Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle dwellers pass a test that tricks Harvard philosophers? And why do billionaires work so hard-only to give their hard-earned money away? When it comes to making decisions, the classic view is that humans are eminently rational. But growing evidence suggests instead that our choices are often irrational, biased, and occasionally even moronic. Which view is...

Journalist, novelist, music critic, pianist, sportsman - it has taken Fraser Beath McEwing the experience of a lifetime to answer this question: What is it that directs all living creatures to behave the way they do? He calls it Mind Architecture, and it adds another chapter in the ongoing quest to understand evolution. Where did this information come from? That's a story in itself, something that is innate in all of us, yet not widely understood...

In this book, a Harvard evolutionary psychologist explains how our once-helpful instincts get hijacked in our garish modern world. Our instincts--for food, sex, or territorial protection--evolved for life on the savannahs 10,000 years ago, not in today's world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects, from candy to pornography to atomic weapons--that gratify these...

The story of a quest to uncover the evolutionary history of consciousness from one of the world's leading theoretical psychologists. We feel, therefore we are. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. They are crucial to our idea of ourselves as psychic beings: present, existent, and mattering. But is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Weaving together intellectual adventure and cutting-edge science, Nicholas...

Virtually all theories of how humans have become such a distinctive species focus on evolution. Here, Michael Tomasello proposes a complementary theory of human uniqueness, focused on ontogenetic processes. His data-driven model explains how those things that make us most human are constructed during the first years of a child's life. Tomasello assembles nearly three decades of experimental work with chimpanzees, bonobos, and human children to propose...

First published in 1871, "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin. In this volume, Darwin attempts to marry the theories of human evolution with evolutionary theory, exploring evolutionary ethics, evolutionary psychology, differences between sexes, differences between human races, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society. Contents include: "Principles Of Sexual Selection",...

Es difícil concebir una imagen de la psicología contemporánea sin incluir en un lugar relevante la personalidad y obra de Jean Piaget. Su aporte en el terreno de la psicología evolutiva es de capital importancia, no solo en el propio campo de su especialidad, sino también en el de la educación. En este sentido, la obra de Piaget ha abierto insospechables caminos a la psicología infantil moderna. Consciente de todo esto, Rafael E. Lopez-Corvo,...