Product Description
Why does having sons reduce the likelihood of divorce? Why are most neurosurgeons male and most kindergarten teachers female? Why is sexual harassment so persistent? Why do females in every culture tend to be more religious than their male counterparts? Why do so many politicians ruin their careers with sex scandals (but only if they are men)? These are some of the aspects of universal human behaviour into which evolutionary psychology has begun to give us insights. The past decade has witnessed an explosion in research on the biological and evolutionary foundations of our behaviour. And this new perspective is offering fresh insights into many questions that the social sciences have struggled to answer. Using a lively and engaging question-answer format, and with each chapter focusing on a particular theme of behaviour, the authors look the evolutionary reasons for the way we behave, the statistical trends and tendencies, and, of course, the many exceptions too.
About the Author
Until his untimely death in January 2003 at the age of 44, Alan S. Miller was Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Hokkaido University, Japan, and Affiliate Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. Professor Miller wrote widely in the areas of crime and deviant behaviour, religion, and cross-cultural social psychology. Recent publications include (with Satoshi Kanazawa) i Order by Accident: The Origins and Consequences of Conformity in Contemporary Japanese Society /i(Westview Press, 2000). Satoshi Kanazawa is Reader and Lecturer of Management and Research Methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was the first sociologist to introduce modern evolutionary psychology into sociology. His work has been widely featured in the media in several continents, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Times (London), Time, Psychology Today, the Times Higher Education Supplement, and on BBC Radio 4 and the National Public Radio's All Things Considered, among other TV and radio shows.
