Abstract
So there you are on the couch watching TV when an Oreo® cookie ad activates in you a desire to get a glass of milk. It has been a long day, and you are feeling a little spent. A small calculation takes place—almost subconsciously—as you decide whether it is worth the effort to get up and pour yourself a glass. Finally, the thirst wins out. You pull yourself up and head over to the refrigerator. But scanning the contents you find no milk, resulting in a glance over at the trashcan, where you see the empty container. Feelings of irritation follow the interruption of your goal. The thought briefly enters your mind to head to the store, but it is quickly quashed—that would clearly require too much time and effort. You settle on a glass of orange juice, with mild feelings of annoyance.
To do anything—locate food, find a mate, reproduce, compose a sonata, solve an equation—you have to stay alive with enough surplus energy to perform the task at hand. Energy management drove the foundational adaptive design of all ancestral intelligence systems. All subsequent design features evolved as integrated augmentations of this core system—including the part that ultimately gives rise to your [conscious] mind.
La Cerra & Bingham (2002, p. 4)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
It is worth noting that there are some important differences between Gintis’ (2009) formulation and the one offered here. One major difference is the dimensions of complexity argument depicted by the ToK System. Another is the notion that the human mind consists of two separate systems of computation, a behavioral investment system and a justification system. Thus, while as an economist Gintis advocates for the rational actor model, as a psychologist, I advocate more for a rational emotional actor model, a point that will be made clearer as the book progresses. Nonetheless, it is important to note—as I have attempted to do throughout this book—connections between the unified theory and other integrative approaches.
- 2.
The fundamental nature of the second law was well captured in a famous quotation by Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1929):
The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations—then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation—well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.
- 3.
Interestingly, so do many insects, which is somewhat surprising given that their brains are smaller than the head of a pin. The complexity of insect behavior patterns deserves close attention from psychologists, for they may well challenge some of our most basic assumptions about brain and mind. Nevertheless, because our evolutionary history is sufficiently divergent from such creatures, I will not delve deeply into the latest research on insect behavior (see Prete, 2004).
References
Allman, W. (1994). The stone age present: How evolution has shaped modern life—from sex, violence and language to emotions morals and communities. New York: Touchstone.
Beck, A. T. (1999a). Cognitive aspects of personality disorders and their relation to syndromal disorders: A psychoevolutionary approach. In C. R. Cloninger (Ed.), Personality and Psychopathology (pp. 411–429). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Bruner, J. S., & Goodman, C. C. (1947). Value and need as organizing factors in perception. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 42, 33–44. doi:10.1037/h0058484.
Churchland, P. S. (1986). Neurophilosophy: Toward a unified science of the mind-brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cziko, G. (2000). The things we do: Using the lessons of Bernard and Darwin to understand the what, how and why of our behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene (2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Epstein, S. (1961). Food-related responses to ambiguous stimuli as a function of hunger and ego strength. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 25, 463–469. doi:10.1037/h0044029.
Geary, D. C. (2005). Motive to control and the origin of mind: Exploring the life-mind joint point in the tree of knowledge system. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61, 21–46.doi:10.1002/jclp.20089.
Geary, D. C., & Huffman, K. J. (2002). Brain and cognitive evolution: Forms of modularity and functions of mind. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 667–698. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.667.
Gengerelli, J. A. (1930). The principle of maxima and minima in animal learning. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 11, 193–236. doi:10.1037/h0075607.
Gilbert, P. (1998). The evolved basis and adaptive functions of cognitive distortions. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 71, 447–463.
Gintis, H. (2009). The bounds of reason: Game theory and the unification of the behavioral sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Goertzen, J. R. (2008). On the possibility of unification: The reality and nature of the crisis in psychology. Theory & Psychology, 18, 829–852. doi:10.1177/0959354308097260.
Golding, J. M. (1999). Intimate partner violence as a risk factor for mental disorders: A meta-analysis. Journal of Family Violence, 14, 99–132.
Gonzalez, H. M., Tarraf, W., Whitfield, K. E., & Vega, W. A. (2010). The epidemiology of major depression and ethnicity in the United States. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 44, 1043–1051. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.03.017.
Goodson, F. E. (2003). The evolution and function of cognition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Greenspan, S. I., & Shanker, S. G. (2004). The first idea: How symbols, language, and intelligence evolved from our primate ancestors to modern humans. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.
Henriques, G. R. (2002). The harmful dysfunction analysis and the differentiation between mental disorder and disease. Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, 1(2), 157–173. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/index
Hirschfeld, R. M., Martin B. K., Panico, S., Arons B. S., Barlow, D., Davidoff, F., et al. (1997) The national depressive and manic-depressive association consensus statement on the undertreatment of depression. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 277, 333–340. doi:10.1001/jama.277.4.333.
Hull, C. L. (1943). Principles of behavior: An introduction to behavior theory. Oxford, England: Appleton-Century.
Ingram, R. E., & Siegle, G. J. (2002). Contemporary methodological issues in the study of depression: Not your father’s Oldsmobile. In I. H. Gotlib & C. L. Hammen (Eds.), Handbook of depression (pp. 86–114). New York: Guilford Press.
Jacobson, N. S., Martell, C. R., & Dimidjian, S. (2001). Behavioral activation treatment for depression: Returning to contextual roots. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 8, 255–270. doi:10.1093/clipsy/8.3.255.
James, W. (1890/1913). The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company. doi:10.1037/11059-000.
Judd, L. L. (1997). The clinical course of unipolar major depressive disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 54, 989–991. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/index
Krishnan, V., & Nestler, E. J. (2010). Linking molecules to mood: New insight into the biology of depression. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 1305–1320. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.10030434.
La Cerra, P. (2003). The first law of psychology is the second law of thermodynamics: The energetic evolutionary model of the mind and the generation of human psychological phenomena. Human Nature Review, 3, 440–447.
La Cerra, P., & Bingham, R. (2002). The origin of minds: Evolution, uniqueness and the new science of the self. New York: Harmony Books.
Leahy, R. L. (1997). An investment model of depressive resistance. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 11(1), 3–19. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/index
Leont’ev, A. (1981). Problems of the development of mind (English Trans.). Moscow: Progress Press. (Russian original 1947)
MacLean, P. D. (1993). On the evolution of three mentalities. In J. B. Ashbrook (Ed.), Brain, culture, & the human spirit: Essays from an emergent evolutionary perspective (pp. 15–44). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Minsky, M. (2006). The emotion machine: Commonsense thinking, artificial intelligence, and the future of the human mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Nesse, R. M. (2000). Is depression an adaptation? Archives of General Psychiatry, 57, 14–20. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.57.1.14.
Oyama, S. (2000). Evolution’s eye: A systems view of the biology-culture divide. Science and cultural theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Penn, D. C., Holyoak, K. J., & Ponvelli, D. J. (2008). Darwin’s mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 109–178. doi:10.1017/S0140525X08003543.
Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct. New York: William Morrow & Co.
Powers, W. T. (1973). Behavior: The control of perception. Oxford, England: Aldine.
Powers, W. T. (1989). Living control systems. Gravel switch, KY: Control Systems Group.
Proffitt, D. R., Stefanucci, J., Banton, T., & Epstein, W. (2003). The role of effort in perceiving distance. Psychological Science, 14, 106–112. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.t01-1-01427.
Richardson, H., & Verbeek, N. A. (1987). Diet selection by yearling Northwestern Crows (Corvus caurinus) feeding on littleneck clams (Venerupis japonica). The Auk, 104(2), 263–269. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/index
Schrödinger, E. (1967). What is life? The physical aspect of the living cell and mind and matter. Cambridge: University Press.
Shaffer, L. S. (2008). Religion as a large-scale justification system: Does the justification hypothesis explain animistic attribution? Theory & Psychology, 18, 779–799. doi:10.1177/0959354308097257.
Shipley, T. F., & Zacks, J. M. (Eds.). (2008). Understanding events: From perception to action. Oxford series in visual perception. New York: Oxford University Press.
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. Oxford, England: Appleton-Century.
Staats, A. W. (1996). Behavior and personality: Psychological behaviorism. New York: Springer.
Tinbergen, N., & Perdeck, A. C. (1950). On the stimulus situation releasing the begging response in the newly hatched Herring Gull chick (Larus argentatus argentatus Pont). Behaviour, 3, 1–39. doi:10.1163/156853951X00197.
Weiskrantz, L. (1997). Consciousness lost and found: A neuropsychological exploration. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wiener, N. (1961). Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and machine. Cambridge: MIT Press
Yu, Y., & Williams, D. R. (1999). Socioeconomic status and mental health. In C. S. Aneshensel & J. C. Phelan (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of mental health (pp. 151–166). New York, NY: Plenum Publishers.
Zhang, M., Rost, K., & Fortney, J. C. (1999). Earnings changes for depressed individuals treated by mental health specialists. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 108–114.
Zipf, G. K. (1949). Human behavior and the principle of least effort. Oxford, England: Addison-Wesley Press.
Prete, F. (2004). Complex worlds from simpler nervous systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Henriques, G. (2011). Behavioral Investment Theory. In: A New Unified Theory of Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0058-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0058-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-0057-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-0058-5
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)