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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Finch Effect: Evolutionary Metaphors And Illiberal Democracy In Central And Eastern Europe, Abigail Woodfield Aug 2019

The Finch Effect: Evolutionary Metaphors And Illiberal Democracy In Central And Eastern Europe, Abigail Woodfield

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

In recent years, several states in Central and Eastern Europe have seen democratic digression. Such illiberal resurgences came as a surprise to the many political scientists who assumed that the future of these states was democratic. Indeed, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the world largely regarded liberal democracy as the predominant system of government. The future seemed bright, and it was tempting to understand that future in evolutionary terms—just as humans evolved under natural selection to become the dominant species, democracy had survived a similar competition and defeated all other systems of government to become the dominant regime. …


Integrating Development And Evolution In Psychology: Looking Back, Moving Forward, David S. Moore Dec 2008

Integrating Development And Evolution In Psychology: Looking Back, Moving Forward, David S. Moore

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

This work is the editorial for a special edition of New Ideas in Psychology titled Integrating Development and Evolution in Psychology.


Individuals And Populations: How Biology's Theory And Data Have Interfered With The Integration Of Development And Evolution, David S. Moore Dec 2008

Individuals And Populations: How Biology's Theory And Data Have Interfered With The Integration Of Development And Evolution, David S. Moore

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Research programs in quantitative behavior genetics and evolutionary psychology have contributed to the widespread belief that some psychological characteristics can be “inherited” via genetic mechanisms. In fact, molecular and developmental biologists have concluded that while genetic factors contribute to the development of all of our traits, non-genetic factors always do too, and in ways that make them no less important than genetic factors. This insight demands a reworking of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, a theory that defined evolution as a process involving changes in the frequencies of genes in populations, and that envisioned no role for experiential factors now known …


Trying To Fix The Development In Evolutionary Developmental Psychology, David S. Moore Jul 2003

Trying To Fix The Development In Evolutionary Developmental Psychology, David S. Moore

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

If we agree for a moment that there is such a thing as human nature, we immediately encounter an extraordinarily thorny question: Where does our nature come from? This question drives David Bjorklund and Anthony Pellegrini’s new book The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology. The question is so challenging, in part, because human nature reflects at least two conceptually distinct processes: evolution and development. The former, which operates across generations, allows the continued existence of characteristics that permitted survival and reproduction in our ancestors; the latter, which operates during a person’s lifetime, contributes to the appearance of …