ABSTRACT

Evolutionary psychology argues that people's minds, as well as their bodies, are products of evolution. Many of people's current behaviors and ways of thinking were inherited from forebears and were adaptive for them in facilitating their reproductive success. Male protagonists are likely to be bold, aggressive, and untrusting, while female protagonists are likely to be friendly, timid, and astonishable. Moreover, while novels for women are predominantly about mate choice and mating commitment, fictions for men more often focus on inter-male aggression and adventure, and rarely involve such commitment. Reading and writing originated about 5,000 years ago, but literacy became comparatively widespread only several centuries after the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century. Reading and writing are not supported by innate, task-specific neural circuits. It may be that literary behaviors are connected to evolution not by being adaptive but as byproducts instead. That is, they are incidental consequences of some behavior that is adaptive in its own right.