4 research outputs found
An adaptationist framework for personality science
The field of personality psychology aspires to construct an overarching theory of human nature and individual differences: one that specifies the psychological mechanisms that underpin both universal and variable aspects of thought, emotion, and behaviour. Here, we argue that the adaptationist toolkit of evolutionary psychology provides a powerful metaâtheory for characterizing the psychological mechanisms that give rise to withinâperson, betweenâperson, and crossâcultural variations. We first outline a mechanismâcentred adaptationist framework for personality science, which makes a clear ontological distinction between (i) psychological mechanisms designed to generate behavioural decisions and (ii) heuristic trait concepts that function to perceive, describe, and influence others behaviour and reputation in everyday life. We illustrate the utility of the adaptationist framework by reporting three empirical studies. Each study supports the hypothesis that the anger programmeâa putative emotional adaptationâis a behaviourâregulating mechanism whose outputs are described in the parlance of the person description factor called âAgreeablenessâ. We conclude that the most productive way forward is to build theoryâbased models of specific psychological mechanisms, including their culturally evolved design features, until they constitute a comprehensive depiction of human nature and its multifaceted variations. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psycholog