12 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2023
    1. belief perseverance
      • belief perseverance
      • definition
        • a cognitive bias in which people encountering evidence that runs counter to their beliefs will, instead of reevaluating what they’ve believed up until now, tend to reject the incompatible evidence
    2. Confronting facts that don’t line up with your worldview may trigger a “backfire effect,”
      • Confronting facts that don’t line up with your worldview
      • may trigger a “backfire effect,”

      • Comment

        • in contentious issues, merely presenting facts may more deeply entrench there other's held beliefs
    3. It can feel like an attack on you if one of your strongly held beliefs is challenged.
      • It can feel like an attack on you
      • if one of your strongly held beliefs is challenged.

      • Comment

        • question
          • what causes a strongly held belief?
          • what makes use feel a threat?
          • why does it generate fear in some but not others?
    1. people’s desire for sweet and fatty tasting foods.
      • example
        • people’s desire for sweet and fatty tasting foods
        • In ancestral times,
          • sugar and fat typically signaled positive nutritional value (Ramirez, 1990).
          • Consequently, people’s sensory systems are designed
          • to detect the presence of sugar or fat in food,
          • and the brain’s gustatory centers produce desirable taste sensations
          • when those foods are consumed.
          • This would have served our ancestors well,
          • facilitating the choice of beneficial and nutritious foods.
        • in modern times
          • Many foods found in post-industrialized societies
          • contain processed sugars, hydrogenated oils, and other additives that enhance the taste of the food
          • without adding any nutritional benefits.
          • Foods laden with corn syrup, for example,
          • typically contain high numbers of calories
          • and their regular consumption can result in obesity, diabetes, and other problems.
        • Thus, the mismatch between
        • the features of ancestral versus modern foodstuffs
        • can lead adaptive sensory mechanisms
        • to produce maladaptive physiological consequences.
        • The desire for sweet and fat foods
        • promotes health problems,
        • even when this desire operates in a perfectly normal manner
        • and would produce health benefits
        • in the environment for which it was designed
    2. Some of the challenges people face today, however, diverge quite a bit from those faced by their ancestors. Such divergences can lead adaptive psychological mechanisms to “misfire” – to respond in ways that might have been adaptive in the past, but that no longer produce adaptive consequences today.
      • Some of the challenges people face today,
      • diverge quite a bit from those
      • faced by their ancestors.
      • Such divergences can ,- lead adaptive psychological mechanisms to “misfire”
      • to respond in ways that might have been adaptive in the past,
      • but that no longer produce adaptive consequences today.
    3. Psychological adaptations have been designed over thousands of generations of human evolution. The adaptations humans possess today, then, were designed to operate in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness, a composite of the social and physical challenges as they have existed for hundreds of thousands of years
      • Psychological adaptations have been designed over thousands of generations of human evolution.
      • The adaptations humans possess today, then,
      • were designed to operate in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness,
      • a composite of the social and physical challenges as they have existed for hundreds of thousands of years (Bowlby, 1969; Cosmides & Tooby, 1992).
      • As such, they may or may not be well-adapted
      • for life in contemporary society
    4. we describe a conceptual framework for understanding adaptive sources of dysfunction – for identifying and combating “adaptations gone awry.”
      • we describe a conceptual framework
      • for understanding adaptive sources of dysfunction
      • for identifying and combating “adaptations gone awry.”
    5. Each reflects the operation of psychological mechanisms that were designed through evolution to serve important adaptive functions, but that nevertheless can produce harmful consequences.
      • Each of these 4 problems
        • anxiety disorder
        • domestic violence
        • racial prejudice
        • obesity
      • reflects the operation of psychological mechanisms
      • that were designed through evolution
      • to serve important adaptive functions, - but that nevertheless can produce harmful consequences.
    6. What do anxiety disorders, domestic violence, racial prejudice, and obesity all have in common?
      • question
        • What do
          • anxiety disorders,
          • domestic violence,
          • racial prejudice, and
          • obesity
      • all have in common?
      • answer
        • maladaptive cognitive biases!
    7. mismatches between current environments and ancestral environments
      • cognitive biases may cause dysfunction due to mismatches between:
        • current environments and
        • ancestral environments
    8. from aggression and international conflict to overpopulation and the destruction of the environment, people display a capacity for great selfishness and antisocial behavior. Can an evolutionary perspective – with its inherent focus on the functionality of human behavior – help explain the occasionally self-destructive and maladaptive side of human nature?
      • from aggression and international conflict to overpopulation and the destruction of the environment,
      • people display a capacity for great selfishness and antisocial behavior.
      • Can an evolutionary perspective
      • with its inherent focus on the functionality of human behavior
      • help explain the occasionally self-destructive and maladaptive side of human nature?