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I did a lot this Memorial Day weekend. One of the best things I did was go to a party with the people I work with in my lab. It was fun and interesting. But more importantly, I ran into a perfect example of evolutionary psychology…

Evolutionary psychology is branch of psychology that attempts to explain behaviors and psychological traits as adaptations that have been selected over millions of years of human evolution. It has valid criticisms, but is becoming more and more accepted in the scientific community and is an extremely useful tool for explaining people’s subconscious motivations for their actions. In other words, evolutionary psychology provides explanations not for why people do what they do, but why they want to do what they do. Anyway back to the lab party…

When I first got there, the host was graciously offering everyone drinks. After jokingly requesting (and subsequently being denied) a beer, I said I was fine and not thirsty. And I legitimately wasn’t thirsty. However, the host then asked me two more times if I wanted to have something to drink, and I eventually accepted. This persistence didn’t bother me, but I began to wonder: Why did he keep asking? And then I remembered something I read a long time ago…

Evolutionary psychology has the perfect explanation for this phenomenon. When people share food and drink, it is a form of social bonding. It works in the following manner: When people eat a large meal together, their body functions slow down as they digest the food. Consequently, this makes them less alert. Anyone who is at a social gathering, and not eating and drinking while others are, is thus subconsciously seen as wishing to remain tense and on-guard, and thus they are perceived as suspicious. Source: The Origins of Virtue Matt Ridley

As a direct result of this, evolutionary psychology suggests that hosts will want to “make their guests comfortable” by making sure they consume food and drink. And consciously, this is a very kind and polite motive. However, this pleasant conscious motive, evolutionary psychology says, only really exists because the human mind has been molded by millions of years of natural selection for the more strategic reasons above… Thoughts?

Source: http://www.bestbalidriver.com/pics/monkey_food.jpg

Brad Rybinski