Relationships - evolutionary theories

In today's lesson we started our Relationships topic by looking at the evolutionary theories which use the concept of sexual selection (behaviour which leads to successful reproduction, and offspring which will themselves reproduce successfully) to explain differences in male and female reproductive behaviour. There is lots of overlap here with the evolutionary aspects of gender we've already looked at - Parental Investment Theory and Sexual Strategies can be used for both.

Here is the presentation we looked at for sexual selection and differences in reproductive behaviour between males and females.

Here is a presentation looking at for the evolutionary theories, Parental Investment Theory and Sexual Strategies, which explain these differences.

You need to know some research studies that show there are differences between male and female reproductive behaviour, and some that can be used to support these theories (Clark & Hatfield, Buss & Schmidt).

Bring notes to next Thursday's lesson which cover the following:

• Describe and evaluate Parental Investment Theory as an explanation for human reproductive behaviour. 
• Describe and evaluate Sexual Strategies Theory. 
• Critically compare these two theories. 
• Evaluate sociobiological explanations in terms of nature/nurture, reductionism, determinism and psychology as a science.