Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development

Front Cover
Robert G. Burgess, Kevin MacDonald
SAGE, 2005 - Psychology - 452 pages

Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development, Second Edition considers the role of evolutionary theory in the field of developmental psychology to examine key topics of individual human development. This unique book fills an important gap in the literature, applying evolutionary models to human development by focusing on central development issues. The book emphasizes both domain-general evolved psychological mechanisms and domain-specific processes. The text also integrates behavior-genetic research with evolutionary and developmental principles. Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development provides state-of-the-art groundwork in evolutionary theory as viewed by leading thinkers in the field.

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Contents

Theoretical Issues in
21
Culture and Developmental
73
Evolution and Cognitive Development
99
Contextual Freedom in Human Infant
135
Cooperative
167
Personality Evolution and Development
207
An Evolutionary Reconceptualization
243
Evolutionary Studies of Cooperation
275
Further Observations on Adolescence
331
Evolutionary Psychopathology and Abnormal Development
381
Author Index
407
Subject Index
425
About the Editors
447
Copyright

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About the author (2005)

Kevin MacDonald is Professor of Psychology at California State University Long Beach. After receiving a Masters degree in evolutionary biology, he received a Ph. D. in Biobehavioral Sciences, both at the University of Connecticut. Since assuming his position at California State University Long Beach, his research has focused on developing evolutionary perspectives on culture, developmental psychology and personality theory, the origins and maintenance of monogamous marriage in Western Europe, and ethnic relations (group evolutionary strategies). He is the author of Social and Personality Development: An Evolutionary Synthesis (1988), A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (1994), Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (1998), and The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (1998). He has also edited three books, Sociobiological Perspectives on Human Development (1988), Parent-Child Play: Descriptions and Implications (1994), and Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development (2004).