Evolutionary Theory Meets Cognitive Psychology: A More Selective Perspective

L. Cosmides and J. Tooby, leaders in the field of evolutionary psychology, have claimed that an evolutionary perspective toward psychology requires both that psychologists conceive of psychological processes as domain specific and that psychologists view all adaptive behavior as the product of cognition. In fact, we argue, an evolutionary perspective commits psychology to neither of these positions. The real value of evolutionary theory for psychology, we contend, lies in the heuristic role it plays in determining the function of psychological mechanisms and in the depth it contributes to explanations of why psychological processes have the properties they do. Quite unexpectedly, cognitive psychologists find their field intimately connected to a whole new intellectual landscape that had previously seemed remote, unfamiliar, and all but irrelevant. Yet the proliferating connections tying together the cognitive and evolutionary communities promise to transform both fields, with each supplying necessary principles, methods, and a species of rigor that the other lacks. (Cosmides and Tooby, 1994, p. 85) Recent years have seen a growing movement to wed evolutionary theory to cognitive psychology, and among the matchmakers pushing for this marriage Cosmides and Tooby have been especially outspoken. We too think the match will be a fruitful one, but we disagree with C&T that the resulting union is likely to transform cognitive psychology in any drastic way. C&T, as well as other workers in what is sometimes called evolutionary psychology, are inclined to describe a Darwinized cognitive psychology as a radical departure from traditional cognitive psychology. In particular, C&T believe that an introduction of evolutionary thinking into cognitive psychology will We thank Nick Chater, Chuck Kalish, Eric Saidel, Elliott Sober and Denis Walsh for useful comments and helpful discussion. Address for correspondence: Lawrence Shapiro, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706– 1475, USA. Email: shapiroKfacstaff.wisc.edu.