My Personal Psychology Perspective

I am not a psychologist but this is what I believe.

Although much has changed over the seven thousand years on Earth, one thing has re-mained constant: the fundamental characteristics of human beings. Surviving and reproducing have always been the two mantras but what drives those? The answer is the human brain. Throughout the course of humanity, our body and brain have evolved to provide the best chances for us to survive and reproduce. Working on this, numerous parts of other perspectives, such as the socio-cultural, behavior genetics, neuroscience, and behavioral views, are used to explain elements of the evolutionary perspective that are too complex to explain simplify by that pers-pective.

From the first creation of life to the day we die, we are influenced by outside forces. How so? From the first cell, our ancestors have always been alive before we were actually “alive,” regardless whether our ancestors reproduced through replication, egg, or live birth. Because of this, our DNA has been, and if we have children will continue to be, our link to life. As for conception (the most influential part of our life before we are born), as soon as the egg and sperm combine in the traditional way, we are subjected to our mother’s womb. In addition, we also experience her teratogens and can be born affected by life without having firsthand experienced it.

In addition to being controlled by outside forces, we are also controlled by another force: our brain chemicals. Various hormones regulate how our body works on a macro scale while neurotransmitters and action potentials affect our body on a micro scale, our neurons. These chemicals were all formed as a result of evolution and are thus a byproduct of it. In addition, drugs can mimic these chemicals and thus change our body chemistry. As for the brain itself, we have evolved our brains to be the most complex of any species. To do this, the brain had to be-come quite large and incorporate large amounts of information. More important brain functions were located deeper in the brain for more protection. Lateralization was evolved to prevent us from being completely incapacitated from an attack.

After we are born, we experience our second real stage of our life. We have several ref-lexes that undoubtedly exist as precursors to an earlier kind of life where these reflexes were highly valued. For instance, the stepping reflex shows how we are meant to be bipedal, the grasping reflex allows us to quickly hold on to something such as our mother’s hair if we were to have fallen from her grasp, and the rooting reflex enables us to find our mother’s breast for much needed breast milk. Our dependency on our family for physical support is reciprocated by our parents to us because we are continuing their DNA. Thus, attachment occurs, causing the family to become the closest social group to us. Over the years, the baby grows up physically and men-tally, allowing for us to gradually become more acquainted with our surroundings. The various stages we go through, as described by Piaget, can be attributed by evolutionary factors. For in-stance, the sensorimotor stage most likely comes first because it is we must first learn what ob-jects hurt us or help us. Perhaps purposefully, we experience the formal operations stage around the same time we start puberty, suggesting that now that we are to reproduce, we must make more rational decisions.

Our sense of perception can also be explained through the evolutionary perspective. Our ability to understand five senses has allowed us to decipher the main characteristics of our sur-roundings. The crossing over of optic nerves serves to protect us from losing half of our visual understanding if there is an accident. Generally, food that is important to our survival tastes and smells good, causing us to develop a liking for those kinds of food. Also, we are attracted to more beautiful people because they have the characteristics of a healthy mate or person. Our ability to understand perceptual constancies can be attributed by our need to simplify processes so as not to overload the brain. Schemas and concepts are also designed to overload the mind.

Our consciousness has also evolved to fit our surroundings. Our 24.2-hour circadian rhythm almost matches with the 24-hour day. Yawning may have evolved as a result of others communicating it is a time to rest. Sleep has also evolved. Sleep mostly came about as a way to pass the time when we could not see anything. During sleep, we have also evolved to think about the day’s problems. In addition, it is also utilized to restore and rejuvenate our bodies. Dreams have also evolved into ways that we can benefit; we often are able to remember better.
Our learning through behavior is another, albeit skewed, example of how the evolutionary perspective is valid. Naturally, our brain wants to maximize our rewards and minimize our punishments. Thus, the behaviorists’ creed, whether classical or operant conditioning, can be stated to have evolved from humans’ desire to have better chances at survival (i.e. the howl of wolves to signal wolves or picking numerous berries to survive). Observational learning also demonstrates this fact; if we see someone rewarded or punished, we try to repeat his or her ac-tions or avoid them, respectively.

Other mental processes have clear ties to other evolution. Memory developed as a way to remember if certain actions were beneficial or hurt us. Similarly, intelligence was evolved so we could figure out situations that we had not experienced before. Flashbulb memories are more im-portant to us because they represent poignant emotional visions, which are for the most part more important than other memories. Forgetting pushes out unnecessary memories and allows us to receive other memories. Heuristics were evolved to allow us to make sense out of unfamiliar ob-jects. Motivations often manifest themselves in a way that contributes to our survival and repro-duction, even sometimes promoting too much.

Lastly, our social environment, the factor that causes evolution, plays an immense role in our lives. We are motivated to conform to other people via social proof, which can be explained by our need to be accepted by other people as a way of survival and reproduction. The role of reciprocation can be explained as the reasoning behind altruism, that if we help others in whatev-er they will return the favor. Prejudice is just another form of group favoring. Just as humans support our own species more than any other species due to a share gene pool so do people of a certain race advocate their own ethnicity. Obedience allows us to relax and use a more powerful person’s orders that are more likely to be successful and take the blame if necessary.

Although the evolutionary perspective may be viewed as too broad to dictate the majority of human behaviors and mental processes, it can be viable if you relate it to other perspectives. Because of this, the evolutionary perspective can be expanded to cover almost all of human be-havior.