Evolutionary personality psychology: Reconciling human nature and individual differences

Personality, from an evolutionary perspective, represents a meta-category of the output of a suite of species-typical, relatively domain-specific, evolved psychological mechanisms designed in response to the social adaptive problems recurrently faced by our ancestors. This conceptualization of human personality provides for novel and valuable reinterpretations of several areas of personality psychology including personality consistency, individual differences in personality, sex differences and similarities, and contextual determinants of personality. Explaining human personality from an evolutionary perspective has led to discoveries about the function of social information conveyed through standings on the BigFive personality dimensions and discoveries in topics such as social anxiety, jealousy, altruism, aggression, psychopathology, mate preferences, and desire for sexual variety. We argue that limitations of the application of evolutionary theory to personality science are surmountable and that, despite these limitations, large strides have been and will continue to be made through a union of personality science and evolutionary science. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.