Douglas T. Kenrick Sex Murder and the Meaning of Life A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution Cognition and Complexity are Revolutionizing our View of Human Nature Basic Books (2011)

254 Pages·2011·1.397 MB·English

by  Douglas T. Kenrick

Table of Contents

Praise
Also by Douglas T. Kenrick
Title Page
Introduction

Chapter 1 - STANDING IN THE GUTTER
The Importance of Being Earnest

Chapter 2 - WHY PLAYBOY IS BAD FOR YOUR MENTAL
MECHANISMS
Fleeting Glances and Forgettable Faces
Contrast Effects: The Trouble with the Playboy Wallpapering Scheme
Comparing Ourselves to Starlets and Moguls
Candy for the Mind: Watch Your Portion Size

Chapter 3 - HOMICIDAL FANTASIES
Everyday Murderous Thoughts
Aggressing to Impress
Experimenting with Status-Linked Violence
Levels of Analysis: Why There Is More Than One Why
When Women Get Direct
Why Do Men Fantasize About Killing Strangers?

Chapter 4 - OUTGROUP HATRED IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE
A Failure to Discriminate
Functional Projection
When Foreign Equals Disgusting
Race and Politics
The Fallacy of Biology’s “Right Wing”
If You Want to Fight Serpents, You Have to Kick Over Rocks
Shifting Our Gaze Out of the Gutter

Chapter 5 - THE MIND AS A COLORING BOOK
Middle-Aged Gent Seeking College Cheerleader
Reexamining the Evidence
Searching for Dirty Old Men Across Times and Cultures
A Startling Exception That Proves the Case
Blank Slates, Jukeboxes, and Coloring Books

Chapter 6 - SUBSELVES
Simple Minds and Domain-General Theories
Multiple Minds
What Does All This Imply for Me, Myself, and I?
Homosexuality and the Modular Mind
Is Friendship Akin to Kinship?
So How Many Subselves Live Inside Your Head?
Subselves on Vacation

Chapter 7 - RECONSTRUCTING MASLOW’S PYRAMID
Sex and the Meaning of Life
The Evolutionary Functions of Fundamental Motives
Life History Theory and the Developmental Hierarchy
Evolutionism, Humanism, and Positive Psychology
Proximate Motives: The Ebb and Flow of Our Latent Subselves

Chapter 8 - HOW THE MIND WARPS
What We Remember Depends on Who We Are at the Moment
Cognitive Science Meets Evolutionary Psychology
The Evolved Computer Inside Your Head
Remembrances of Things Not Past; or, Regrets, I’ve Had a Few
A Conceptual GPS Reading: Where Are We Now?

Chapter 9 - PEACOCKS, PORSCHES, AND PABLO PICASSO
Bigger and Costlier Things
Peacocks and Sexual Selection
Dominance and Sexual Attraction in Humans
Flashing the Cash
Creative Genius: How Is Picasso Like a Peacock?
He’s a Rebel, but in a Good Way
The Many Faces of Showing Off
What About Female Displays?
Peacocks, Porsches, and the Meaning of Life
Climbing the Pyramid

Chapter 10 - SEX AND RELIGION
The Psychology of Belief and Disbelief
Reproductive Religiosity
How Flexible Is the Link Between Religiosity and Reproduction?
Zen and the Art of Atheism

Chapter 11 - DEEP RATIONALITY AND EVOLUTIONARY
ECONOMICS
IRAs Drained by DNA
Economic Selfishness, Psychological Irrationality, and Deep Rationality
Econs, Humans, and Morons
How to Make the Prisoner’s Dilemma Disappear
Life as a Bank Account
Shifting Priorities
Loss Aversion by Morons Versus Loss Aversion by Evols
Rationality, Irrationality, and Deep Rationality Revisited

Chapter 12 - BAD CROWDS, CHAOTIC ATTRACTORS, AND HUMANS
AS ANTS
The Forty-sixth Street Boys
The Wrong Crowd, Again
Chaotic Attractors and the Revenge of the Nerds
Self-Organization: Order out of Randomness
Where Do the Decision Biases Come From?
Emergent Social Geometries
It’s Emergence and Self-Organization from the Bottom to the Top

Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
Copyright Page
PRAISE FOR
Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life
“Douglas Kenrick is a brilliant thinker, gripping speaker, and a writer whose
style is so engaging, probing, and full of irreverence and wit that it is
unmatched by anyone I know in academia. On top of his profound mastery of
the study of evolution and behavior, he has a fascinating and quirky life story
that adds color and richness to his academic expertise. He is also that rare
individual with whom you’d be equally likely to want to have a drink and/or
seek out to obtain keen insights into human motivation and behavior (and
ideally both at the same time).”
—Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology, University of California,
Riverside; author of The How of Happiness

“One of the founding fathers of modern evolutionary psychology, Doug
Kenrick is also regarded as one of the most brilliant, creative, and accessible
scholars in all of the social sciences. But a conventional scholar he is not:
One part academic, one part comedian, and one part street fighter from
Queens, Kenrick has ruffled a few feathers in his time. His crisp and witty
writing, and his willingness to put scientific correctness before political
correctness, will make readers think, laugh, and blush all at the same time.”
—Noah Goldstein, UCLA Anderson School of Management; author of
New York Times best-selling Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be
Persuasive

“Douglas Kenrick is a pioneer in evolutionary psychology. His scientific