Richard Lewontin Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology What about sociobiology did Richard have to do with? he has criticised proponents of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology such as Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, why did he criticised them? He and others criticize this approach when applied to humans, as he sees it as genetic determinism. Did he criticize others? I don't know. is there any other interesting aspects of the article that you liked? Some academics have criticized him for rejecting sociobiology for non-scientific reasons. Did others not like him for this? Robert Trivers described Lewontin as "...a man with great talents who often wasted them on foolishness,
What did he do with evolutionary psychology?
What did Richard Lewontin do with evolutionary psychology?
Along with others, such as Gould, Lewontin has been a persistent critic of some themes in neo-Darwinism. Specifically, he has criticised proponents of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology such as Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, who attempt to explain animal behaviour and social structures in terms of evolutionary advantage or strategy. He and others criticize this approach when applied to humans, as he sees it as genetic determinism. In his writing, Lewontin suggests a more nuanced view of evolution is needed, which requires a more careful understanding of the context of the whole organism as well as the environment.  Such concerns about what he views as the oversimplification of genetics has led Lewontin to be a frequent participant in debates, and an active life as a public intellectual. He has lectured widely to promote his views on evolutionary biology and science. In books such as Not in Our Genes (co-authored with Steven Rose and Leon J. Kamin) and numerous articles, Lewontin has questioned much of the claimed heritability of human behavioral traits, such as intelligence as measured by IQ tests.  Some academics have criticized him for rejecting sociobiology for non-scientific reasons. Edward Wilson (1995) suggested that Lewontin's political beliefs affected his scientific view. Robert Trivers described Lewontin as "...a man with great talents who often wasted them on foolishness, on preening and showing off, on shallow political thinking and on useless philosophical rumination while limiting his genetic work by assumptions congenial to his politics." Lewontin has at times identified himself as Marxist, and admitted that his ideological views have affected his scientific work (Levins and Lewontin 1985). Others such as Kitcher (1985) have countered that Lewontin's criticisms of sociobiology are genuine scientific concerns about the discipline. He wrote that attacking Lewontin's motives amounts to an ad hominem argument. CANNOTANSWER
Lewontin has questioned much of the claimed heritability of human behavioral traits, such as intelligence as measured by IQ tests.
Richard Charles Lewontin (March 29, 1929 – July 4, 2021) was an American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the application of techniques from molecular biology, such as gel electrophoresis, to questions of genetic variation and evolution.

In a pair of seminal 1966 papers co-authored with J. L. Hubby in the journal Genetics, Lewontin helped set the stage for the modern field of molecular evolution. In 1979 he and Stephen Jay Gould introduced the term "spandrel" into evolutionary theory. From 1973 to 1998, he held an endowed chair in zoology and biology at Harvard University, and from 2003 until his death in 2021 had been a research professor there.

Lewontin opposed genetic determinism.

Early life and education
Lewontin was born in New York City, to parents descended from late 19th-century Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants. His father was a broker of textiles, and his mother a homemaker. He attended Forest Hills High School and the École Libre des Hautes Études in New York. In 1951 he graduated from Harvard College with a BS degree in biology. In 1952, Lewontin received an MS degree in mathematical statistics, followed by a PhD degree in zoology in 1954, both from Columbia University, where he was a student of Theodosius Dobzhansky.

He held faculty positions at North Carolina State University, the University of Rochester, and the University of Chicago. In 1973 Lewontin was appointed as Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Biology at Harvard University, holding the position until 1998.

Career

Work in population genetics
Lewontin worked in both theoretical and experimental population genetics.  A hallmark of his work was an interest in new technology.  He was the first person to do a computer simulation of the behavior of a single gene locus (previous simulation work having been of models with multiple loci).  In 1960, he and Ken-Ichi Kojima were the first population geneticists to give the equations for change of haplotype frequencies with interacting natural selection at two loci.  This set off a wave of theoretical work on two-locus selection in the 1960s and 1970s. Their paper gave a theoretical derivation of the equilibria expected, and also investigated the dynamics of the model by computer iteration. Lewontin later introduced the D' measure of linkage disequilibrium. (He also introduced the term "linkage disequilibrium", about which many population geneticists have been unenthusiastic.)

In 1966, he and J. L. Hubby published a paper that revolutionized population genetics.   They used protein gel electrophoresis to survey dozens of loci in the fruit fly Drosophila pseudoobscura, and reported that a large fraction of the loci were polymorphic, and that at the average locus there was about a 15% chance that the individual was heterozygous. (Harry Harris reported similar results for humans at about the same time.) Previous work with gel electrophoresis had been reports of variation in single loci and did not give any sense of how common variation was.

Lewontin and Hubby's paper also discussed the possible explanation of the high levels of variability by either balancing selection or neutral mutation.  Although they did not commit themselves to advocating neutrality, this was the first clear statement of the neutral theory for levels of variability within species. Lewontin and Hubby's paper had great impact—the discovery of high levels of molecular variability gave population geneticists ample material to work on, and gave them access to variation at single loci. The possible theoretical explanations of this rampant polymorphism became the focus of most population genetics work thereafter.  Martin Kreitman was later to do a pioneering survey of population-level variability in DNA sequences while a Ph.D. student in Lewontin's lab.

Work on human genetic diversity
In a landmark paper, published in 1972, Lewontin identified that most of the variation (80–85%) within human populations is found within local geographic groups, and differences attributable to traditional "race" groups are a minor part of human genetic variability (1–15%). In a 2003 paper, A. W. F. Edwards criticized Lewontin's conclusion that race is an invalid taxonomic construct, terming it Lewontin's fallacy. He argued that the probability of racial misclassification of an individual based on variation in a single genetic locus is approximately 30% and the misclassification probability becomes close to zero if enough loci are studied. Edwards' criticism in turn garnered its own criticism from biologists such as Jonathan Marks, who argued that "the point of the theory of race was to discover large clusters of people that are principally homogeneous within and heterogeneous between, contrasting groups. Lewontin's analysis shows that such groups do not exist in the human species, and Edwards' critique does not contradict that interpretation."

Debates within mainstream evolutionary biology

In 1975, when E. O. Wilson's book Sociobiology proposed evolutionary explanations for human social behaviors, biologists including Lewontin, his Harvard colleagues Stephen Jay Gould and Ruth Hubbard responded negatively.

Lewontin and Gould introduced the term spandrel to evolutionary biology, inspired by the architectural term "spandrel", in an influential 1979 paper, "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme."  "Spandrels" were described as features of an organism that exist as a necessary consequence of other (perhaps adaptive) features, but do not directly improve fitness (and thus are not necessarily adaptive). The relative frequency of spandrels versus adaptations continues to stir controversy in evolutionary biology.

Lewontin was an early proponent of a hierarchy of levels of selection in his article, "The Units of Selection". He has been a major influence on philosophers of biology, notably William C. Wimsatt (who taught with Lewontin and Richard Levins at the University of Chicago), Robert Brandon and Elisabeth Lloyd (who studied with Lewontin as graduate students), Philip Kitcher, Elliott Sober, and Sahotra Sarkar.  Lewontin briefly argued for the historical nature of biological causality in "Is Nature Probable or Capricious?".

In "Organism and Environment" in Scientia, and in more popular form in the last chapter of Biology as Ideology, Lewontin argued that while traditional Darwinism has portrayed the organism as a passive recipient of environmental influences, a correct understanding should emphasize the organism as an active constructor of its own environment. Niches are not pre-formed, empty receptacles into which organisms are inserted, but are defined and created by organisms. The organism-environment relationship is reciprocal and dialectical. M. W. Feldman and others have developed Lewontin's conception in more detailed models under the term niche construction.

In the adaptationist view of evolution, the organism is a function of both the organism and environment, while the environment is only a function of itself. The environment is seen as autonomous and unshaped by the organism. Lewontin instead believed in a constructivist view, in which the organism is a function of the organism and environment, with the environment being a function of the organism and environment as well. This means that the organism shapes the environment as the environment shapes the organism. The organism shapes the environment for future generations.

Lewontin criticized traditional neo-Darwinian approaches to adaptation. In his article "Adaptation" in the Italian Enciclopedia Einaudi, and in a modified version for Scientific American, he emphasized the need to give an engineering characterization of adaptation separate from measurement of number of offspring, rather than simply assuming organs or organisms are at adaptive optima. Lewontin said that his more general, technical criticism of adaptationism grew out of his recognition that the fallacies of sociobiology reflect fundamentally flawed assumptions of adaptiveness of all traits in much of the modern evolutionary synthesis.

Lewontin accused neo-Darwinists of telling Just-So Stories when they try to show how natural selection explains such novelties as long-necked giraffes.

Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology
Along with others, such as Gould, Lewontin was a persistent critic of some themes in neo-Darwinism. Specifically, he criticized proponents of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, such as Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, who attempt to explain animal behaviour and social structures in terms of evolutionary advantage or strategy. He and others criticize this approach when applied to humans, as he sees it as genetic determinism. In his writing, Lewontin suggests a more nuanced view of evolution is needed, which requires a more careful understanding of the context of the whole organism as well as the environment.

Such concerns about what he viewed as the oversimplification of genetics led Lewontin to be a frequent participant in debates, and an active life as a public intellectual. He lectured widely to promote his views on evolutionary biology and science. In the book Not in Our Genes (co-authored with Steven Rose and Leon J. Kamin) and numerous articles, Lewontin questioned much of the claimed heritability of human behavioral traits, such as intelligence as measured by IQ tests.

Some academics have criticized him for rejecting sociobiology for non-scientific reasons. Edward Wilson (1995) suggested that Lewontin's political beliefs affected his scientific view. Others, such as Kitcher (1985), countered that Lewontin's criticisms of sociobiology are genuine scientific concerns about the discipline. He wrote that attacking Lewontin's motives amounts to an ad hominem argument. Lewontin at times identified himself as Marxist, and asserted that his philosophical views have bolstered his scientific work (Levins and Lewontin 1985).

Agribusiness
Lewontin has written on the economics of agribusiness. He has contended that hybrid corn was developed and propagated not because of its superior quality, but because it allowed agribusiness corporations to force farmers to buy new seed each year rather than plant seed produced by their previous crop of corn (Lewontin 1982). Lewontin testified in an unsuccessful suit in California challenging the state's financing of research to develop automatic tomato pickers. This favored the profits of agribusiness over the employment of farm workers (Lewontin 2000).

Lewontin, R. C. 1982. Agricultural research and the penetration of capital. Science for the People 14 (1): 12–17. 
http://www.science-for-the-people.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SftPv14n1s.pdf.

Lewontin, R.C. 2000. The maturing of capitalist agriculture: farmer as proletarian. Pgs 93–106 in F. Magdoff, J. B. Foster, and F. H. Buttel, Eds. 2000. Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment. Monthly Review Press, NY.

Personal life
As of 2003, Lewontin was the Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at Harvard. He has worked with and had great influence on many philosophers of biology, including William C. Wimsatt, Elliott Sober, Philip Kitcher, Elisabeth Lloyd, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Sahotra Sarkar, and Robert Brandon, often inviting them to work in his lab.

Since 2013, Lewontin has been listed on the Advisory Council of the National Center for Science Education.

As of mid-2015, Lewontin and his wife Mary Jane (Christianson) lived on a farm in Brattleboro, Vermont. They had four sons. He was an atheist.

Lewontin died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 4, 2021, at the age of 92.

Recognition
1961: Fulbright Fellowship
1961: National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellow
1970s: Membership of the National Academy of Sciences (later resigned)
1994: Sewall Wright Award from the American Society of Naturalists
2015: Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (shared with Tomoko Ohta)
2017: Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal from the Genetics Society of America

Bibliography

 
 
 
 "The Apportionment of Human Diversity," Evolutionary Biology, vol. 6 (1972) pp. 391–398.
 
 "Adattamento," Enciclopedia Einaudi, (1977) vol. 1, 198–214.
 "Adaptation," Scientific American, vol. 239, (1978) 212–228.

 "The Organism as Subject and Object of Evolution," Scientia vol. 188 (1983) 65–82.
Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature (with Steven Rose and Leon J. Kamin) (1984) 
The Dialectical Biologist (with Richard Levins), Harvard University Press (1985) 
Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA (1991) 
The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment, Harvard University Press (2000) 
It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and Other Illusions, New York Review of Books (2000)
Biology Under The Influence: Dialectical Essays on the Coevolution of Nature and Society (with Richard Levins), (2007)

References

Further reading

 - a two volume Festschrift for Lewontin with a full bibliography

External links
 
 an interview given at Berkeley in 2003
 Richard Lewontin's Profile at the California Institute of Technology
 Gene, Organism and Environment: Bad Metaphors and Good Biology - RealAudio stream of Hitchcock lecture on UCTV
 The Concept of Race: The Confusion of Social and Biological Reality - RealAudio stream of Hitchcock lecture on UCTV
 Internalism and Externalism in Biology, lecture delivered at Harvard university on December 13, 2007.
 

1929 births
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20th-century American mathematicians
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Evolutionary biologists
Extended evolutionary synthesis
Harvard College alumni
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The history of evolutionary psychology began with Charles Darwin, who said that humans have social instincts that evolved by natural selection. Darwin's work inspired later psychologists such as William James and Sigmund Freud but for most of the 20th century psychologists focused more on behaviorism and proximate explanations for human behavior. E. O. Wilson's landmark 1975 book, Sociobiology, synthesized recent theoretical advances in evolutionary theory to explain social behavior in animals, including humans. Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby popularized the term "evolutionary psychology" in their 1992 book The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and The Generation of Culture. Like sociobiology before it, evolutionary psychology has been embroiled in controversy, but evolutionary psychologists see their field as gaining increased acceptance overall.

19th century
After his seminal work in developing theories of natural selection, Charles Darwin devoted much of his final years to the study of animal emotions and psychology. He wrote two books;The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex in 1871 and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in 1872 that dealt with topics related to evolutionary psychology. He introduced the concepts of sexual selection to explain the presence of animal structures that seemed unrelated to survival, such as the peacock's tail. He also introduced theories concerning group selection and kin selection to explain altruism. Darwin pondered why humans and animals were often generous to their group members. Darwin felt that acts of generosity decreased the fitness of generous individuals. This fact contradicted natural selection which favored the fittest individual. Darwin concluded that while generosity decreased the fitness of individuals, generosity would increase the fitness of a group. In this case, altruism arose due to competition between groups. The following quote, from Darwin's Origin of Species, is often interpreted by evolutionary psychologists as indication of his foreshadowing the emergence of the field:

20th century
Darwin's theory inspired William James's functionalist approach to psychology. At the core of his theory was a system of "instincts." James wrote that humans had many instincts, even more than other animals. These instincts, he said, could be overridden by experience and by each other, as many of the instincts were actually in conflict with each other.

In their Evolutionary Psychology Primer Tooby and Cosmides make note of James' perspective, and also quote him:

"We do not realize that 'normal' behavior needs to be explained at all. This "instinct blindness" makes the study of psychology difficult. To get past this problem, James suggested that we try to make the "natural seem strange":

It takes...a mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making the natural seem strange, so far as to ask for the why of any instinctive human act. To the metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile, when pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd as we talk to a single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside-down? The common man can only say, Of course we smile, of course our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd, of course we love the maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made for all eternity to be loved!

And so, probably, does each animal feel about the particular things it tends to do in the presence of particular objects. ... To the lion it is the lioness which is made to be loved; to the bear, the she-bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her.

Thus we may be sure that, however mysterious some animals' instincts may appear to us, our instincts will appear no less mysterious to them. (William James, 1890)

In our view, William James was right about evolutionary psychology. Making the natural seem strange is unnatural -- it requires the twisted outlook seen, for example, in Gary Larson cartoons. Yet it is a pivotal part of the enterprise. Many psychologists avoid the study of natural competences, thinking that there is nothing there to be explained."

According to Noam Chomsky, perhaps Anarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin could be credited as having founded evolutionary psychology, when in his 1902 book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution he argued that the human instinct for cooperation and mutual aid could be seen as stemming from evolutionary adaption.

William McDougall made a reference to "evolutionary psychology" in his 1919 book An Introduction to Social Psychology: "It is only a comparative and evolutionary psychology that can provide the needed basis (for psychology); and this could not be created before the work of Darwin had convinced men of the continuity of human with animal evolution as regards all bodily characters, and had prepared the way for the quickly following recognition of the similar continuity of man’s mental evolution with that of the animal world." (p. 16)

Post world war II
While Darwin's theories on natural selection gained acceptance in the early part of the 20th century, his theories on evolutionary psychology were largely ignored. Only after the second world war, in the 1950s, did interest increase in the systematic study of animal behavior. It was during this period that the modern field of ethology emerged. Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen were pioneers in developing the theoretical framework for ethology for which they would receive a Nobel prize in 1973.

Desmond Morris's book The Naked Ape attempted to frame human behavior in the context of evolution, but his explanations failed to convince academics because they were based on a teleological (goal-oriented) understanding of evolution. For example, he said that the pair bond evolved so that men who were out hunting could trust that their mates back home were not having sex with other males.

Sociobiology
In 1975, E. O. Wilson built upon the works of Lorenz and Tinbergen by combining studies of animal behavior, social behavior and evolutionary theory in his book Sociobiology:The New Synthesis. Wilson included a chapter on human behavior. Wilson's application of evolutionary analysis to human behavior caused bitter debate.

With the publication of Sociobiology, evolutionary thinking for the first time had an identifiable presence in the field of psychology. E. O. Wilson argues that the field of evolutionary psychology is essentially the same as "human sociobiology".

Edward H. Hagen writes in The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology that sociobiology is, despite the public controversy regarding the applications to humans, "one of the scientific triumphs of the twentieth century." "Sociobiology is now part of the core research and curriculum of virtually all biology departments, and it is a foundation of the work of almost all field biologists" Sociobiological research on nonhuman organisms has increased dramatically and appears continuously in the world's top scientific journals such as Nature and Science.The more general term behavioral ecology is commonly used as substitute for the term sociobiology in order to avoid the public controversy.

Modern use of the term "evolutionary psychology"
The term evolutionary psychology was used by American biologist Michael Ghiselin in a 1973 article published in the journal Science. Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby popularized the term "evolutionary psychology" in their 1992 book The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and The Generation of Culture. The term is sometimes abbreviated "EvoPsych" or "evo-psych" or similar.

In contrast to sociobiology and behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology emphasizes that organisms are "adaptation executors" rather than "fitness maximizers." In other words, organisms have emotional, motivational and cognitive adaptations that generally increased inclusive fitness in the past but may not do so in the present. This distinction may explain some maladaptive behaviors that are the result of "fitness lags" between ancestral and modern environments. For example, our ancestrally developed desires for fat, sugar and salt often lead to health problems in modern environment where these are readily available in large quantities.

Also, in contrast to sociobiology and behavioral ecology (which mostly study non-human animal behavior), rather than focus primarily on overt behavior, EP attempts to identify underlying psychological adaptations (including emotional, motivational and cognitive mechanisms), and how these mechanisms interact with the developmental and current environmental influences to produce behavior.

Before 1990, introductory psychology textbooks scarcely mentioned Darwin. In the 1990s, evolutionary psychology was treated as a fringe theory, and evolutionary psychologists depicted themselves as an embattled minority. Coverage in psychology textbooks was largely hostile. According to evolutionary psychologists, current coverage in psychology textbooks is usually neutral or balanced.

The presence that evolutionary theory holds in psychology has been steadily increasing. According to its proponents, evolutionary psychology now occupies a central place in psychological science.

See also

Notes

Evolutionary psychology Mark van Vugt (born 9 May 1967, Amsterdam) is a Dutch evolutionary psychologist who holds a professorship in evolutionary psychology and work and organizational psychology at the VU University (Vrije Universiteit) Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Van Vugt has affiliate positions at the University of Oxford, Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA).

Career
Mark van Vugt went to Bataafs Lyceum and studied psychology at the University of Groningen, followed by a PhD in applied social psychology at the University of Maastricht during which he worked on research into environmental sustainability and transportation as social dilemma and tragedy of the commons problems. After receiving his PhD in 1996, Mark van Vugt was hired by the University of Southampton, UK, to work as a lecturer in psychology, followed by a professorship in 2004 at the University of Kent, UK.

Research
Mark van Vugt currently holds a professorship in psychology at the VU University (Vrije Universiteit) Amsterdam, bringing evolutionary and Darwinian thinking into the field of social psychology and organisational psychology. His research covers all areas of evolutionary psychology as applied to topics such as leadership followership, altruism, group dynamics, business, management, intergroup conflict and warfare, social dilemma, organisational psychology, volunteering and environmental protection.

He has contributed to the scientific literature by proposing evolutionary  evolutionary psychology theories for human social behavior. On leadership followership and organizations through the evolutionary leadership theory. On intergroup relations through the male warrior hypothesis. On the evolutionary psychology of social dilemmas. On conservation and sustainability through the lens of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary mismatch. Recently he conducted work on the Napoleon complex adopting an evolutionary lens.

Grants and Awards
Van Vugt is a Fellow of the British Royal Society for Arts and Commerce. He is also the first recipient of the Juda Groen award in the Netherlands for his contributions to evolution, evolutionary psychology, and human behavior. He is the Business Editor of the Evolution Institute. Van Vugt has received several grants for his research, including from national and international science foundations, and from private partners.

Media
Mark van Vugt is the lead author of a popular science book on leadership, Naturally Selected, with British science journalist Anjana Ahuja which has been translated in over ten languages. He is also co-author of a book on evolutionary mismatch and the implications of mismatch for human society (with novelist Ronald Giphart). Van Vugt has also co-authored books on prestige social dilemmas and the evolution of cooperation and a textbook on applying social psychology.  His research has been discussed in many national and international popular science media outlets as the Nature, Huffington Post New Scientist, The Times, The Guardian, CNN, BBC, ABC Trouw and the Volkskrant.

Van Vugt has a blog on Psychology Today, He also blogs on the website of the Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant applying evolutionary insights to societal issues. Van Vugt further co-writes with Max Wildschut a monthly column for the Dutch business magazine Management Team applying evolutionary theory to business and management.

Editorships
Mark van Vugt serves on the editorial board of various journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology The Leadership Quarterly and Frontiers in Evolutionary Psychology and Human Neuroscience Politics and Life Sciences . He sat on various national and international panels on psychology teaching and research quality. He is an affiliate member of the British Academy project "From Lucy to Language". He led, together with Robin Dunbar of the University of Oxford, a series of lectures for the Economic and Social Research Council highlighting the role of Darwinian and evolutionary psychology in solving societal problems such as poverty, environmental protection, charity, war and peace.

References

Mark van Vugt's blog on Psychology Today 
Mark van Vugt "Selected" book lecture at Royal Society in London in September 2010 on YouTube 
Reviews of the book have appeared in Nature  and the New Scientist 
Mark Van Vugt's work on the evolutionary psychology of environmental protection and sustainability was discussed in the New Scientist 
Mark van Vugt's evolutionary lessons in leadership failure appear in blogs on the Mind 
Mark van Vugt gives Darwin lecture at Academia for Sciences in Czech Republic

Selected books
Giphart, R., & van Vugt, M. (2018). Mismatch: How our Stone Age brain deceives us every day (and what we can do about it). Little,Brown. https://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Stone-Brain-Deceives-Every/
Van Lange, P., Balliet, D., Parks, C., & Van Vugt, M. (2014). Social Dilemmas. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Buunk, A. P., & Van Vugt, M. (2013). Applying social psychology: From problems to solutions. London: Sage Publications. Second edition.
Van Vugt, M., & Ahuja, A. (2010). Selected: Why some people lead, why others follow, and why it matters. The Evolutionary Science of Leadership. London: Profile Books/New York: Harper.
Van Vugt, M., Snyder, M., Tyler, T., & Biel, A. (Eds.). (2000). Cooperation in modern society: Promoting the welfare of communities, states, and organizations. London: Routledge.

Selected journal articles
Spisak, B., O’Brien, M., Nicholson, N., & Van Vugt, M. (2014). Leadership in organizations: A niche-construction perspective. Academy of Management Review
Vugt, M. van, Griskevicius, V. & Schultz, P. W. (2014). Naturally green: Harnessing Stone Age psychological biases to foster environmental behavior. Social Issue and Policy Review, 8, 1-32.
Van Vugt, M., & Ronay, R. D. (2014).The Evolutionary Psychology of Leadership: Theory, Review, and Roadmap. Organizational Psychology Review, 4, 74–95. 
Balliet, D., Li, N., Macfarlan, S., & Van Vugt, M. (2011). Sex differences in cooperation: A meta-analytic review of social dilemmas. Psychological Bulletin.
Spisak, B., Homan, A., Grabo, A., & Van Vugt, M. (2011). Facing the situation: Testing a biosocial contingency model of leadership in intergroup relations using masculine and feminine faces. The Leadership Quarterly
Dunbar, R, Baron, R., Frangou, A., Pearce, E., van leeuwen, E., Stow, J., Partridge, G., Macdonald, I., Barra, V., & van Vugt, M (2011). Social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain trhreshold. Proceedings of the Royal Society-B  
Brosnan, S. F., Newton-Fisher, N. E., & Van Vugt, M. (2009). A melding of minds: When primatology meets social psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13, 129–147.
Hardy, C. L., & Van Vugt, M. (2006). Nice guys finish first: The competitive altruism hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1402–1413.
Van Vugt, M. (2009). Averting the Tragedy of the Commons: Using Social Psychological Science to Protect the Environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 169–173.
Van Vugt, M., De Cremer, D., & Janssen, D. (2007). Gender differences in competition and cooperation: The male warrior hypothesis. Psychological Science. 18, 19–23.
Van Vugt, M., Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. (2008). Leadership, followership, and evolution: Some lessons from the past. American Psychologist, 63, 182–196.
Van Vugt, M. (2006). Evolutionary origins of leadership and followership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 354–372.

External links
 Mark van Vugt's webpage
 VU University website
 Daily Science News
 
 Human Behavior and Evolution Society website

1967 births
Living people
Dutch psychologists
University of Groningen alumni
Maastricht University alumni
Academics of the University of Kent
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam faculty
Scientists from Amsterdam