Evolutionary Psychology: A Beginner's Guide by Robin I. M. Dunbar

Evolutionary Psychology: A Beginner's Guide Reviews

• 
  Jack

  Very nice introduction to evolutionary psychology but bare in mind that some of the studies presented in the book are abit outdated. Especially neurological and genom based studies are much more advanced right now but it doesn’t render this source as useless! It has great combination of sources that you can not find together in anywhere else.
• 
  Judyta Szacillo

  I wasn't sure how to shelve this book. Can anyone tell me where psychology belongs -in the natural or social sciences? The book didn't tell me that ;-)
  
  On a more serious note, the book does do what is says on the cover: it's a great introduction for beginners. Accessible but not dumbed down. I learnt loads. Very pleased with this purchase.
• 
  Kiki Dal

  3,5 stars
• 
  Cav

  Evolutionary Psychology: A Beginner's Guide was a decent introduction to the subject.
  
  Co-author
  Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar is a British anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist and a specialist in primate behaviour. He is currently head of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is best known for formulating
  Dunbar's number, a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".
  
  Robin Dunbar:
  
  
  
  
  
  Not wasting any time by giving the reader a primer to the topic in its early pages, the authors jump right in. The writing here is fairly technical right from the get-go. They employ liberal usage of evolutionary jargon early on without explaining it to the unfamiliar reader. They rattle off terms like fitness, proximate vs ultimate causation, determinism, adaptive, maladaptive, and others; not offering any explanations to the naive reader. Although I and many others will likely be familiar with this jargon, this book is marketed as a "beginner's guide." The authors should have spent a bit more time familiarizing the reader with these terms. Points knocked off for this glaring ommission.
  
  The authors caution against
  genetic determinism in the intro of the book, mentioning gene/environment interactions are both responsible for behaviour. They analogize behaviour to the baking of a cake: what makes the cake a "cake" is not just the ingredients, or the preparation, but rather - a combination of all the ingredients and preparation methods that went into its production.
  
  The authors debate the concept of
  group-level selection, mentioning that many evolutionary biologists discounted this theory as early as the 60s'.
  They do mention the work of fellow evolutionary biologist
  David Sloan Wilson. In 1994, Wilson and Elliott Sober argued for multi-level selection, including group selection, on the grounds that groups, like individuals, could compete. In 2010 three authors including
  E. O. Wilson, known for his work on social insects especially ants, again revisited the arguments for group selection.
  
  Religion is a good example of group-level selection. The American evolutionary biologist
  Brett Weinstein speaks about this topic with great clarity. Briefly; religion confers group-level benefits to society in the forms of increased social cohesion, and facilitates the completion of complex, multi-person tasks and goals.
  Although seemingly discounting the concept of group-level selection in the early part of the book, they revisit the concept in the latter part, and talk about religion being a good example of group-level selection, writing:
  

  "Given the overwhelming importance of the free-rider problem, we can view religion as a communal attempt to coerce individuals into adhering to the implicit social contract which underpins all societies – the anthropologists are right but for the wrong reason. Religion (and, by extension, story-telling) plays a crucial role in creating a sense of community and bondedness. That effect acts for the benefit of the members, through a grouplevel effect, because the members of well-bonded groups have higher fitness than those of poorly bonded groups, making religion a trait that has been selected at the group level. Religion and story-telling are particularly good candidates for group-level selection because they tend to reduce variability between the individuals within groups (since they all come to share the same values and beliefs) and increase variability between groups (which will have different stories and rituals), thereby helping to make the process more powerful..."

  
  Unfortunately, I found much of the writing here to be overly dry. The book reads somewhat like a textbook, or long-form encyclopedia article. The authors write in a rather detached, matter-of-fact, no-frills manner. A somewhat tragically typical example of British academic prose, I've noticed...
  
  Some of the other topics covered here by the authors include:
  * Language; Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky are mentioned.
  * Altruism; kin selection.
  * Inborn human wiring; the studies of babies are talked about, as well as the onset of
  theory of mind.
  * Mate selection; male vs. female preferences are talked about.
  * Parental investment; male vs female. Infanticide is also covered.
  * Historical human social groups and societies; the inborn pro-social wring of people.
  * Dunbar's number; friendships, and other social circles.
  * Grooming in monkeys and apes.
  * Intentionality, language and culture; people's conformity bias is talked about.
  * The roles of religion and story-telling to society.
  * The evolutionary role of gossip in social cohesion, norm enforcement, and the
  free-rider problem.
  
  
  
  *************
  
  Evolutionary Psychology: A Beginner's Guide was an interesting read, but not the most engaging look at what is otherwise an extremely interesting field of study.
  3.5 stars.
• 
  Morgan Blackledge

  I can't encounter this material, no mater how dryly written, and not be changed. Evo-psych is just so damned powerful. I literally can't get enough of it. That being said. This book is brilliant by default, and seemingly boring by design. What ever. Even if it's not exactly a thriller. The material is so strong and thought provoking that it's 100% worth reading (or listening if you have the audiobook).
• 
  Jurij Fedorov

  It's a bit hard to rate this. All the science is good and well explained. But it doesn't feel fresh and fun to read.
  
  Pro:
  
  The science is good. It's basic psychology and it's a really great intro to psychology overall. The EP part is good, but it's not deep so mostly it reads like a really well written intro to general psychology without going into the harder EP science that often feels like hard science compared to most psychology. As a general psychology intro it's pretty much perfect. As EP intro it's a bit light and dry.
  
  Con:
  
  It's not super in-depth, but it's not joking, fun or personal either. So it doesn't have this accessible writing style to it. It's written like a simple intro to psychology as a whole, but it finds itself not being great for beginners who just want to read for fun. Nor is it great for people who know all there is the know about EP.
  
  Basically it's a great and very well written intro. But I would strongly recommend a longer and more in-depth EP book. They can be extremely accessible already.
• 
  Chris Boutté

  Evo psych is one of my favorite topics to read, and for some reason, people are always talking smack about it or just flat out hate it. I often have to debate with people about it, so I wanted to brush up on my knowledge from some of the best in the field like Robin Dunbar. This book gives you all the basics about evo psych, dives into a ton of research that helps explain human behavior, and if you’re like me, it’ll give you some ammunition when debating with evo psych haters.
• 
  Arturo Castillo

  Emotions!
  Ever felt jealous? Ever wondered why?
  It is related to the reason why male lions kill the cubs of a female they want to mate with.
  Of course you are not a feline, you are a... primate! But you are a mammal too. 😉
• 
  Irum

  Interesting and has a lot of new terminology and concepts. Content heavy but explained pretty well. Found myself highlighting quite a lot on my kindle. Purchased to improve essay content and should provide useful.
• 
  Riversue

  Brief but interesting
• 
  Dario Ramirez

  The whole concept the book is reaching for seems made up and lacks a foundation.
• 
  Desollado

  A very good update for the layman that serves to raise above the internet debate that misrepresents the subject.
• 
  Johannes Solano

  A good and short overview of different aspects of Evolutionary Psychology from male/female differences, how religion evolved and the science of morality.
• 
  Gerald Prokop

  As far as beginner's guides go, this is pretty good. The information is accessible without being dumbed down. It gave me the insight I was looking for for, but nothing too mind-blowing or inspiring, and it still felt like reading a textbook. The part I really appreciated was at the end, where the Naturalistic Fallacy, ethics and human morality were discussed really intelligently. I would've expected a "Beginner's Guide" to use the Naturalistic Fallacy to write off the subject of morality. Instead, they criticize scientists who do just that and open the issue up. Overall it's a pretty smart introduction, easy enough to read and got me thinking.
• 
  Nicholas

  The first two chapters where not exactly easy going for a beginners guide type publication, but this was not representative of the rest of the book which read quite well,although at times it was a little inconsistent and some explanations became unclear in badly written paragraphs, but this did not detract from the overall understanding too much.The subjects covered include interactive development,instinct,language,religion and morality among others and reference recent findings and experimental data to back up the text.Overall a good introduction to the subject even if you're familiar with modern popular science writing.
• 
  Bryce

  Good info
• 
  Any Length

  not a book for me and read too slowly. I was falling asleep