Evolution Of Evolutionary Psychology And Culture - 1151 Words

In his article, Sadd (2012) explains the relationship of evolutionary psychology and culture, particularly regarding popular culture. He argues the theory of evolution is widely applicable in multiple disciplines. While evolution theory is essentially biological in nature, it can also give us insight to our culture, society and human behaviours. According to Sadd, recurrent themes in cultural forms could be explained by evolutionary psychology. He uses example of song lyrics and collective wisdom to demonstrate his point. Sadd discusses the current approaches used to study popular culture and considers the reasons evolutionary psychology is largely being resisted by the academic society studying popular culture. Asides from being used to†¦show more content†¦Evolution should be the study of the interaction of both biology and the environment. Culture is one aspect of our environment. While culture affects humans, humans shape the culture as well. Sadd explains his point of cultural themes being able to be explained by evolutionary psychology by using examples of culture, namely song lyrics and collective wisdom. He does so by examining song lyrics and popular sayings such as proverbs and quotes across different cultures and looking for recurrent themes. He claims that these recurring universal themes are ingrained in our shared human nature and they may be the product of adaptation and exaptation. In his examination of collective wisdom, Sadd focuses on mating-related sayings and mentions other kinds of examples in another work of his. Through his analysis of song lyrics in popular culture, it appears that most songs are about mating preferences within the society. The themes in song lyrics often conform to evolutionary principle and align with universal mating realities. Sadd has observed resistance to evolutionary psychology by many people. Sadd recounted his experience of attending an academic conference in popular culture to support his claim. Most of the frameworks used to study popular culture are antiscientific approaches. Sadd identifies a few reasons for the resistance. There are those that oppose evolutionary psychology for political reasons. Others may reject the idea due to their