Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology

Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology informs readers about the potential integration of evolutionary psychology and social psychology. This is an important issue because social psychology deals with a broad range of important psychological concepts (e.g., interpersonal relationships, aggression) and evolutionary psychology can offer an informative perspective on these issues that may allow for a deeper understanding of these important phenomena. This compilation is intended to provide a broad overview of the potential integration of evolutionary concepts into the topics that are often of interest to social psychologists. Contributors provide an in-depth review of their research areas. Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology demonstrates a current overview of how evolutionary theory has been integrated into social psychology research as well as offering a variety of future directions for this integration. Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology intends to offer suggestions for integrating evolutionary psychology (which is a relatively young and exciting perspective within psychology) with social psychology (which is a larger and more established area of psychology).

- How can an understanding of evolutionary psychology contribute to social psychology?

Section 1: Social Cognition
- Cognition
- Social cognition in children
- Modularity
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Emotion
- Religiousity
- Comparative social cognition

Section 2: Emergent self
- Social identity
- Self-esteem
- Self as an interpersonal signal
- Self-deception
- Cyber-psychology

Section 3: Attitudes and Attitude Change
- Attitudes
- Conformity
- Persuasion
- Obedience
- Feminism and social movements
- Social learning

Section 4: Interpersonal Processes
- Prosocial behavior
- Groups
- Friendships
- Cooperation
- Language and communication
- Stereotypes
- Competition

Section 5: Mating and Relationships
- Attraction and human matings
- Homosexuality
- Familial relationships
- Step families and step-dsibling relationships
- Life history

Section 6: Violence and Aggression
- War and aggression
- Violence in romantic relationships
- Violence toward children
- Bullying
- Terrorism
- Violent crime

Section 7: Health and Psychological Adjustment
- Behavioral immune system
- Psychopathology
- Happiness

Section 8: Individual differences
- Evolutionary personality psychology
- Evolutionary game theory and the development of personality
- Psychopathy
- Narcissism
- Genetics
- Integrating evolutionary psychology and social psychology: Reflections and future directions