The Generalist’s Corner

David M. Buss received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, and has taught at Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Texas at Austin. He has received the American Psychological Foundation Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions and the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientist Lecturer Award and has been a G. Stanley Hall Lecturer. His books include The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (2003) and Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (2004), which won the Robert W. Hamilton Book Award. His most recent books are The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill (2005b) and The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2005a). Buss has roughly 200 publications. His research interests include mating strategies, murder, and sexual conflict. Lewis Barker received his BA in psychology from Occidental College in Los Angeles and an MA and PhD from Florida State University. He taught for 28 years at Baylor University in Texas where he was Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience. He currently is a professor of psychology at Auburn University. Over his career, he has taught 18 different undergraduate courses, 9 graduate courses, and 5 labs. Introduction to Biopsychology, first taught in 1974, was among the earliest freshman-level course offerings in evolutionary and physiological psychology in the United States. He has numerous publications and book chapters and has edited 2 books in the general area of human and animal learning. Currently, he is researching how students’ knowledge of psychology terms is related to their overall understanding of psychological concepts. He has written two textbooks, Learning and Behavior: Biological, Psychological, and Sociocultural Perspectives, and Psychology—the latter from an evolutionary perspective. He has 3 adult daughters and 2 grandchildren, all of whom live in Texas. Barker: What are the basic tenets of evolutionary psychology? Buss: At the most general level, evolutionary psychology is simply an approach to the study of psychology that is informed by modern principles of evolutionary biology. As such, it is a lens through which to view psychology, an approach to exploring the mechanisms of the mind. Evolutionary psychology is not a branch of psychology, such as perception or social psychology. It’s a lens through which any psychological phenomenon can be examined. Although there is some theoretical diversity among evolutionary psychologists, some of the basic tenets of evolutionary psychology include: