ABSTRACT
One such new field is Evolutionary Psychology. This discipline focuses on the study of human behavior from an adaptationist perspective, examining the mental mechanisms that evolved to solve problems faced in our ancestral past and how those mechanisms continue to produce behavior today. There are several peer review journals that focus specifically on this field, including Evolution and Human Behavior and Human Nature; ones that focus mainly on this field, including Evolution and Cognition and Politics and the Life Sciences; and many others that regularly publish articles from this perspective including Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Animal Behavior, Quarterly Review of Biology, and Cognition. This chapter will describe the historical antecedents of the evolutionarily informed study of human behavior.
