Copyright
Ruth MacePublished On
2024-06-14Page Range
pp. 197–210Language
- English
Print Length
14 pages
8. Why Do We Do What We Do?
Analysing the Evolutionary Function of Reproductive Behaviour
Chapter of: Human Evolutionary Demography(pp. 197–210)
Here I describe the reasoning behind dividing explanations for the evolution of behaviour into four different levels of explanation, two relating to proximate explanations relating to mechanism and development, and two ultimate explanations relating to evolutionary history and function. I outline the basic methods we can use to attempt to test functional hypotheses about the evolution of behaviour. I note that in natural populations, we often find ourselves studying proximate mechanisms even if our central interest is evolutionary function. I conclude that a distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations for behaviour can be a useful heuristic tool in many situations, even if in some real world studies of human behaviour, this distinction is sometimes blurred.
Contributors
Ruth Mace
(author)Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at University College London
Ruth Mace studies human behavioural ecology and cultural evolution. Her PhD was in animal behavioural ecology at the Dept of Zoology at Oxford University and she then moved to London to study human behaviour. She is now Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology in the Dept of Anthropology at UCL, where she has supervised over 25 PhD students. She has worked on human reproductive decisions, the evolution of menopause, cooperation, matrilineal and other kinship systems and cultural phylogenetics. She is founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences.