Introduction to the physiological approach

In today's lesson we watched a documentary entitled 'Phantoms in the Brain' which looked at neuropsychiatry - the investigation of people with unusual and interesting neurological (brain-related) conditions such as phantom limbs and 'blindsight' in order to learn about how normal brains function.

We then started to look at the physiological approach (basically the biological approach, focusing on how the body functions rather than genetic or evolutionary factors).

Here is the presentation, which is mainly questions and some stimulus pictures, but which gives a flavour of what we talked about. On Thursday we will get stuck into the brain and I will set another piece of written work.

Your essay "Discuss evolutionary explanations of human behaviour" is due in on Friday via Edmodo.

Evaluating Evolutionary Explanations

We've looked at two different evolutionary explanations for human behaviour. The 'division of labour' explanation states that in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness - the East African savannah 100,000 years ago) it was adaptive (beneficial in terms of survival) for our male and female ancestors to have different roles.

Here is the clip from 'Life of Mammals' of the persistence hunt.

Sexual selection is the selection of characteristics because they increase the chance of genes being passed on as a result of successful mating. Human partner selection and willingness to engage in casual sex can be explained by the difference in 'parental investment' in offspring between men and women.

Here is the presentation introducing evolutionary explanations.

Evolutionary Psychology and Qualitative Research Task

We introduced the Evolutionary approach to psychology and looked at a couple of examples of evolutionary explanations of behaviour today.

I also gave out instructions for Miss Kelly's Qualitative Research Task. You need to get a proposal ready for what you will research and how for this Thursday's lesson.