Book Review

Evolutionary Psychological Science

pp 1-3

First online: 17 August 2016

• Farid PazhoohiAffiliated withHuman Cognition Laboratory, Department of Basic Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Minho Email author 
• , Joana ArantesAffiliated withHuman Cognition Laboratory, Department of Basic Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Minho

10.1007/s40806-016-0069-1

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Decision-making is the cognitive process of choosing a preferred option from among a set of options (Wilson and Keil 2001). Decision-making is present through every aspect of life, and making good decisions for every important occasion during lifetime is a human being’s constant endeavor (Garnham 2016). Historically, religion and philosophy have been the only domains not only acting as gateways for explaining the meaning of life (McGhee 1992) but also acting as guidelines for facilitating and directing human important decisions during lifetime.

Darwinian evolution by natural selection is regarded as another gateway capable of explaining the existence and meaning of life (Dawkins 1986). Menelaos Apostolou, Assistant Professor at the University of Nicosia, in his book, Feeling Good: An Evolutionary Perspective on Life Choices, explores human decision-making from the perspective of Darwinian evolutionary science by addressing the question of how to live a life characterized by more positive than negative feelings.

The book begins by criticizing philosophy’s inability to direct humans toward a happy life, simply because philosophy has had very little knowledge on human nature and mind. Instead, Apostolou acknowledges the work of Darwin and Wallace and the subsequent advancement in understanding human nature done by evolutionary theory. In general, in this book he argues that based on genetic makeup and environmental conditions, individuals should make decisions in their daily life that increase the chance of survival and reproduction.

In the first chapter, Apostolou briefly and in a very simple language explains the origin and evolution of life and the fundamental evolutionary forces. Then, he summarizes the history of human evolution and argues that evolutionary forces have endowed the human brain with mechanisms that generate feelings in order to motivate individuals to engage in behaviors that increase their fitness and avoid those behaviors which decrease fitness. In other words, by engaging in fitness-increasing behaviors, the brain generates emotions that result in feelings that motivate individuals to engage in behaviors that promote the representation of the genes that code for these mechanisms in future generations. On this basis, happiness, for example, can act as an error-correction mechanism by motivating individuals to stay on the path which leads to success in survival and production. The author also considers individual differences as a continuum based on genetic predispositions and to the extent that one’s behavior increases/decreases the fitness of the genes that code the mechanism that generates the feeling.

Apostolou definition of “feeling” is vague and it cannot be easily understood. He only refers to feeling as the experience of “mechanisms that generate emotions that induce changes in the brain and other body organs.” Without clarifying whether he is mentioning temporary feelings or general feelings with long-term effects, he explains what he means by positive and negative feelings: Positive feelings will emerge when life events increase the fitness of genes that code for the feeling-generating mechanisms, and negative feelings emerge, whenever life events decrease the fitness. Therefore, he argues one must live a life in a way that increases the fitness characterized by more positive feelings. It is as though feelings are like fitness “calculators that respond to the actual or projected fitness consequence of an event.” In this sense, Apostolou does not differentiate between any human motives and combines all levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1943) from physiological (i.e., hunger and thirst) and safety, to love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization together. In this vein, he treats hunger as the lack of glucose in bloodstream, and loneliness as lack of having companions.

The second chapter emphasizes the ancestral environment in which humans have evolved and argues that not only does one need to make decisions based on increasing fitness in the modern environment but also examine whether the choices were adaptive in an ancestral environment, because we have evolved for a long time in the ancestral environment which has been very different from the current modern one. Therefore, we need to embrace an evolutionary perspective to avoid issues from incompatibility between ancestral and modern environments, to guide our decisions on our life directions.

In the third chapter, Apostolou explains human variations on the basis of genetic makeup and environmental conditions and the interaction of these two and explains how expression of genes are environment-dependent. Then, he argues as diversities among humans exist, there are different direction for individuals to increase their overall fitness and individuals should try to increase their survival and reproduction success.

Then, in the fourth chapter, the author suggests that for finding the appropriate and fitness-increasing path, each individual needs to learn his/her own and others’ abilities and limitations, by avoiding those who decrease their fitness and get involved with those who increase their fitness. His solution for this is to devote time in exposing oneself to different situations and people. This is consistent with Bandura’s perspective (Bandura 1982) that chance encounters play a prominent role in shaping the course of human lives. However, as the author argues, the evolutionary perspective can provide foresight into the future and enabling individuals to take preemptive actions to prevent putting themselves in an unfavorable situation.

Compared to the four beginning chapters, from the fifth chapter onward, the book becomes more interesting. In the fifth chapter, the author discusses that attracting a mate and creating a functional long-term relationship would result in many positive feelings. In this chapter, he lists the traits that one should look for—or to avoid—in a potential long-term mate, such as personality, health, age and fertility, looks, intelligence, wealth, and genetic compatibility, and explains why each trait is important for mate choice from an evolutionary perspective.

In the sixth chapter, the author argues that because the transition from an ancestral context in which mating was regulated to that of postindustrial societies has been rapid, selective forces have not had enough time to regulate the mating mechanisms necessary for modern environments. Therefore, selecting, attracting, and maintaining an appropriate mate might be challenging in today’s modern environment. Therefore, the author argues that an evolutionary perspective can provide insights enabling us to avoid pitfalls of mate choice endeavor.

The purpose of the seventh chapter is to provide insights useful for establishing and keeping a fitness-increasing marriage from an evolutionary perspective. In the next chapter, the author discusses how having children would increase positive feelings and how children survival is fitness-increasing. Apostolou discusses how children’s successful reproduction and overall success in life would generate positive feelings for their parents. Throughout the book in general and in this chapter in particular, the author does not consider cultural perspectives, and as it seems, all arguments are appropriate for developed western countries. For example, this chapter fails in suggesting how in a non-western society in which contraceptives are not being used it is possible to optimize the number of children (Caldwell and Caldwell 1990). Or for those societies in which marriages are still being regulated under parental supervision, how it is possible to increase the fitness by selecting the partner appealing the most to the individual.

After focusing on reproductive success (chapters 5 to 8), the book turns to discussions of success in survival (chapters 9 to 12). In the ninth chapter, Apostolou clarifies the definition of competition and who could be the potential competitors in a social context. Thus, he argues that each person should increase the comparative advantage over others and instead of wasting limited resources in doing things that we are not good at, it would be better to direct the resources to things that we are good at doing.

In the tenth chapter, Apostolou explores the importance of social network and argues that loneliness constitutes a negative feeling-generating mechanism that has evolved to seek the company of others and avoid social exclusion. The next chapter deals with the life choices that promote longer and healthier life through increasing fitness and positive feelings. Interestingly, he argues that some of mental negative traits such as anxiety and depression are fitness-increasing at some points by enabling individuals to take corrective decisions and actions.

In the twelfth chapter, the author argues that to have a fitness-increasing life people should take life choices in a way that enables body organs to function well. Moreover, in this chapter, he argues that sexual selection is optimized in a context where mate choice has been regulated; therefore, there has been no evolutionary pressure on sexual functioning, and as a result, premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, and female low sexual desire segregate in human populations.

Finally, the author deals with ethical issues as he argues that people interpret someone or an act as evil if that person or that act reduces the fitness of others for the sake of that person’s gain and interpret someone or an act as good if that person or act increases the fitness of others at the expense of that person’s fitness. He concludes that although the evolutionary perspective does not explicitly promote more good than evil acts, its adoption is likely to lead to more good than evil acts.

Although the author acknowledges some limitations of his work and mentions that the answers provided in this book might not be perfect, there are some further limitations that should be noted here. Throughout the book the author supports his claims with examples and the majority of the arguments are based on analogies (i.e., arguments from analogy). As a consequence, often throughout the book, it is not clear if these analogies are backed by scientific research or are only based on the author’s personal views. However, it seems that the book is successful in answering the question of “how to live a life for it to be characterized by more positive than negative feelings” which suggesting to follow a life direction that leads to higher fitness, with the evolutionary perspective providing insights on how to do so. Although some reader might find some of arguments provided in this book as naturalistic fallacies (Wilson et al. 2003), the message of the book is that individuals are constantly prone to fitness-decreasing problems which should always and constantly be corrected toward a fitness increasing path, and in this journey, feelings are cues to navigate the correct path.

Once, Theodosius Dobzhansky (1973), American geneticist and evolutionary biologist said “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Feeling Good: An Evolutionary Perspective on Life Choices could serve as a good preliminary attempt in showing that also no decision is meaningful except in the light of evolutionary perspective. Throughout the book, there are many examples from everyday life experiences and dilemmas that situates the reader in decision-making situations, and through these various examples, the book tries to translate all positive to negative feelings to meaningful corrective mechanisms from evolutionary perspective.

This book is very good in simplifying and explaining the basics of evolutionary processes. Therefore, the potential audiences of the book are undergrad students and anyone who has no knowledge of evolutionary sciences. This easy-reading book could serve as the good first experience to evolutionary concepts on human behavior and life choices.

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© Springer International Publishing 2016