Some people insist that psychology and philosophy are practically the same. That both work fundamentally with ideas, and that they serve to know how to develop one’s own perspective from which to live life.
But this is false: psychology is not based on ideas, but on matter; not in how we should behave, but in how we actually behave, and how we could behave if certain objective conditions were met. In other words, psychology has always been a science closely related to biology. Ultimately, behavior does not exist if there is no body that performs actions.
Taking the above into account, it is not strange the fact that Charles Darwin had and still has a great influence on psychology. Ultimately, biology is based on a mix between genetics and the developments that have come from the theory of evolution proposed by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Below we will see some of the aspects in which this researcher influences the development of behavioral science.
Everything that is done today in biology is based on the idea that Charles Darwin was fundamentally right when he explained the mechanism by which different forms of life appear. Any other proposal that claims to be a unifying theory of biology as the modern synthesis is now (a mixture of the theory of evolution and genetics) must provide enormous amounts of evidence, and that is not something that seems to be possible. is going to happen soon.
Before continuing, it is important to know the main basic ideas about what Darwin proposed regarding biology. According to the biologist Ernst Mayr, the ideas through which Darwin explained the appearance of species are the following:
1. Evolution
The different lineages of living beings show how through generations there are constant changes in the traits of individuals and in their way of organizing or inhabiting ecosystems.
2. Common ancestor
Although all “family lines” tend to change over time, they all have common ancestors. For example, humans and chimpanzees They come from lineages that were not possible to differentiate millions of years ago.
According to Darwin, the changes that occurred through generations appeared very slowly and gradually, so that a specific moment in which a turning point occurs in the process of developing a certain trait cannot be identified. Nowadays, however, it is known that the appearance of traits does not always have to occur in this way.
4. Speciation
Others can come from one species so that different evolutionary branches appear from the one that gives rise to them.
5. Natural selection
The changes that appear in the lineages of life forms are driven by natural selection, a process by which Some traits are more likely to be passed on to future generations depending on the conditions of the environment to which it must be adapted.
The importance of genetics
It is clear that Darwin left many questions unanswered, among other things because in the 19th century the limitations when researching such complex topics were a major obstacle. One of these questions was, for example: how do the traits appear that will later be spread or not spread throughout the population depending on whether they offer adaptation advantages to the environment? Genetic studies promoted by Gregor Mendel entered into these types of questions. At the base of the construction of living beings there is a genotype made up of genes, which will outline what the approximate design of each living being will be like.
The effects of Darwin’s influence on Psychology
From what we have seen so far, it is already possible to intuit that Darwin’s ideas have implications for psychology. Indeed, the fact that behind each living being there is a history of interactions between some traits and the environment in which they appear, makes the style of behavior, which also can be understood as a trait even though it is not exactly something physical but psychological can be analyzed in another way.
In this sense, several of the topics discussed from psychology that come into contact with Darwin’s ideas are the following.
1. Concern about differences between sexes
In Western societies, until before Darwin wrote about evolution, the differences that exist between men and women were something that was normally interpreted from an essentialist perspective: masculinity is expressed through men, and femininity is expressed through men. It is done through women, because “it cannot be any other way.”
However, Darwin clearly shows that essentialism is totally useless when it comes to understanding these differences between men and women. His ideas gave way to a new perspective: both sexes are different because in each of them the ways of having offspring (and, consequently, of making others inherit our traits and our genes) are different. The fundamental thing in this case is that, as a general rule, females must pay a higher reproductive cost than males to have offspring, given that they are the ones who gestate.
But… what about psychological traits? Do the psychological differences that occur between men and women also respond to the consequences of biological evolution, or are there other alternative explanations? Currently this is an area of research in which there is a lot of activity and which usually generates a lot of interest. No wonder: accepting one answer or another can lead to very different public policies.
2. The myth of the mind that understands everything
There was a time when it was thought that rationality was the essence of human mental activity. With effort, patience and the development of the right tools, we could perfectly understand practically everything that surrounds us, thanks to the use of reason.
Charles Darwin’s contributions to science, however, challenged these ideas: if everything we are exists simply because it helped our ancestors survive, why would it be any different with the ability to think rationally?
Thus, the reason is not there because it is predestined to end ignorance, but because allows us to know the world well enough to stay alive and, hopefully, reproduce. The tree of life does not have a place at its highest point that the most reasonable species should occupy, we are just another branch.
3. The key is to adapt
The concept of adaptation is fundamental in psychology. In fact, in the clinical field it is often said that one of the main criteria for determining whether something is a mental disorder or not is to look at whether the behaviors expressed are adaptive or not. That is, if in the context in which the person lives, that pattern of behavior generates discomfort.
Since to express behaviors it is necessary that there be someone who performs actions and a medium in which these actions are received, the key to understanding behavior is in look at the relationship between these two components, and not just the individual.
In the same way that Darwin pointed out that there are no good or bad traits in themselves, since one can be useful in one environment and harmful in another, something similar can happen with behaviors: a predilection for repetitive tasks can cause problems. in a job facing the public, but not in another oriented towards construction.
Another influence on psychology that Darwin’s work has had has to do with highlight the unique character of that set of mental abilities that we call intelligence. This naturalist showed that although in the animal world there are many species capable of behaving in amazing ways to survive, in most cases these actions are a fruit of evolution, and have been inherited from one generation to another without there being any learning. through. For example, ants can coordinate in incredible ways to reach a goal, but this happens because they are “programmed” to do so.
On the other hand, there are a number of animal species that are not subject to so many biological constraints when it comes to behavior, and we are one of them. Intelligence is a process of selecting the correct responses within the framework of a process of selecting the correct traits. Genes lead us on rails in some things (for example, most people experience sexual urges), but beyond that we have relative freedom to do what we want. This, however, does not go against the theory of evolution: being intelligent is useful in certain contexts, and in our case it has allowed a relatively weak hominid species to expand throughout the planet. It is a feature that allows us not to have to specialize in a single environment assuming the risk of becoming extinct if that environment disappears or changes too much.
5. Being happy is not the same as persisting
Finally, another aspect in which Darwin has influenced psychology is that he helps us give relative importance to being successful from an evolutionary point of view. Being part of a species that has many offspring capable of surviving to adulthood does not mean success, it is simply the consequence of a natural process in which whatever we do, we do not have the last word and in which, furthermore, our happiness does not It is important. Ultimately, there are many individuals of the same species, ethnicity or family It means that for some reason the sons and daughters are being able to leave offspring, perhaps abundantly. What sacrifices have you gone through to get to that point? That’s what’s important.
