Gaining Control - How human behavior evolved (Hardcover)

'Gaining control' tells the story of how human behavioral capacities evolved from those of other animal species. Exploring what is known about the psychological capacities of other groups of animals, the authors reconstruct a fascinating history of our own mental evolution. In the book, the authors see mental evolution as a series of steps in which new mechanisms for controlling behavior develop in different species - starting with early representatives of this kingdom, and leading to a species - us - that can engage in a large number of different types of behavioral control. Key to their argument is the idea that each of these steps - from reflexes to instincts, drives, emotions, and cognitive planning - can be seen as a novel type of psychological adaptation in which information is 'inherited' by an animal from its own behavior through new forms of learning - a form of major evolutionary transition. Thus the mechanisms that result from these steps in increasingly complex behavioral control can also be seen as the fundamental building blocks of psychology. Such a perspective on behaviour has a number of implications for practitioners in fields ranging from experimental psychology to public health. Short, provocative, and insightful, this book will be of great interest and use to evolutionary psychologists and biologists, anthropologists and the scientific community as a whole.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	March 2015
Authors:	Robert Aunger (Senior Lecturer) • Valerie Curtis
Dimensions:	240 x 163 x 16mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	176
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-968895-1
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Experimental psychology Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Epistemology, theory of knowledge Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Life sciences: general issues > Evolution Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Zoology & animal sciences > Animal behaviour Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Epistemology, theory of knowledge Promotions
LSN:	0-19-968895-8
Barcode:	9780199688951

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