Why Evolutionary Psychology Needs Behavior Genetics, and Vice Versa
Twenty key claims about heritability and human nature
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Evolutionary psychology and behavior genetics are two of my favorite fields in science. Between them, they’ve shed more light on how nature and nurture shape us than the rest of the social sciences combined - and more than thousands of years of philosophical musings on the topic.
Until recently, the two areas have developed largely in parallel, with each pursuing its own unique agenda. Over the past decade or so, however, it’s become increasingly clear that this separation is neither necessary nor desirable. Properly integrated, evolutionary psychology and behavior genetics can powerfully inform each other. Most notably, evolutionary psychology can furnish hypotheses about why heritable individual differences exist and persist, while behavior genetics can test, refine, and sometimes overturn evolutionary psychological hypotheses.
In this post, I lay out twenty key claims about evolutionary psychology, behavior genetics, and what we stand to gain by bringing these fields into closer contact.