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Misrepresentations of Evolutionary Psychology in Sex and Gender Textbooks

Misrepresentations of Evolutionary Psychology in Sex and Gender Textbooks Evolutionary psychology has provoked controversy, especially when applied to human sex differences. We hypothesize that this is partly due to misunderstandings of evolutionary psychology that are perpetuated by undergraduate sex and gender textbooks. As an initial test of this hypothesis, we develop a catalog of eight types of errors and document their occurrence in 15 widely used sex and gender textbooks. Consistent with our hypothesis, of the 12 textbooks that discussed evolutionary psychology, all contained at least one error, and the median number of errors was five. The most common types of errors were “Straw Man,” “Biological Determinism,” and “Species Selection.” We conclude by suggesting improvements to undergraduate sex and gender textbooks. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Evolutionary Psychology SAGE

Misrepresentations of Evolutionary Psychology in Sex and Gender Textbooks

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References (159)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© 2014 SAGE Publications Inc.
ISSN
1474-7049
eISSN
1474-7049
DOI
10.1177/147470491401200301
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Evolutionary psychology has provoked controversy, especially when applied to human sex differences. We hypothesize that this is partly due to misunderstandings of evolutionary psychology that are perpetuated by undergraduate sex and gender textbooks. As an initial test of this hypothesis, we develop a catalog of eight types of errors and document their occurrence in 15 widely used sex and gender textbooks. Consistent with our hypothesis, of the 12 textbooks that discussed evolutionary psychology, all contained at least one error, and the median number of errors was five. The most common types of errors were “Straw Man,” “Biological Determinism,” and “Species Selection.” We conclude by suggesting improvements to undergraduate sex and gender textbooks.

Journal

Evolutionary PsychologySAGE

Published: Jul 1, 2014

Keywords: textbooks; evolutionary psychology; sex differences; sex and gender studies

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