ABSTRACT
The goal of this chapter is to illustrate how evolutionary theory can help explain moral behaviors. There are three main models of morality in psychology: psychoanalytic, social learning, and cognitive-developmental. In the psychoanalytic model, infants are assumed to inherit powerful sexual and aggressive instincts that induce immoral desires. Parents oppose the satisfaction of these animal urges, which creates the classic Oedipal and Electra conflicts. Around 4 years of age, children resolve these conflicts by identifying with the parent of the opposite sex and introjecting his or her superego, or conscience. In psychoanalytic theory, behaving morally entails constraining instinctual, id-based, pleasure-seeking urges.
