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Evolutionary Psychology, The Handbook of

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1860-1

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E
Evolutionary Psychology, The
Handbook of
David M. Buss
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX,
USA
Synonyms
Handbook; Evolutionary psychology
Definition
A compilation of 52 chapters and essays, written
by evolutionary scientists, summarizing theories
and research in major branches of evolutionary
psychology.
Introduction
Charles Darwin was the first evolutionary psy-
chologist. He described his vision for the future
of psychology at the end of his classic 1859 trea-
tise On the Origin: “In the distant future I see open
fields for more important researches. Psychology
will be based on a new foundation, that of the
necessary acquirement of each mental power and
capacity by gradation.” Close to a century and a
half later, his prophecy began to come to fruition.
The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, first
# Springer International Publishing AG 2016
T.K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1860-1
published in 2005, logged in at more than 1,000
printed pages with some 35 chapters (Buss 2005).
The second Handbook of Evolutionary Psychol-
ogy, published in 2016 with more than 52 chapters
and essays, highlights how dramatically the field
has expanded. Darwin turned out to be right (Buss
2016).
What the Handbook Showcases
The Handbook showcases “the best and the
brightest” in the field, although space limitations
required excluding many major players. It reveals
several important developments in the actualiza-
tion of Darwin’s vision. First, evolutionary psy-
chology serves as a “metatheory” for the entire
field of psychology (Buss 1995; Tooby and
Cosmides 1992). It is not a subbranch of psychol-
ogy, but rather a metatheoretical framework
within which all psychology becomes organized
and integrated. Stated differently, there is no such
“non-evolutionary psychology” in the sense that
no other causal processes, other than evolutionary
ones, are responsible for whatever psychological
machinery humans possess. The evolutionary
metatheory currently organizes biology and all
of the life sciences, and there is no reason why
psychology should be magically exempt.
Second, evolutionary psychology has pene-
trated every single branch of the traditionally
delineated branches of psychology – sensation,
perception, cognitive, social, personality,
2 Evolutionary Psychology, The Handbook of
developmental, clinical, and neuroscience. Indi-
vidual chapters on these topics showcase the util-
ity of evolutionary perspectives in discovering
phenomena previously missed by approaches
lacking an evolutionary lens. Examples include
the vertical descent illusion in vision, cross-sex
mind-reading biases in social cognition, the pre-
dictable developmental emergence of phenomena
such as stranger anxiety, important psychological
sex differences where previous psychologists
assumed monomorphism, and many others.
Third, the Handbook showcases the many
emerging interdisciplinary enterprises, such as
evolutionary endocrinology, evolutionary politi-
cal science, evolutionary genetics, and cultural
evolution. A strong case can be made syllogisti-
cally: All human behavior rests on a foundation of
evolved psychological mechanisms; all such com-
plex mechanisms owe their existence to evolution
by selection; therefore, all fields that involve
human behavior must have evolutionary psychol-
ogy as a foundational explanatory framework.
The expansion of evolutionary psychology into
disciplines such as political science, sociology,
economics, and even literature and the formation
of new hybrid disciplines with evolutionary the-
ory as their organizing core are hallmarks of the
future and herald a consilience of the sort
envisioned by E. O. Wilson (1999).
Fourth, the Handbook highlights that massive
and rapidly expanding empirical foundation of the
new science of the mind. Early in its inception,
evolutionary psychology was viewed as a highly
speculative enterprise. Some derided it as “just-so
stories,” with the implication that it more resem-
bled cocktail party musings rather than serious,
testable, and falsifiable empirical science. The
Handbook shows that, although evolutionary psy-
chological hypotheses do span the spectrum of
precise and testable to looser and less amenable to
empirical rigor, there is no doubt that evolutionary
psychology consists largely of sound empirical
science. Every year, the empirical edifice grows.
New discoveries are made using the theoretical
lenses of the field. And knowledge about the sci-
ence of the mind accumulates within EP’s cogent
metatheoretical framework, each new discovery
building on the others in a way that makes the
growth of scientific knowledge truly satisfying.
Another development showcased by the Hand-
book is the fact that competing evolutionary psy-
chological hypotheses are increasingly being
advanced and pitted against each other in empir-
ical test. Outsiders sometimes ask what “the” evo-
lutionary hypothesis is about a particular
phenomenon. As shown in cases such as the
female orgasm, menstrual cycle shifts in women’s
mate preferences, and adaptationists versus
by-product hypotheses about homicide, compet-
ing evolutionary hypotheses act as fulcrums,
catapulting the field forward.
Finally, the Handbook reveals that evolution-
ary psychology has become a sufficiently mature
science to generate practical applications or to
become “translational” in the current jargon of
the field. The Handbook provides a sampling of
these – evolutionary consumer behavior, organi-
zational leadership, and the law. These develop-
ments auger well for future translational
applications of the new science of the mind.
Conclusion
The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology
should be a core reference manual on the shelf or
computer of every scientist who deals with human
behavior. Evolutionary psychology is no longer
an optional exercise. It guides researchers to
important domains of inquiry. It reveals facets of
human psychology previously undiscovered. It
provides a metatheory that provides a justification
for why all the different branches of psychology
belong within the covers of the same book. And it
provides the foundation from which all disciplines
that deal with human behavior can be enlightened.
Darwin prophesied that psychology would some-
day be based on a new foundation. That day has
come. The foundation is now firmly in place.
Future researchers can now use that foundation
to construct the larger edifice – the mature science
of the human mind that Darwin envisioned.
Cross-References
▶ Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology, The Handbook of
References
Buss, D. M. (1995). Evolutionary psychology: A new par-
adigm for psychological science. Psychological
Inquiry, 6, 1–30.
Buss, D. M. (Ed.) (2005). The handbook of evolutionary
psychology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
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3
Buss, D. M. (2016). The handbook of evolutionary psy-
chology (2nd edn). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foun-
dations of culture. In The adapted mind: Evolutionary
psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 19–136).
New York: Oxford University Press.
Wilson, E. O. (1999). Consilience: The unity of knowledge.
New York: Vintage.