Essential Evolutionary Psychology
- Simon Hampton - University of East Anglia, UK
Evolutionary Psychology
Essential Evolutionary Psychology introduces students to the core theories, approaches, and findings that are the necessary foundations for developing an understanding of evolutionary psychology.
It offers a sound, brief, and student friendly explication of how evolutionary theory has been and is applied in psychology. The book unpicks the very essence of human evolution, and how this knowledge is used to give evolutionary accounts of four of the central pillars of human behavior - cooperation, attraction, aggression, and family formation. It also covers evolutionary accounts of abnormal behavior, language and culture. The textbook then closes with a discussion of the wider objections to the very notion of evolutionary psychology, and, taking the view that evolutionary approaches are not going to go away it looks at how evolutionary psychology may develop in the future.
Accessible, lively and rich with the latest research ideas as vignettes, Essential Evolutionary Psychology should be main textbook reading for undergraduate students taking courses in Evolutionary Psychology or Evolution & Human Behavior. It should also be recommended reading to introductory students studying the Brain and Behavior.
`It is refreshing, in the wake of the sometimes uncritical enthusiasm for evolutionary psychology, to read a thoughtful and balanced account of the problems as well as the benefits of an evolutionary perspective on human behaviour' - Professor Anne Campbell, Durham University
A book very well organized with syntheses that help in understanding the contents. The information presented in the boxes promotes a more specific reading. It is a good complement of study.
I haven't received approval for the course yet, but was hoping to find a slightly higher level text since it will be a senior seminar.
Interesting content, yet lacks the depth that I require for the postgraduate students.
Very interesteing literature I sertainly will use as a reference book when creating material in courses in general psychology. It will not be adopted as course literature since it is too narrow, it would need a course of its own to be covered.
This is a clear and well presented book, more interesting and accessible than other beginners guides to evolutionary psychology.
An ideal book for final year undergraduates. It will go a long way in helping to overcome the problem of introducing the theory without sounding like an evangelist for the subject.
I will recommend this book for final year honours and MSc students who take my option in Cognitive Neuroscience as supplementary reading and will order copies for the library for next academic year.
The book is up-to-date and easy to understand. We will recommend it as one of the textbooks for the course.
Sage College Publishing
