Applying the Concept of Adaptation to Societal Differences in Intelligence

Abstract

The concept of adaptation has been defined too rigidly by evolutionary psychologists so as to exclude modern conditions. This article proposes a more flexible, and useful, application of the term.Among animals with extensive social learning, adaptations must include behaviors that enhance current fitness on average (rather than over the distant past). Because the content of social learning is non genetic, it is selected directly via the phenotype and immediate fitness consequences. Used thus, the concept of adaptation provides a viable research strategy for investigating differences among modern societies. These concepts are illustrated concerning intelligence as a function of the varied cognitive demands of different societies. The author concludes that societal variation in intelligence (including the Flynn effect) is best understood in terms of responses by individuals to varied levels of cognitive enrichment. Research on intelligence thus illustrates the value of a more flexible definition of adaptation than the genetic-determinist one preferred by most evolutionary psychologists.