Human nature and culture: an evolutionary psychological perspective.
Personality psychology is the broadest of all psychological subdisciplines in that it seeks a conceptually integrated understanding of both human nature and important individual differences. Cultural differences pose a unique set of problems for any comprehensive theory of personality-how can they be reconciled with universals of human nature on the one hand and within-cultural variation on the other? Evolutionary psychology provides one set of conceptual tools by which this conceptual integration can be made. It requires jettisoning the false but still-pervasive dichotomy of culture versus biology, acknowledging a universal human nature, and recognizing that the human mind contains many complex psychological mechanisms that are selectively activated, depending on cultural contexts. Culture rests on a foundation of evolved psychological mechanisms and cannot be understood without those mechanisms.
Buss
D M
DM
Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin 78712, USA. dbuss@psy.utexas.edu
D005075:Biological Evolution; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D010551:Personality; D011584:Psychology / Q000639:trends