fei75766_ch15_463-494.indd 468  02/24/20 10:48 AM
Part V    Biological/Evolutionary Theories468
Inother words, inthefuture, theviewthatmental processes haveevolved gradually 
willbemore widely accepted. Afewdecades latertheAmerican philosopher andpsy-
chologist William James didpickuponthisviewandargued thatpsychology should 
focus onthefunction ofthemind rather thanitsparts.
Ittookmore than100years, however, forDarwin’s future toarrive. Until 
the1970s, evolution andpsychology werelargely separate ideas. During the1970s, 
finally, things began tochange. Oneofthefirstsigns ofchange wasputforth byE.O.
Wilson when heargued foramerger ofthebiological andsocial sciences anddubbed 
hismovement “sociobiology” (Wilson, 1975). Theterm“evolutionary psychology” 
wascoined in1973 bybiologist Michael Ghiselin (1973), andlaterpopularized by
theanthropologist John Tooby andpsychologist Leda Cosmides intheearly 1990s 
(Tooby &Cosmides, 1992). Thetermevolutionary psychology canbedefined asthe
scientific study ofhuman thought andbehavior from anevolutionary perspective and
focuses onfourbigquestions (Buss, 1999):
1.Whyisthehuman mind designed thewayitis,andhowdiditcome totakeits
current form?
2.How isthehuman mind designed; thatis,what areitsparts andcurrent 
structure?
3.What function dotheparts ofthemind have, andwhat isitdesigned todo?
4.How dotheevolved mind andcurrent environment interact toshape human 
behavior?
Intheremainder ofthechapter, weseehowthese questions havebeen applied tothe
study ofhuman personality inDavid Buss’s evolutionary theory ofpersonality.
Evolutionary Theory of Personality
From thebeginning totheendofthe20thcentury, personality theories wentfromgrand 
theories thatattempted toexplain allpeople atalltimes tosmaller, more targeted theo-
riesthatfocused onsingle aspects ofpersonality, suchasthestructure ofpersonality 
orthenature ofself.Starting withFreud intheearly1900s, theories ofpersonality had
attempted tounderstand people’s conscious andunconscious thinking, motives, drives, 
andeventheirdreams. Most ofthese theories, asyouhaveseeninParts ItoIIIofthecur-
rentbook, assume thatpersonality iscaused byenvironmental events alone andseldom 
evenmention anybiological component. Evolutionary theory, however, assumes thatthe
trueorigins ofthese traits reach farbackinancestral times. Thetrueorigin ofpersonality 
isevolution, meaning thatitiscaused byaninteraction between aneverchanging envi-
ronment andachanging body andbrain. Evolutionary theory isoneofthefewrecent 
theories ofpersonality thatattempts onceagain toexplain thegrand viewofhuman 
personality—its ultimate origins aswellasitsoverall function andstructure. “Evolution -
arymeta-theory, properly conceived, provides forpersonality psychology thegrand 
framework itseeks, andwhich hasbeenmissing almost entirely fromitscoreformula -
tions” (Buss, 1991, p.486).
Asyouhaveseenthroughout thisbook, personality isprimarily concerned with
howindividuals differ consistently inwhat motivates them andhowtheyactandFinal PDF to printer