PrepTest 134 - Section 4 - Passage 3 - Question 14

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Passage A.

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.

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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.

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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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.

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.

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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

14.

The approaches toward evolutionary psychology █████████ ██ ███ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████

Question Type

Describe approach

Structure

Let’s start by identifying the approach of each passage toward evolutionary psychology. Passage A…uses evolutionary psychology? Passage A seems to accept evolutionary psychology and tries to show that it can explain altruism.

Passage B is more careful about applying evolutionary psychology. Its main point is that we shouldn’t accept an evolutionary explanation of behavior simply because it could be one explanation that works.

The author of ███████ █ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ███ ███████ ████████████ ██ ████████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ███

Interest in examining logical implications? Let’s not waste time thinking about what is meant by the logical implications of evolutionary psychology and whether the passages even considers such implications. It’s easier to eliminate (A) by focusing on the fact that differing levels of interest doesn’t capture the difference between the passages. They differ in how much they accept or doubt evolutionary psychology as an explanation for behavior. That’s not a difference in interest, but rather in the direction of opinion about evolutionary psychology.

The author of ███████ █ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ███

Passage A is more committed to the principles of evolutionary psychology in that it accepts them and applies them to explain altruism. Passage B, however, warns us to be careful about accepting explanations based on evolutionary psychology.

43%

The author of ███████ █ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ████████ ███████████████ ████████████ ███ █████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ███

The author of ███████ █ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ███

Passage B is more skeptical than the author of Passage A toward evolutionary psychology. But (D) says that this skepticism is about “evolutionary theory in general.” That’s not the same thing as evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary theory refers to Darwin’s theory that different species in the world result from natural selection.

Psychologists have applied elements of Darwin’s theory to psychology, but that doesn’t mean that evolutionary psychology constitutes “evolutionary theory in general.”

With this proper understanding of “evolutionary theory in general,” (D) is unsupported. We don’t know what Passage B thinks about Darwin’s theory of evolution.

49%

The author of ███████ █ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████████████ █████████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ███

(E) is trying to bait us, because the idea of motives are relevant to evolutionary psychology in that the field tries to explain why humans behave in certain ways. But neither passage comments on the motives of psychologists. We have no idea what the author of each passage thinks about why evolutionary psychologists do what they do or think what they think.

PrepTest 134 - Section 4 - Passage 3 - Question 14

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