Blog Post #3

Evolutionary psychology focuses on a theory that human behavior, like animals themselves, has evolved over hundreds and thousands of years. I find that this theory is very interesting and has brought up a lot of conversation within myself. I believe that human behavior has certainly changed and adapted over time in a fashion similar to evolution. However, there is more to this behavior adaptation than simply just a means for greater survival.

Evolution states that the genetic makeup of organisms will change and adapt in order to better suit the organism to its environment in an attempt to improve chances of survival. Certain aspects of evolution such as natural selection explain more specifically how animals with superior genetics are more likely to breed and pass on its genes. In a way, human behavior has certainly changed and evolved in a similar way. Before laws were put in place and there were little consequences to crime, deviant behavior was likely more common. However, as laws came into existence and punishment became a reaction to immoral behavior, humans became deterred and less likely to act in an evil manner out of fear. In that sense, human behavior has evolved, but I have a hard time firmly believing that human behavior has evolved through genetics rather than from the environment that humans have lived in.

Someones environment accounts for a much greater influence on behavior than a person’s genetic code. Ask yourself why you are reading this blog post. Chances tend to follow that you’re reading this blog post not because you necessarily want to, but because it was assigned to you. Along with this, the consequences of not reading and responding to the blog post are negative. In one of my classes about social deviance, research has shown that people behave differently in different environments. I certainly wouldn’t act the same way in a job interview as I do when I’m around the kids that I work with at a summer camp. This is due to the fact that I don’t think that my potential occupational superiors would appreciate any comments about video games and Pokemon cards in the same way that my campers do. Ultimately, to ignore the gradual change of human behavior over time would be a lapse in reasoning, but I do not believe that its adaptations are due too much to genetic evolutionary properties.