Psych 217 Test Questions and Answers Graded A 2024

is what is typical right? - not always naturalistic fallacy - what is natural (evolved) must be moral - this helps us from incorrectly arguing that there is a biological basis to determining our values - we cannot easily create any moral system that we want - Our brains and our culture are rooted in the evolutionary history and character of our species what are our moral institutions influenced by? - our brain and species- a typical social structure what does biology determine? - it determines what CAN be not what MUST be - our species typical brain and social structure provide a lot of building blocks but how these building blocks are put together are very flexible (like a deck of cards) - we should be skeptical about the inevitability of any kind of outcome or generalization (war is inevitable or people are fundamentally selfish) what is human life organized around? - groups - without their group ancestral humans would have perished quickly and we are still completely dependent on our groups for survival what is the key to everything talked about in this class? - the social nature of our species but specificially heritage and current reality of humans as group living primates key features of our brain and how they reflect our evolution - 1. a rich emotion system with fast reactions to events (the roots to our morality) 2. a slower conscious system that interprets and makes sense of our behavior 3. culture as a means of behavioral control 4. cognitive and behavioral flexibility what are thought experiments - something that we will discuss in class five important points from lecture 1 - 1. dont commit the naturalistic fallacy 2. evolution matters, dont ignore our species evolved characteristics 3. motivational autonomy: biology determines what can be but not what must be 4. the social nature of our species is the key for cruelty and kindness 5. the human brains capabilities reflect our evolution moral autonomy - biology determines what CAN be not what MUST be what group are humans a part of? - they are part of group living primates - part of a large group of mammals (~400) that are part of the order "Primate" - common ancestor at root of order at 60-90 million years ago - our family (hominidae)- split from other primates at about 15 million years - humans chimps gorillas orangutans primate evolution - old world monkeys--> new world monkeys--> apes(hominidae)--> humans (hominidae) did we evolve from chimps? - no but we have a fairly recent common ancestor which lived approximately 5 million years ago what are the two distinct species of chimps with a common ancestor? - common chimpanzee bonobo they both have very different social behavior chimps social behavior - higher levels of agression - stronger status competition within groups -radically more violent behavior toward stranger chimps bonobo social behavior - use less violent means of conflict management - female coordination to a greater degree - sexual behavior is a key component to conflict resolution - greater diversity of sexual behavior our closest non living relative - homo neanderthalensis (neanderthals) - common ancestor about 500 thousand years ago - neaderthals and biologically modern humans overlapped for about 200k - small degree of interbreeding with ancestral humans - went extinct about 30k years ago