BUSS: EVOLUTIONARY

THEORY OF PERSONALITY
PRESENTED BY:

TERESA V. BUENA
ROSEMARY B. LANDAN
THOUGHT PROVOKING
QUESTION
Do you agree that human nature
today is the result of behavior
patterns that evolved as our
ancestors solved the problems of
surviving and reproduction?
THOUGHT PROVOKING
QUESTION

Have humans evolved

psychologically in choosing
mates to adapt to change?
BRIEF BACKGROUND ABOUT
BUSS
• 17 year -old high school dropout
• Became Professor of Psychology at Harvard
University
• Concept of Evolution (Sparked his interest )
• Interest: Sex, attraction, lust, jealousy, cheating,
flirting, gossip (focused in his career)
• Family: Intellectually curious and talented ;
• Father: Professor of Psychology
 OVERVIEW OF
EVOLUTIONARY
THEORY
• Charles Darwin(1859)- how evolution works through selection
(NATURAL AND SEXUAL) and chance.

• Chance- through random genetic mutation

• Three different kinds of Selection:

1 Artificial Selection

2 Natural Selection

3 Sexual Selection
ARTIFICIAL SELECTION
(breeding)
• Humans select particular desirable traits in a
breeding species
• a process in the breeding of animals and in the
cultivation of plants by which the breeder
chooses to perpetuate only those forms having
certain desirable inheritable characteristics.
 NATURAL SELECTION
• Nature select the traits rather than people. Traits become either
more or less common in a species over long periods of time.
• basic mechanisms of evolution, along with mutation,
migration, and genetic drift.
• variation, differential reproduction, and heredity.
 SEXUAL
SELECTION
• "special case " of natural selection
• Selection makes many organisms go to extreme
lengths for sex
• is a form of natural selection in which organisms
are competing not for food or other resources in the
environment but for mates.
• Peacock: maintain elaborate tails brightly colored
to attract mates
PRINCIPLES OF EVOLUTIONARY
PSYCHOLOGY
 ADAPTATIONS

• evolved strategies that solve important

survival and/or reproductive problems.
• a mutation, or genetic change, that helps an
organism, such as a plant or animal, survive
in its environment.
 BY-PRODUCTS

• result of adaptation
• scientific ability; "come along for the
ride" of natural or sexual selection
NOIS
E• produces random changes in design that do not
• "random effects"

affect function
• Ex: shape of a belly button
The term evolutionary psychology can be defined as
the scientific study of human thought and behavior
from an evolutionary perspective.
(Buss, 1999)
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF PERSONALITY:
BASIC PREMISES
•Human nature is a product of evolutionary processes.
•Psychological mechanisms that are successful in helping
humans survive and reproduce out replicate those that are less
successful.
•Over evolutionary time, successful mechanisms spread
through population and come to characterize all humans
•Examples of evolutionary analysis at the level of human
nature
•The Need to Belong
•Universal Emotions
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF PERSONALITY:
Additional Premises

•Domain-specificity: Adaptations are designed by

evolutionary process to solve specialized
adaptive problems
•Numerousness: Expectation is that there are
many psychological adaptations, because of
different problems
•Functionality: adaptations are designed to
accomplish particular adaptive goals
 The Nature and Nurture
of Personality
Fundamental Situational Error - the tendency to assume
that the environment alone can produce behavior void of a stable internal
mechanism.
*without internal mechanisms, there can be no behavior

Fundamental Attribution Error - describes our tendency to

ignore situational and environmental forces when explaining
the behavior of other people and instead focus on internal
dispositions.
*The two must be involved and interact with each other
Adaptive Problems and their Solutions:
Mechanisms – the process of evolution by natural
selection which produced two basic problems of
life.

Two Specific Classes of Mechanisms:

1.Physical
2.Psychological
Evolved Mechanisms
-psychological mechanisms relevant to personality can be
grouped into three categories:
1. Goals/Drives/Motives
2. Emotions
3. Personality Traits

Motivation and Emotion as Evolved Mechanisms

Two goals and motives that act as evolved mechanisms:
1. Power – Aggression, Dominance, Achievement status and
Negotiation of Hierarchy

2. Intimacy – Love, Attachment, Reciprocal Alliance

Personality Traits as
Evolved Mechanisms

1. Surgency
2. Agreeableness/ Hostility
3. Emotional Stability/ Neuroticism
4. Conscientiousness
5. Openness
ORIGINS OF INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES

1.Environmental Sources
2.Nonadaptive Sources
3.Maladaptive Sources
 NEO- BUSSIAN
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES OF
PERSONALITY

1. MacDonald (1995)
2. Nettle (2006)
 “MATING WAS THE CENTER OF
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL
UNIVERSE”-AND THAT MEN AND
WOMEN HAD DIFFERENT
SEXUAL PSYCHOLOGIES.
-DAVID BUSS
Buss Sexual Conflict in
Human Mating •Conflict #1: Desire for
Sexual Variety
•Conflict #2: Sexual Over-
perception bias
•Conflict #3: Deception
•Conflict #4: Mate Value
Discrepancies
•Conflict #5: Infidelity
•Conflict #6: Breaking Up
 CRITIQUE OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
• IT HAS STIMULATED A RELATIVELY LARGE BODY OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH.

• It is difficult to falsify. Because evolution takes thousand of years to observe, many may argue it offers
post hoc explanations and “plausible stories”. Others say it does well as it generates novel predictions
and explanations.

• Rates high on organizing knowledge

• As a guide for practitioners, it rates low

• Rates moderate on internal consistency

• Rates high on parsimony

THOUGHT PROVOKING
QUESTION
Do you agree that human nature
today is the result of behavior
patterns that evolved as our
ancestors solved the problems of
surviving and reproduction?
THOUGHT PROVOKING
QUESTION

Have humans evolved

psychologically in
choosing mates to adapt to
change?
THANK YOU FOR
LISTENING!
 REFERENCES
https://prezi.com/lm1edc6tcf90/david-m-buss/?fallback=1&fbclid=IwA
R2cTHYtWIdLeOohuc2SU3ORmKWSZtbL7DBxOamgv36k7QrBn3rr
_Mssd5Q

https://labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu4Uki8VyLc&t=41s

https://issuhub.com/view/index/23508?fbclid=IwAR0C8VV8-Q24TrN
Wh05SBulUbn7v-9yawjqfIDSXFtDw0VrTJjnQtous-qs