Folk Knowledge and Academic Learning

The field of evolutionary psychology is growing in prominence and influence despite the reluctance of many social scientists to apply evolutionary principles to understanding human behavior (Segerstrale, 2000). Included among the phenomena that are now studied from this perspective are developmental activities and processes, and with this, the emergence of the subfield of evolutionary--developmental psychology (Bjorklund, 1997; Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002; Freedman, 1974; Geary & Bjorklund, 2000). One focus of theory and research in this subfield is on the relation between children’s evolved cognitive and motivational biases and the demands of academic learning (Geary, 1995, 2001, 2002a; Rozin, 1976). In this chapter, I present an overview of a framework I am developing to understand the relation between evolved abilities and the non evolved academic competencies that are built through instructional practices. The former are called biologically primary abilities, and the latter, biologically secondary abilities. In the first section, I present a taxonomy of primary cognitive domains (see also Geary, 2005; Geary & Huffman, 2002), and in the second, I discuss some of the ways in which these evolved cognitive and associated motivational and developmental systems may be related to academic learning and the construction of secondary abilities.