PSY285 Psychology: Discuss the Rroles of Evolutionary, Sociocultural, and other Contextual Factors: Social Bases of Behavior Essay, MU, Singapore

Discuss the roles of evolutionary, sociocultural, and other contextual factors in determining human mate preferences.

Your essay needs to provide an answer to the question by applying social psychology principles, theories, and axioms, as well as relevant research.

Hint 1

Sociocultural factors are contextual factors. So, one mistake that I want to steer you away from is seeing 3 separate categories: 1) evolutionary, 2) sociocultural, and 3) other contextual factors. The accurate categorization here would be: 1) contextual factors – including features of our social and cultural context (i.e., sociocultural), and 2) evolutionary factors.

Hint 2

When we ask questions about the influence of contextual factors on mate preferences, we’re asking “What aspects of the environment is the mind sensitive to?” and “How does the mind respond to these aspects of the environment?”

So, when we are asking about contextual influences, we are asking about what and how – we are not yet asking why.

Hint 3

When we ask questions about the influence of evolutionary factors on mate preferences, we’re asking “Why is the mind sensitive to those aspects of the environment?” and “Why does the mind respond to those aspects of the environment in the way that it does?”

Hint 4

As you can see by the content of the evolutionary questions, evolutionary explanations are not alternative explanations to contextual (including sociocultural) effects. Rather, evolutionary explanations seek to more deeply understand why sociocultural and other contextual effects exist in the way that they do.

Let’s use the effect of proximity on attraction – an effect that you’re now familiar with – to walk through the concepts in the hints.

As you know, there’s some evidence indicating that increased proximity between people results in things like increased attraction and liking between them. That finding suggests that

1) one aspect of the environment that the mind is sensitive to is how physically close we are to someone as well as how frequently we interact with them (i.e., the “mere exposure effect”). It also tells us that the mind

2) responds to that information from our social environment by increasing our attraction to or liking for that person. (Note that the mind could, in theory, respond to proximity by a) neither decreasing nor increasing liking, or b) decreasing attraction and liking! When we take these alternatives into consideration, we realize that the link between proximity and attraction really is an interesting one and – crucially – is one that the mind is doing. This leaves us at the point where we can ask: Why does the mind increase liking in response to proximity (instead of not doing anything and instead of decreasing liking)?

At this point, we can start thinking evolutionarily. Well, in ancestral conditions, frequency of contact would certainly have been a clue to the other individual being a member of your own tribe – which would have meant shared language, cultural values, and many other common understandings. On the other hand, if you were distant from someone, that would have meant that they might have been a member of a different tribe, and it would have been difficult to coordinate efforts with them, whether in terms of courtship or mutually agreed on rearing off offspring.

I could elaborate the many reasons why we would expect the human mind to have evolved to be sensitive to proximity and to increase affiliation in response to it, but my point here is to illustrate this: for any effect on liking, there are complementary what (contextual), how (contextual), and why (evolutionary) explanations. Only together do the what, how, and why come together to offer us the more comprehensive understanding of the human mind that we are seeking in this unit, in your degree, and in our careers (mine, too!) J

Hint 5

Proximity is just one contextual effect – and for any contextual effect, we can investigate the what, how, and why. So, as you write your essay, I would strongly encourage you to pick an effect (or 2 or 3 – maximum) and to carefully walk your reader through the contextual evidence describing the what and how and then the evolutionary arguments explaining the why.

I love this topic, but I should stop here – otherwise, I’ll be writing your essay for you! But before I sign off, I’m going to link you to a bunch of different articles that identify contextual effects that all could be really useful to use as you write your essay: