DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Knowledge of Social Psychology

 

Class: Evolutionary Psychology

Professor/Supervisor: Dr. Lindsey Osterman

Semester: Fall 2014

Assignment Description: Conduct a mini study related to evolutionary psychology (options were given to students for us to choose from) and write a 3-4 page report on the theory behind the study, the procedures, and the results of the study.

 

Excerpt: (Taken from "Introduction" section.) "Evolutionary psychology provides a great deal of ideas about mating relationships and parent-child relationships, but it also demonstrates themes in relationships between grandparents and grandchildren. According to the principles of paternity uncertainty, grandparents with more paternity certainty will invest more into their grandchildren. Maternal grandmothers have no uncertain links while maternal grandfathers and paternal grandmothers both have one uncertain link and paternal grandfathers have two uncertain links. As a result, maternal grandmothers will invest the most, and paternal grandfathers will invest the least. The data collected by Bishop and colleagues (2009) illustrated this phenomena, but they found no significant difference between maternal grandfathers and paternal grandmothers. Danielsbacka and colleagues (2011), however, did find a significant difference in degree of investment between maternal grandfathers and paternal grandmothers when the latter had other grandchildren through a daughter. Michalski and Shackelford (2005) supported some of the findings of these articles; they found that maternal grandmothers invest the most in grandchildren and additionally that individual grandparents reported investing more in their daughters’ children than their sons’ children."

 

Reflection: For this study, I questioned five female Roanoke College studeents whose grandparents were all alive at least until they became teenagers. I was not sure how closely my results would fit with the expected pattern, but they fit very well, affirming the evolutionary theory of grandparental investment. Working on this assignment supplemented what I had learned about this topic in class and through the textbook, and I noticed that after completing it, I could describe this theory much more easily. Additionally, through this assignment, I was able to practice analyzing data and reporting statistics, two key skills in research. Writing this paper greatly increased my confidence in my ability to write scientific articles and made me more confident in my knowledge of evolutionary theories of social interaction.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.