Self-study
Passage A.
P1
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Context ·
Evolutionary psychology is a lens to explain human behavior
Human behavior is explained by how it contributes to the reproductive success of individuals exhibiting that behavior.
Problem / Phenonemon ·
What's the explanation for altruism?
Altruism is behavior that seems to benefit others at one's own expense.
P2
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Answer / Hypothesis ·
Psychology of identification and empathy
Because humans share genes with relatives, altruistic behavior could have arisen because it helped spread those genes. E.g., mother rushing to help a child promotes the survival of their shared genes.
P3
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Answer / Hypothesis ·
Altruism applied to groups and later even to larger communities
Altruism could have applied at the group level since kin share genes. Later, it could have applied to non-kin community
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P4
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Skepticism ·
about evolutionary psychology
A parent's interest in helping their child is just that. There's no need to explain it in terms of genes conspiring to propagate themselves.
P5
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Monogamy ·
as explained via evolutionary psychology
Human offspring are slow to mature. Hence, to ensure their maturity and the spread of genes, humans form monogamous families. Presumably monogamous families are better able to raise offspring to maturity.
P6
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Skepticism ·
of evolutionary psychology's explanation
Author acknowledges that the evolutionary psychology explanation could be right but there are alternative explanations. Author requires the elimination of other explanations. Author believes that some motives don't require further scrutiny, e.g., a parent's motive to promote a child's well-being.
Passage Style
13.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ██
a
Altruistic behavior is ███████████ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ████████████ ███████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███████ ███
(A) doesn’t capture the author’s attempt to explain altruistic behavior in humans. (A) touches only on the fact that altruistic behavior is hard to explain using evolutionary psychology.
(A) is also unsupported. Passage A tells us that altruistic behavior is a puzzle because it doesn’t obviously contribute to reproductive success. However, that doesn’t establish that it lowers reproductive success.
b
New evidence may ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ █████ ███████ █████ ███ █████████████████
There are two clear ways to eliminate (B). The first is that the general idea that genes promote their own self-propagation is not actually the author’s explanation for altruism. In fact, this is part of the question that the author wanted to answer – how can the idea of genes promoting their own propagation account for altruistic behavior? The author’s explanation is that certain genes might promote identification and empathy, and that these genes encouraged behavior that helped those genes spread. In other words, the author’s explanation is about the specific way in which genes might lead to altruistic behavior and promote their own propagation. But, the general theory that genes promote their own spreading is something already known and part of evolutionary psychology.
A second reason to eliminate (B) is that it refers to “new evidence” helping to explain the evolution of altruistic behavior. But Passage A never presents any new evidence. We don’t get any data, studies, reports, or anything else that was observed in the world. Rather, Passage A presents only a theoretical explanation of how genes might lead to altruistic behavior and propagate themselves.
c
Altruistic behavior originally ██████ ████████████ ████████ ████ ██ ████ ███ █████ █████ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███████
This doesn’t capture the author’s attempt to explain the evolutionary origin of altruistic behavior. (C) instead asserts that altruism doesn’t serve certain purposes that it used to. But what were those original purposes? How did altruism come about, and why does it persist? This answer doesn’t account for how altruism arose or continues in humans.
d
Contrary to what ███████ ██ ████████████ ██████████ ████ ████ ███████████ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████████ ███████ ████████████
(D) doesn’t capture the author’s explanation of the origin of altruistic behavior. It’s also unsupported, because Passage A never suggests that “most” (over half) significant types of human behavior involve genetically selfish motivations, or that any critics are opposed to this possibility.
e
An evolutionary explanation ██ ██████████ ████████ ███ ███ ██ ███ █████████████ ██████ ███████ █████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ████████████
(E) is the only answer that accurately captures