The virtues of evolutionary psychology for studying human vices

Peter K. Jonason, David P. Schmitt

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    1 Citation (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The target article author (MDG) rightly points to an area of psychology in desperate need of a reformulation along the lines of an evolutionary/functional analysis. For too long, the study of psychopathology, in all its forms, has suffered from a lack of parsimony and coherence. Indeed, to us - as outspoken proponents of the utility of evolutionary psychology - the major strengths or virtues of the adaptationist paradigm are that it provides a set of a priori assumptions concerning the most important questions to ask about mental health and illness (i.e., questions about adaptive mechanisms, ultimate functions, and ancestral-modern environmental mismatches; Buss, 2000; Nesse & Williams, 1994; Wakefield, 1992), provides the most appropriate methods for evaluating functional hypotheses (see Schmitt & Pilcher, 2004), and allows for a proverbial trimming of the various esoteric topics that undermine the scientific study of mental health and individual differences (Confer et al., 2009). MDG does a tremendous job at pulling together work from various subdisciplines of psychology to make his case that researchers can use life history theory to better understand the nature of psychopathology. In this commentary, we expound upon topics with which we agree with MDG, points where we think he did not go far enough, and discuss how the Dark Triad (i.e., psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) have been fruitfully studied from a life history perspective.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)341-345
    Number of pages5
    JournalPsychological Inquiry
    Volume25
    Issue number45385
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2014

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