So, as a Psychology major, it may be harder to immediately directly link the ideas of human evolution and human variability to broader themes of psychology in general, but I can think of a few. One way is in a social sort of way. In social psychology, different ideas and theories are presented in ways which people over time and currently tend to act in different situations, and to figure out why humans interact the way they do, why we have certain standards, stereotypes, and why people may or may not have a better chance at succeeding in life based on their socioeconomic status. Theories and ideas like this have obviously never been a one explanation sort of thing and reasons human behave now are certainly not the reasons why humans and similar species may have behaved thousands of years ago. The many ideas and theories studied in social psychology of why people growing up in different conditions in life and how it affects their success, personality, crime rates, dating habits, etc., are all related and come back to the variability within the human species. If there was no variability among humans, there would be no reason to study these different theories in social psychology; it simply wouldn’t exist without the mere idea of human variability.

Simply thinking about the prompt and thinking about what I read this week in lectures and the various articles and links helped me realize what kind of connection evolution and human variability have to psychology. One of the things we learn about in the very beginning of social psychology is natural selection, and the idea of humans using it in a way to select partners and life mates to have children with, and why certain genes tend to get passed on more than others. It is really based on these ideas that are being discussed this week in this class.

One of my favorite theories ever discussed in social psychology was the Terror Management Theory. It is based in the idea that all humans are very aware of their forthcoming existentialism, regardless of the fact that they want to live. We are unique in the way that we can remove ourselves from concrete existence mentally. It is said we are the only species that actively seeks out ways to prolong our lives, both physically and in a symbolic way. The idea of this theory is based on evolution. Humans have somehow evolved and progressed so much that there is a way to think this abstractly; humans are unique in this way. Being able to conceptualize and research and study how humans can think in this way is all based on our knowledge of evolution and the ways in which we know and can study it.

Other ways in which psychology can be related to human evolution and variation is through the way biology and genetics is studied with twins, finding ways in why there is variation among individuals regarding certain mental illnesses, eating disorders and many things among that realm. For example, I am working as a research assistant for a lab on MSU’s campus that is using twins to study androgens and genetics in twins and if there a link with them in adolescent girls and boys and eating disorders. This study is based in finding the reason why this kind of variability exists among humans.