Меж тысячи умов мой мозг образовала
Нейрофизиология - быстро развивающаяся область биологии. Не удивительно, что за ее успехами не поспевает не только широкая публика, но и коллеги по цеху - психологи. В 1960-е Пол Маклин изучал отделы мозга, которые он назвал «лимбической системой» и считал единым функциональным модулем. Это занятие навело его на мысль, что мозг позвоночных ( Read more... )
"A more practical question concerns the benefits to psychological science if psychologists changed their mistaken views of neural evolution. Consider the consequence of believing that humans have unique neural structures that endow us with unique cognitive functions. This belief encourages researchers to provide species-specific explanations when it might be more appropriate to recognize cross-species connections. In other words, by anointing certain brain regions and functions as special, researchers treat them as special in their research (see Higgins, 2004).
To illustrate, consider the dual-process theories found throughout much of psychology. In an Annual Review of Psychology article, Evans (2008) summarizes that a “recurring theme in dual-process theories” (p. 259) across content areas is the proposal of “two architecturally (and evolutionarily) distinct cognitive systems” (p. 255), with System 1 preceding System 2 in evolutionary development. This division of psychological functions into evolutionarily older animalistic drives versus evolutionarily newer rational thought is exemplified by research on willpower, which has historically been dominated by a framing that contrasts “hot,” immediate, and emotional choices with “cool,” long-term, and rational choices. Should I eat the ice cream, which tastes good now, or the salad, which I know is better for me in the future? In the classic marshmallow studies, delaying gratification by waiting to eat the marshmallows is seen as a good result-indicating more willpower (Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990). This framing is expected given that the starting point of this research was the Freudian psychodynamic position, which contrasted hot animalistic drives with cool rational processes.
Framing willpower as long-term planning versus animalistic desires leads to the questionable conclusion that delaying gratification is not something other animals are capable of if other animals lack the evolutionarily newer neural structures required for rational long-term planning. Although certain aspects of willpower may be unique to humans, this framing misses the connection between willpower in humans and decision-making in nonhuman animals. All animals make decisions between actions that involve trade-offs in opportunity costs. In this way, the question of willpower is not “Why do people act sometimes like hedonic animals and sometimes like rational humans?” but instead, “What are the general principles by which animals make decisions about opportunity costs?” (Gintis, 2007; Kurzban, Duckworth, Kable, & Myers, 2013; Monterosso & Luo, 2010).
In evolutionary biology and psychology, life-history theory describes broad principles concerning how all organisms make decisions about trade-offs that are consistent with reproductive success as the sole driver of evolutionary change (Daly & Wilson, 2005; Draper & Harpending, 1982). This approach asks how recurrent challenges adaptively shape decisions regarding opportunity trade-offs. For example, in reliable environments, waiting to eat a second marshmallow is likely to be beneficial. However, in environments in which rewards are uncertain, such as when experimenters are unreliable, eating the single marshmallow right away may be beneficial (Kidd, Palmeri, & Aslin, 2013). Thus, impulsivity can be understood as an adaptive response to the contingencies present in an unstable environment rather than a moral failure in which animalistic drives overwhelm human rationality."
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