This is an introduction to this special issue on evolutionary psychology (EP) and evolutionary
developmental psychology (EDP). We suggest here that, contrary to some common assumptions,
mainstream psychology continues to be essentially non Darwinian and that EP and EDP are new
approaches that can potentially help us to change this situation. We then present the organization of the
special issue (composed of six papers). We conclude that evolution is certainly not the final
consideration in psychology, but emphasize its importance as the basis upon which all modern
behaviors and development are builtÉsta es una introducción al número monográfico sobre psicología
evolucionista (PE) y psicología evolucionista del desarrollo (PED). Aquí se sugiere que, contrariamente
a lo que a veces se asume, la psicología contemporánea continúa siendo esencialmente no
Darwinista, y que nuevos enfoques como la PE y la PED pueden ayudarnos potencialmente a cambiar
esta situación. A continuación se presenta la organización del monográfico (compuesto por 6 artículos).
Se concluye que la evolución no es ciertamente el único elemento que necesita ser considerado
en psicología, pero se destaca su importancia como base sobre la que cualquier comportamiento moderno
y su desarrollo se construyen

Causey, Kayla

Hernández Blasi, Carlos

Repositori Institucional de la Universitat Jaume I

Year 2009 was named the «Darwin year», as all over the world itwas celebrated that naturalist Charles Darwin was born 200 years agoand that 150 years ago he published his masterpiece, The Origin ofSpecies. Darwin’s impact on contemporary conceptions of humans, aswell as in the advance of modern natural and human sciences can notbe overstated. This has not been different for psychology, whosefoundation and growth has been often associated with the relevance ofDarwinian ideas, as expressed, for example, by its early concern withhuman individual differences (as seen, for instance, in psychometricapproaches to intelligence and personality), its bias towardsdevelopmental views of behavior (as seen in the origins of modernchild psychology, as well as some pioneering psychological theorieslike psychoanalyses), and its greater conscientiousness regardingcomparative and functionalist perspectives (see e.g., Boring, 1950;Delval, 1982; Dixon & Lerner, 1992; Kessen, 1965; Schultz, 1981).However, after more than a century since its inception, anincreasing number of colleagues feel that the Darwinian-hype hasbeen «much ado about nothing»; that the real impact of Darwin’sthinking on our discipline has been surely lesser than expectedand, sometimes emphatically, claimed. According to someauthors, Darwin has not been taken seriously in psychology (e.g.,Hawley, 2008), and even in some areas, like developmentalpsychology, the expression «Darwinian myth» (Morss, 1990) hasbeen applied to describe his rather scarce influence (see alsoCharlesworth, 1992). Perhaps this is no surprise: behaviorismand cognitive psychology, the dominant paradigms of 20thcentury psychology, were, epistemologically speaking, explicitlynon-biological (although not anti-biological) in that theirestablished levels of analyses (observable behavior and internalmental processes, respectively) did not require any specialattention to biological issues (Hernández Blasi, 2000). Moreover,fields like ethology and primatology, based intrinsically inDarwinian and biological perspectives, have proven to be lessinfluential on psychology than initially expected (Hernández,Bering, & Bjorklund, 2003). As such, it is no wonder thatevolutionary perspectives have faced difficulty gaining credencein a field that, in practice, has not seriously incorporated biology.Evolutionary psychology and evolutionary developmental psychology:Understanding the evolution of human behavior and developmentCarlos Hernández Blasi and Kayla Causey*Universitat Jaume I and * Florida Atlantic UniversityThis is an introduction to this special issue on evolutionary psychology (EP) and evolutionarydevelopmental psychology (EDP). We suggest here that, contrary to some common assumptions,mainstream psychology continues to be essentially non Darwinian and that EP and EDP are newapproaches that can potentially help us to change this situation. We then present the organization of thespecial issue (composed of six papers). We conclude that evolution is certainly not the finalconsideration in psychology, but emphasize its importance as the basis upon which all modernbehaviors and development are built.Psicología evolucionista y psicología evolucionista del desarrollo: comprendiendo la evolución delcomportamiento humano y su desarrollo. Ésta es una introducción al número monográfico sobre psi-cología evolucionista (PE) y psicología evolucionista del desarrollo (PED). Aquí se sugiere que, con-trariamente a lo que a veces se asume, la psicología contemporánea continúa siendo esencialmente noDarwinista, y que nuevos enfoques como la PE y la PED pueden ayudarnos potencialmente a cambiaresta situación. A continuación se presenta la organización del monográfico (compuesto por 6 artícu-los). Se concluye que la evolución no es ciertamente el único elemento que necesita ser consideradoen psicología, pero se destaca su importancia como base sobre la que cualquier comportamiento mo-derno y su desarrollo se construyen.Fecha recepción: 9-11-09 • Fecha aceptación: 9-11-09Correspondencia: Carlos Hernández BlasiDepartamento de PsicologíaUniversitat Jaume I12071 Castellón (Spain)E-mail: blasi@psi.uji.esEVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGYPsicothema 2010. Vol. 22, nº 1, pp. 1-3 ISSN 0214 - 9915 CODEN PSOTEGwww.psicothema.com Copyright © 2010 PsicothemaThus, it would not be a surprise either that some criticalcolleagues in the social and behavioral sciences might see 2009not as a celebration of Darwin’s impact in all sciences, butperhaps a celebration of Darwin’s impact on all other sciences:The «Darwin year» might have indicated to many that for morethan a century, mainstream psychology continues to be, inessence, a non-Darwinian one.It was partially due to a recognition of Darwin’s absence in thesocial sciences that a new perspective was born over the lastdecade of the 20th century, called Evolutionary Psychology (EP).As hybrid between cognitive science and evolutionary biology, themain purpose of EP is to apply the knowledge and principles ofevolutionary biology to develop research that leads to a betterunderstanding of the structure of human mind (Cosmides &Tooby, 1997; Buss, 2008). Following the birth of EP (and alsosome previous pioneering trials; see e.g., Hernández Blasi &Bjorklund, 2003), Evolutionary Developmental Psychology (EDP)emerged with emphases on the need for a better evolutionaryexplanation of human development and the relationships betweenhuman phylogeny and ontogeny (see e.g., Bjorklund & Pellegrini,2002; Geary & Bjorklund, 2000).These two complementary perspectives share a number of traitsthat make them potentially very interesting for contemporarypsychology: 1) they both set human behavior and its developmentat the center of evolutionary analyses and research, fostering amultidisciplinary study of the evolution of human behavior anddevelopment; 2) neither pretends to be an alternative theory, modelor discipline competing with other psychological theories, models,or disciplines, but rather aims to provide an overarchingtheoretical framework for a unified, evolutionarily-basedpsychology such that eventually there is no need to distinguishbetween Psychology and EP, and Developmental Psychology andEDP because they are one in the same (Buss, 2008; Geary, 2006;Tooby & Cosmides, 1992); and 3) both perspectives move beyondcomparative and anthropological research, to generate researchprograms based on the study of contemporary adults and children.The present is often the best indicator of the past, and, as such, theevolutionary mechanisms shaped by natural selection(adaptations) are active in contemporary humans, and, therefore,available for study. Only time yet will tell whether theseexpectations on EP and EDP are to be realized (or not), as, inscience, any theory, model or approach is solely as worthy as itsfindings.While EP and EDP differ also on some issues (for example,with respect to the adoption of various explanatory models and theemphasis on developmental processes in shaping humanevolution), we do not focus on these differences here (seeHernández Blasi, Gardiner, & Bjorklund, 2008, for a moredetailed analyses). In fact, this special issue aims to present aglimpse of these perspectives and their contributions to generalpsychology and developmental psychology. In this way, readerscan evaluate for themselves the relevancy of these perspectives totheir own work.The first three papers of this special issue focus on theevolutionary psychology perspective (namely, on the evolution ofdecision making, by Andreas Wilke and Peter Todd; the evolutionof mating, by Emily Miner and Todd Shackelford; and theevolution of violence, by Aaron Goetz). The final three papersfocus rather on an evolutionary developmental psychologyapproach (namely, on an introduction to this perspective andresearch, by Ashley King and David Bjorklund; the role ofchildhood experience in shaping reproductive strategies, by JayBelsky; and evolutionary approaches to education, by DavidGeary). We sought to incorporate complementary papers withineach perspective. Thus, the first papers of each section (for EP,Wilke & Todd; for EDP, King & Bjorklund) are a bit moretheoretical and cognitively oriented; the second papers (Miner &Shackelford; Belsky) focus on socioemotional issues; and the thirdpapers of each section provide insight on some socially relevant orpractical issues (Goetz’s paper on violence, in the case of EP, andGeary’s paper on education, in the case of EDP). In this manner,we hope to provide readers with not only a general view of bothperspectives, but also an understanding of how these perspectivescomplement each other. In this way, they might more easilyrealize, for instance, that Belsky’s paper exemplifies what anevolutionary developmental perspective can add to the field ofmating research, as described previously in Miner & Shackelford’spaper.It is worth noting, however, that the scope of EP and EDP iswider and richer than the issues and topics approached here (thisis particularly the case for the EP papers, where we have chosen topresent more «classical» and widely known topics, like mating andviolence). A more detailed and precise description regarding bothviews can be found in other sources (e.g., Buss, 2005; 2008;Causey, 2008; Ellis & Bjorkund, 2005).We hope that this special issue appeals to Psicothema readers,and that, in conjunction with the two special issues alreadypublished in Spain on EDP in the last few years (Bjorklund &Hernández Blasi, 2003; Hernández Blasi & Bjorklund, 2008),contributes to an increased interest in the evolution of humanbehavior and its development among Spanish researchers andprofessionals. We are certainly aware that evolutionary pressurescan not solely explain all human behavior but rather constitute apiece in the complex puzzle of any psychological account, thatmust fit jointly with many others (like culture, education andcontemporary environments). We do argue, however, that humans’evolved history is critical to the psychological sciences, as itserves as the foundation upon which all modern behavior anddevelopment is built.AcknowledgementsPart of the edition of this special issue, as well as the writing ofits introduction, were made while the first author was supported bya grant from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PSI2009-13724 (subprograma PSIC). We would like to also dedicate thisspecial issue to the memory of Spanish naturalist, ethologist andprimatologist, Prof. Jordi Sabater Pi (1922-2009), who so greatlycontributed to the study of the evolutionary roots of behavior, aswell as its teaching.CARLOS HERNÁNDEZ BLASI AND KAYLA CAUSEY2EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: UNDERSTANDING THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT 3ReferencesBjorklund, D.F., & Hernández Blasi, C. (Eds.) (2003). Evolutionary Deve-lopmental Psychology. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 26, 260-349.Bjorklund, D.F., & Pellegrini, A.D. (2002). The origins of human nature:Evolutionary developmental psychology. Washington, DC: AmericanPsychological Association.Boring, H. (1950). A history of experimental psychology. New York: Ap-pleton-Century-Crofts.Buss, D.M. (2008). Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind(3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.Buss, D.M. (Ed.) (2005). The handbook of evolutionary psychology. Hobo-ken, NJ: Wiley.Causey, K. (2008). Selected readings and resources for a thorough under-standing of the evolutionary developmental psychology perspective.Anuario de Psicología, 39(2), 225-230.Charlesworth, W.R. (1992). Darwin and developmental psychology: Pastand present. Developmental Psychology, 28(1), 5-16.Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1997). Evolutionary Psychology: A primer [on-line]. Santa Barbara, CA: Center for Evolutionary Psychology at theUniversity of California. Retrieved from http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/re-search/cep/primer.html.Delval, J. (1982). El darwinismo y el estudio de la conducta humana (Dar-winism and the study of human behavior). Revista de Occidente (nº ex-traordinario dedicado a Charles Darwin), 201-218.Dixon, R.A., & Lerner, R.M. (1992). A history of systems in developmen-tal psychology. In M.H. Bornstein & M.E. Lamb (Eds.): Developmen-tal psychology: An advanced textbook (pp. 3-58). Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Ellis, B.J., & Bjorklund, D.F. (Eds.) (2005). Origins of the social mind:Evolutionary psychology and child development. New York: GuilfordPress.Geary, D.C. (2006). Evolutionary developmental psychology: Current sta-tus and future directions. Developmental Review, 26, 113-119.Geary, D.C., & Bjorklund, D.F. (2000). Evolutionary developmental psy-chology. Child Development, 71, 57-65.Hawley, P.H. (2008). Competition and social and personality development:Some consequences of taking Darwin seriously. Anuario de Psicología,39(2), 193-208.Hernández Blasi, C., & Bjorklund, D.F. (Eds.) (2008). Evolutionary Deve-lopmental Psychology: Re-searching the roots of development. Anua-rio de Psicología, 39(2), 173-230.Hernández Blasi, C. (2000). Dossier documental: Neurociencia cognitivaevolutiva: Mentes, cerebros y desarrollo (Documental dossier: Cogniti-ve development neuroscience: Minds, brains and development). Infan-cia y Aprendizaje, 91, 111-127.Hernández Blasi, C., & Bjorklund, D.F. (2003). Evolutionary Develop-mental Psychology: A new tool for better understanding human on-togeny. Human Development, 46, 259-281.Hernández Blasi, C., Bering, J.M., & Bjorklund, D.F. (2003). PsicologíaEvolucionista del Desarrollo: contemplando la ontogénesis humanadesde los ojos del evolucionismo (Evolutionary Developmental Psy-chology: Viewing human ontogeny through the eyes of evolutionarytheory). Infancia y Aprendizaje, 26(3), 267-285.Hernández Blasi, C., Gardiner, A.K., & Bjorklund, D.F. (2008). When de-velopment matters: From evolutionary psychology to evolutionary de-velopmental psychology. Anuario de Psicología, 39(2), 177-191.Kessen, W. (1965). The child. New York: Wiley.Morss, J.R. (1990). The biologising of childhood: Developmental psychologyand the Darwinian myth. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Schultz, D. (1981). A history of modern psychology (3rd ed.). San Diego,CA: Academic Press.Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of cul-ture. In J.H. Barkow, L. Cosmides & J. Tooby (Eds.): The adaptedmind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 19-139). New York: Oxford University Press.

Psicología evolucionista y psicología evolucionista del desarrollo: comprendiendo la evolución del comportamiento humano y su desarrollo.

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Psicología evolucionista y psicología evolucionista del desarrollo: comprendiendo la evolución del comportamiento humano y su desarrollo.

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