Evolutionary Explanations and Animal Models in Research

The biological approach asks not only how behavior is produced by the brain and body, but also why certain behaviors exist at all. Evolutionary psychology offers one answer: that many human behaviors and predispositions exist because they were adaptive, helping our ancestors survive and reproduce in ancestral environments. This lesson examines evolutionary explanations of behavior, uses disgust as a case study, and then considers the important and ethically charged role of animal models in biological research.

The core mechanism of evolutionary explanation is natural selection, first described by Charles Darwin. Organisms vary; some variations are heritable; and individuals with variations that improve survival and reproduction tend to leave more offspring, so those traits become more comm