A Mind of Her Own-The Evolutionary Psychology of Women by Anne Campbell

Author:Anne Campbell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, Psychology
ISBN: 9780198504986
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2002-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

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epigenetic rules … It is important to note that this characterization does not state that culture consists a priori of atomic units or symbols. Rather, such units are the emergent result of culture experienced as a whole by the individual … Just as genes are generative units for the RNA and (ultimately protein), epigenetic rules extract generative units from culture and during psychological development, use them to assemble knowledge structures and mental representations, culture’s inward manifestations. (Lumsden 1988, pp. 259–60) Culturgens are nodes of semantic memory that can be concepts, propositions or

schema. These nodes can become linked despite the fact that they may arise in

different domains resulting in informational ‘cascades’ but it is the epigenetic rules that shape the way in which nodes are created and linked together to create semantic networks. These networks guide action and differences between these networks

account for individual differences. The genotype influences the way in which culturgens are extracted and linked so that we have a form of culturgen picking (analogous to and possibly related to niche picking). Extraverts might, for example, be more likely to pick up culturgens which equate a large, sociable gathering with a good time (‘the more the merrier’) while an introvert might be attuned to culturgens which

specify involvement in an engaging but lone pursuit as more pleasurable (‘silence is golden’). Different genotypes attend to, extract and link different culturgens resulting in a subtly different mental representation of the world and a different set of action plans.

Despite the diversity of language and metaphor, and the differing attention they

pay to individual differences, these various models share a number of common

features. In the model below (Figure 1) I have tried to synthesize the basic ideas that emerge from the different proposals.

Fig 1 Interactions between genes, mind, experience and culture.

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At the population level, the cultural and genetic pool are seen as exerting a reciprocal influence on one another. Genes build minds that contain the mechanisms for acquiring culture and that place constraints on the kinds of memes that will be

generated, remembered and transmitted. Culture also forms part of the selecting

environment for genes and hence any cultural practice that systematically affects the survival and reproduction of individuals exerts an influence on the genotype of

future generations.

Genes build the starting state of the brain and, in my model, I have proposed that they specify inherited, species-typical, evolved modules of the mind as well as what I have termed temperament—the heritable and diverse ways that individuals may

subtly differ from one another. Although I have pictured these as two distinct gene products to keep the diagram clear, many evolutionary writers take the view that

personality results from different neurochemical sensitivities that affect the range, sensitivity and responsivity of the fundamental modules. In their view, inherited differences are noise around the prototypical mind design. For others, in behaviour genetics and personality psychology, personality is

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