Mace, Ruth;
(2024)
8. Why Do We Do What We Do?
In:
Human Evolutionary Demography.
(pp. 197-210).
Open Book Publishers
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Abstract
Here I describe the reasoning behind dividing explanations for the evolution of behaviour into four different levels of explanation, two relating to proximate explanations relating to mechanism and development, and two ultimate explanations relating to evolutionary history and function. I outline the basic methods we can use to attempt to test functional hypotheses about the evolution of behaviour. I note that in natural populations, we often find ourselves studying proximate mechanisms even if our central interest is evolutionary function. I conclude that a distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations for behaviour can be a useful heuristic tool in many situations, even if in some real world studies of human behaviour, this distinction is sometimes blurred.
| Type: | Book chapter |
|---|---|
| Title: | 8. Why Do We Do What We Do? |
| ISBN-13: | 9781800641709 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.11647/obp.0251.08 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/obp.0251.08 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Oskar Burger, Ron Lee and Rebecca Sear (eds), Human Evolutionary Demography. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2024, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0251 |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10196738 |
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