Psychiatric disorders are difficult to explain from an evolutionary aspect, since it is hard to reason how a characteristic carrying a reproductive disadvantage survives through natural selection. There are several evolution-based papers concerning obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which aim at resolving this contradiction. Recent studies provided considerable evidence in support for the evo...

Recent advances in evolutionary theory have some important implications for environmental economics. A short overview is offered of evolutionary thinking in economics. Subsequently, major concepts and approaches in evolutionary biology and evolutionary economics are presented and compared. Attention is devoted, among others, to Darwinian selection, punctuated equilibrium, sorting mechanisms, La...

From a social systems theory perspective, globalisation can be conceptualised as an evolutionary social process. By fusing systems theories, evolutionary theories, and organisation theories, globalisation becomes apparent as a historical social process, which encompasses the emergence and reproduction of social systems such as firms or other organisations within the wider process of the globali...

From a social systems theory perspective, globalisation can be conceptualised as an evolutionary social process. By fusing systems theories, evolutionary theories, and organisation theories, globalisation becomes apparent as a historical social process, which encompasses the emergence and reproduction of social systems such as firms or other organisations within the wider process of the globali...

From a social systems theory perspective, globalisation can be conceptualised as an evolutionary social process. By fusing systems theories, evolutionary theories, and organisation theories, globalisation becomes apparent as a historical social process, which encompasses the emergence and reproduction of social systems such as firms or other organisations within the wider process of the globali...

In contemplating the function and origin of music, a number of scholars have considered whether music might be an evolutionary adaptation. This article reviews the basic arguments related to evolutionary claims for music. Although evolutionary theories about music remain wholly speculative, musical behaviors satisfy a number of basic conditions, which suggests that there is indeed merit in purs...

Ageing is an increase in mortality and/or decline in fertility with advancing age. Evolutionary theories predict that ageing will evolve in response to the pattern of externally imposed hazards to survival and fertility; a prediction confirmed in new empirical studies. Recent studies of large cohorts of experimental animals and of humans have revealed that mortality rates do not continue to acc...

Creative domains such as art and music have distinct properties, not only in terms of the structure of the artefacts produced by in terms of their cultural dynamics and relation to adaptive functions. A number of theories have examined the possibility of functionless cultural domains emerging through a runaway evolutionary process. This includes models in which engaging in creative domains is a...

Parental investment is referred to as any expenditure (time, energy, resources, etc.) that a parent incurs to benefit an offspring. Parental investment theories in evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology explore mechanisms underlying parent-offspring relationships and investment. These theories examine adaptive functions and fitness dynamics of parent-offspring relationship, and how en...

Human populations differ reliably in the degree to which people favor family, friends, and community members over strangers and outsiders. In the last decade, researchers have begun to propose several economic and evolutionary hypotheses for these cross-population differences in parochialism. In this paper, we outline major current theories and review recent attempts to test them. We also discu...