Evolutionary Psychology and Models of Explanation

Abstract

Buss makes bold claims that evolutionary psychology is emerging as a new metatheory that can unify and integrate all the diverse areas of psychology. One does not often see a claim of such scope, but the breadth of Buss's target article suggests that he is very serious about the matter and is not simply speaking in hyperbole. Interestingly, Buss's claim is not unique. A special issue of the American Psychologist (November 1992) was devoted to the legacy of B. F. Skinner and his impact on psychology. Several articles claimed that Skinner's radical behaviorism can serve as a guiding metatheory for most of the domains of psychology (e.g., Chiesa, 1992). Yet, very early in his target article, Buss implicitly criticizes Skinner's theory, indicating that the mechanisms that Skinner proposed are the most domain general ever conceived. Thus, within the year, we have two serious claims for the position of psychology's metatheory. When this sort of situation arises-namely, that extreme claims are made for one position or another-one has to be very wary of ideological intent and hidden assumptions. I approached Buss's article in this way, trying to decide on the crucial difference between what appears on the surface to be two plausible metaphors (or metatheories) for all psychology. Approaching the task in this way forces one to look at what is not said almost as carefully as at what is said. In ferreting out the ways in which evolutionary psychology might or might not serve as a metatheory, we need to examine Buss's central concept, psychological mechanism, and consider that concept within a frame of a model of explanation. We then need to consider whether Buss's approach might have stemmed from what Ryle (1949) called a category mistake.