Origins of comparative developmental evolutionary studies of primate mental abilities

Abstract

This chapter traces the origins of a new research program in comparative developmental evolutionary psychology (CDEP). This new program integrates frameworks from developmental psychology and evolutionary biology for the purpose of studying the ontogeny of mental abilities in monkeys and apes and reconstructing the evolution of primate mental abilities. Because CDEP addresses issues that were suppressed during the professionalization of psychology and anthropology, it should be seen in relation to the fate of the 19th-century evolutionary psychology and anthropology of Darwin, Wallace, Haeckel, and Spencer. Nineteenth-century evolutionary psychology and anthropology Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was a developmental psychologist, a physical anthropologist, a comparative psychologist, and an ethologist as well as a naturalist and taxonomist. His developmental approach can be seen in his use of comparative embryological data (Darwin, 1859) and in his article “A Biological Sketch of an Infant” (1877, reprinted in Gruber, 1981). His comparative psychological and ethological approach can be seen in his discussion of instinct (Darwin, 1859) and in his discussion of the evolution of facial expressions (Darwin, 1872). His physical anthropological approach can be seen in his discussion of the origins of human mental powers and the origins of racial differences (Darwin, 1871). Darwin conceived of both natural selection and sexual selection, but never resolved the mystery of inheritance. Although he recognized that variation was prerequisite to selection and saw that spontaneous variations arose, he also invoked the Lamarckian mechanism of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.