Category Archives: Evolution and Psychology
Challenges To and Hope for Evolutionary Theory: The 4th Annual Conference of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society
NEEPS 2010, Return to New Paltz. What a whirlwind weekend! How amazing to return to where it all started, just four years ago, and see how far we’ve come. We topped the previous conferences in total numbers of attendees, the … Continue reading
Are You Going to Eat the Placenta? And Other New Age Questions a Modern 1st World Mother Must Endure
It seems a pregnant women is a magnet for unsolicited advice – most often tips for parenting, but even tips regarding how she should give birth. In my own experience, these tips came only from males or childless females, but … Continue reading
An Ethological Look into Elmo’s World
Why do children love Elmo, while parents dread the day their kids learn about this furry red monster? An ethological explanation can add insight into this decades old question. Continue reading
Glenn Geher’s Final “President’s Welcome Letter” for the Meetings of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society (NEEPS)
NOTE: This posting is the President’s Welcome for the 2010 meeting of NEEPS. Welcome Back to New Paltz – NEEPS 2010! Good news – we’re back! Four years ago, NEEPS was born at SUNY New Paltz. This fledgling society started … Continue reading
Mincemeat Pies, Christmas Crackers, and the Evolutionary Significance of Extended Family
For Homo Sapiens like you and me, family extends beyond kin lines. In fact, while our tendency to create psychological ingroups sometimes has adverse consequences (no doubt), the extraordinary success of our kind owes a great debt to our tendency … Continue reading
A New Marker of Interdisciplinarity
Diversity of the majors of students interested in EvoS strikes me as a great marker of interdisciplinarity. Continue reading
Is Daycare An Evolutionarily Novel Concept?
I am embarking on a new phase of raising my 1-year-old son: daycare. As a work-from-home mom, I am only looking for a very part time option to give Enso a chance to interact with other kids, and give me … Continue reading
Boy Scouts, Giant Sea Turtles, and the Evolution of Other-Oriented Behavior
As an evolutionist, I’m woefully beyond help. I can’t help but see everything in my world in terms of evolutionary principles. Continue reading
Back to the Roots, or Pass the Ketchup Please?
As happens with modern behaviors, the presumed ancestral human diet has been lifted up as a utopian ideal by which to live. The Paleo Diet (also Evolution Diet, NeanderThin) offers a way to return to our roots and reduce the … Continue reading
Women hold up half the sky…but what about the other genders? On August 19, 2009, South African runner Caster Semenya won the woman’s 800 meters at the World Championships. She also set the world record. This in and of itself … Continue reading
