitude in the last sentence of the 1st paragraph: what seemed to be your unsurprising interest in your child's well-being turns out to be your genes' conspiracy to propagate themselves.

The author is saying,

In the 2nd paragraph, the author is providing an example of what she considers to be typical evolutionary psychology -- we have monogamous families (not for the superficial reason of "I found my one true love") because our offspring mature slowly so this type of family improved the reproductive chances of our offspring.

In the 3rd paragraph, the author continues her skepticism of this type of thinking. She feels like evolutionary psychologists are forcing everything through their explanatory lens, when there are other, possibly simpler and more intuitive ways to explain some forms of behavior.

She seems convinced that some of our behaviors are not controlled by genetic interests; they're just products of our own curious free will.

Overlap

Both passages deal with evolutionary psychology and with altruism.

Passage A presents how evolutionary psychology would explain altruism. Passage B alludes to it very vaguely at the end of its 3rd paragraph.

Divergence

Passage A seems to like / trust evolutionary psychology, whereas Psg B seems a little annoyed that evolutionary psychology insists on thinking that every single thing has an evolutionary explanation.

14.

The approaches toward evolutionary psychology exhibited by the two authors differ in which one of the following ways?

The author of passage A
Reversed, if anything
The author of A is more interested in using EP to explain human/animal behavior. But that author doesn't seem to care about logical implications. If anything, psg B brings up that stuff more, starting its second paragraph with an assessment of how persuasive an argument seems at face value, and starting its third paragraph with "can we make this inference"? (There's even some conditional logic in Passage B!)
2% picked this
Correct
The author of passage A
Why this is right
This seems fair. Since psg A is determined to use EP in order to explain altruism, while psg B is willing to consider other types of explanations, we could say that A is more committed to EP than B is. What are the principles of EP? The first sentence of Psg A says that EP teaches us "to examine human behavior from the standpoint of the theory of evolution -- to explain a type of human behavior by how it contributes to reproductive success". That is exactly what passage A does when it comes to altruism / a mom saving her kid. Passage B is not committed to explaining human behavior by how it contributes to reproductive success. She thinks that some things are cared for just for their own sake. (last sentence of passage)
Skill tested: Method · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
45% picked this
The author of passage A
Reversed
This is the opposite of what we were looking for. Passage B is the one considering nonevolutionary epxlanations.
1% picked this
The author of passage B
Out of Scope: general evo. theory
This seems very close to the correct answer, but we would say that passage B is more skeptical of evolutionary psychology, not evolutionary theory in general. Evolutionary theory in general is the idea that specific traits arise in species most often because that trait added survival value, and so through the course of many generations of replication, that gene was more likely to be reproduced each time. Passage B isn't disputing that in any spot we can put our finger on. She's just saying, "I think evolutionary psychologists might be taking it too far by insisting that every human behavior has to be described as being done because it increases survival value or chance of replication"
47% picked this
The author of passage B
Too Strong: critical of motives
Yikes, this one also seems tempting. The problem, I guess, is that "critical of their motives" is a little too accusatory or out of scope. The author doesn't think that evolutionary psychologists are bad people who have malign intentions. She would probably agree that evolutionary psychologists are too stubborn about trying to explain everything in terms of genes. And if I were trying to defend this answer, I would say, "Isn't it their motive to explain everything in terms of genes? So isn't the author of B being more critical or skeptical of that?" But we need to be less "could I make that work" and more "what does that expression normally convey when we read it" here. When you're critical of someone's motives, you're saying that someone is doing X for the wrong reasons. Our author isn't saying that. She asks at the end of the 2nd paragraph, "is the conclusion that EP's draw from this evidence right? Maybe yes, maybe no. This is a tricky inference." Her critique is more about the logical flaws / overlooked possibilities of the evolutionary psychologists. She's not calling them conspiracy mongers who are doing this for the wrong reason.
5% picked this

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