Psychology / Unit 1 Psych 0023 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Evolutionary Perspective
Captions available
The idea
The evolutionary perspective explains behavior by the reproductive advantage a trait would have conferred in ancestral environments.
In practice
A fast, involuntary startle to a snake shape is explained as an inherited advantage in avoiding lethal threats.
Where people slip
An evolutionary story is testable only when it predicts something new. Otherwise it explains any outcome after the fact.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for Psychology