Lance Workman

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Verified

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• BA DPhil
• Professor at University of South Wales

We are extremely fortunate in having such a range of high-quality writers who have tackled and added to our understanding of the relationship between evolution and human sexual and reproductive behaviour. In this brief review we examine ten influential books which have helped us to understand human reproductive behaviour through an understanding of...

Polygamy is a form of “one-sided” consensually non-monogamous relationship where one person has multiple committed partners, each of whom is only involved with that one person. It was likely a reoccurring feature of ancestral mating that posed adaptive problems for our ancestors. Yet polygamy, and multi-partnering more generally, is understudied in...

Book Review of Hidden games. Also interview with the authors.

In this review we examine psychology's early beginnings, tracing the influence of Greek philosophers through to the different schools of thought, each with their own research methods and theoretical dogma. Structuralism, functionalism, behaviourism, Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis were all popular approaches, and each provided in their own wa...

Psychopathy: The Basics is an accessible text that provides a compact introduction to the major findings and debates concerning this complex personality disorder. This book provides an overview of the field and covers a wide range of research findings from genetics to psychosocial developmental explanations. It begins with an exploration of the hi...

In recent years the growth and influence of evolutionary psychology has been astonishing. Concepts which have been developed by prominent evolutionary psychologists in recent years can generally be traced back, not to The Origin of Species, but to Darwin's two later books on evolution, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and...

In this chapter we provide a broadly chronological account of the relationship between evolutionary theory and considerations of human social development. We first examine the contribution of major theorists from Darwin to modern day evolutionary developmental psychologists. We then consider some current concerns and speculate about future developm...

The opening chapter provides an introduction to what cognitive psychology entails and how the processing of information is expressed through thought, language and memory formation. In so doing it will act as an umbrella chapter introducing the topics covered in the remaining chapters. Chapter 2 will provide a solid account of the relationship betwe...

Misconceptions concerning the relationship between genes and behaviour are widespread. Such misconceptions include the notion that evolutionary biologists and psychologists subscribe to genetic determinism. In contrast to this view, much progress has been made in elucidating the interactive nature of genes and environment. In particular behavioural...

While evolutionary psychology is a fascinating science, it is also often misunderstood. In this highly acclaimed undergraduate textbook, Workman and Reader assume no prior knowledge of evolution and instead carefully guide students towards a level of understanding where they can critically apply evolutionary theory to psychological explanation. The...

This study investigated the effect of regional accent on the perception of intelligence and physical attractiveness. Previous research suggests that, in the UK, there is a link between a person's accent and their perceived level of intelligence, with speakers of 'Received Pronunciation' (RP) being considered to be cleverer than those with regional...

In recent years a number of investigations have considered why some individuals, both juvenile and adult, are drawn to the act of fire-setting. Here we briefly review two investigations into the causes and classification of fire-setting. The first investigation presents a classification system for child and juvenile fire-starters, while the second...

The transformative wave of Darwinian insight continues to expand throughout the human sciences. While still centered on evolution-focused fields such as evolutionary psychology, ethology, and human behavioral ecology, this insight has also influenced cognitive science, neuroscience, feminist discourse, sociocultural anthropology, media studies, and...

Altruism is of great interest to evolutionary psychologists because of the apparent dilemma it presents to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, a dilemma he acknowledged “if it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could...

In this chapter we consider how developments in evolutionary theory might be applied to help us understand why some people gravitate towards criminal behavior. Sociologists generally explain the emergence of criminal behavior in terms of responses to unfavourable societal factors. In contrast, social and developmental psychologists explain such beh...

Crime consists of acts which contravene the human moral code and statutory law. Evolutionary principles such as conflict and kin selection, reciprocation, sexual selection, parental investment theory, and strategies to outcompete rivals are used to explain the evolution of crime and criminality.

The life of Charles Darwin is examined including his education, main writings, and influences.

In Seasonal Affective Disorder an individual's mood varies with the seasons such that the sufferer is often 'up-beat' in summer, being high spirited and full of energy but, in contrast, depressed in winter with low spirit and lethargy. Today it is considered that much of the population varies in mood with the seasons and that this is associated wit...

Mock juror studies have been used to help elucidate our understanding of how people come to make decisions concerning the extent of guilt of an accused. One area of debate concerns the relative merits of evidential and non-evidential information in this decision making process. In the current study, 155 (79 males, 74 females) participants read one...

This study explores the application of the FBI's organised-disorganised classification to North-American and European male serial killers. Adopting the same method as Taylor, Lambeth, Green, Bone and Cahillane's 2012 study, 52 crime scene criteria were used to categorise the murders committed by 25 male European and 25 male North-American serial ki...

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder characterised by significant intellectual disability. Initial studies indicate that children with WS have a profound bias for information in the top left of visual arrays. Study 1, using a visuospatial memory test for items presented in a 3 × 3 matrix, found a significant top left bias in WS children r...

Based on initial research findings by Williams and Bargh (2008) and Kang, Williams, Clark, Gray and Bargh (2011) on the interaction between interpersonal and physical warmth, theoretical models such as cognitive scaffolding and the importance of evaluations of interpersonal warmth in trust-based decisions, this experiment investigated the effect of...

There is a great amount of research on hemispheric lateralisation for processing emotions and on the recognition of emotions across the lifespan. However, few researchers have explored the links between these two measures. This paper highlights how trends in these two research areas inform our understanding of how lateralisation for emotion process...

A previous study by Workman, Chilvers, Yeomans, and Taylor (2006), using the "Universal" Chimeric Faces Task (UCFT) for six emotional expressions, demonstrated that an overall left hemispatial/right hemisphere (RH) advantage has begun to develop by the age of 7-8. Moreover, the development of this left hemispatial advantage was observed to correlat...

Using a tachistoscopic split-field paradigm, hemifield asymmetry for single word recognition was examined in monolingual English speakers and in fluent bilingual English-Welsh speakers. A robust right hemifield advantage was found for both groups and both languages. Among bilinguals, the laterality index was significantly greater for Welsh than for...

In contrast to research into the development of language laterality, there has been relatively little research into the development of lateralisation of emotional processing. If language lateralisation begins in childhood and is complete by puberty (Lenneberg, 1967) it seems reasonable that the lateralisation of the perception of emotions might als...

The finding of the same language deficit in half the members of the KE family is taken as suggesting that a specific allele (FOXP2) is normally involved in the development of language. Recent studies, however, question the exclusivity of FOXP2, and it is argued that the finding of a gene that disrupts language should not be taken as strong evidence...

This textbook offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the complex but fascinating science of evolutionary psychology. By focusing on the way mind and behavior have developed and adapted to evolutionary pressures the authors show the relevance of an evolutionary approach to all areas of psychology and have created a stand-alone text th...

In 1991 John Major's UK government announced that the binary divide in UK higher education was to be phased out as polytechnics would be given permission by the Privy Council to apply for university status. But has the binary divide really ceased to exist in higher education? Given that the ‘old’ universities typically ask for higher A-level grades...

The low incidence of intraspecific combat in territorial systems has traditionally been accounted for by theories that emphasize the bio-energetic advantages or the diminished risk of injury of threat display posture when compared with combat. Recently, however, it has been suggested that territory-holding passerines engaging in highly aggressive d...

Paradis (1992) likens studies of bilingual laterality to reported sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, in that although some studies claim differential laterality much conflicting research evidence does not-and like the mythical Scottish monster, what reason have we to suspect that any such phenomenon might exist? This study reexamines differential...

In order to test the hypothesis that monolinguals differ from bilinguals in their pattern of language lateralisation and to examine the relative merits of language-acquisitional versus language-specific factors, two experiments involving divided screen presentation of two languages were conducted using Welsh/English speaking participants. In the fi...

Previous studies using a restricted range of split field chimeric faces suggest that the processing of facial emotional expressions is a highly lateralised phenomenon. Two theories have emerged with regard to the role the two cerebral hemispheres play in this processing. The "right hemisphere" hypothesis (e.g. Borod, Koff, Lorch, & Nicholas, 1988)...

Chicks raised by a broody hen can see social fellows (mother, sibs) to whom they might attach, only during emergence from under the mother. Chicks raised by a hen showed longest emergences when in broods of 1-2, shortest in broods of 3-4 and longer again in broods > 4. As a result, the first visual experience of any length was on day 2 for broods >...

Recent studies of Intelligent Quotient (IQ) self predictions have revealed clear differences between male and female undergraduates perceptions of both their own and their parents’ abilities (Higgins, 1987; Beloff, 1992). In both studies females consistently rated themselves as lower in IQ than their male counterparts. Furthermore, both sexes consi...

Tested footedness in domestic chickens and budgerigars, using a method similar to that of O. Gunturkun et al (see record 1989-04105-001). The budgerigars did not exhibit a species bias of foot use. However, 10-day old domestic chicks did show a population bias of right footedness. Observation of 6 chicks of a feral strain also showed a right foot...

The rate at which 2- and 3-day-old chicks peck potential food items is not influenced by the process of beak-trimming. Beak-trimmed chicks, however, swallowed a significantly lower proportion of the seeds with which they made beak contact than non-beak-trimmed controls. Pecking preferences of controls appeared to be independent of nutritive reward...

Chicks reared by a broody hen under semi-natural conditions showed sharp changes in behaviour at ages when there are sharp changes in lateralization of function in the central nervous system. On day 8 of life sustained examination of mobile objects (other than the mother) appeared suddenly and peaked. Day 8 was also the day when there was unique bi...

Domestic chickens reared from eggs kept in darkness during the last 3 days of incubation developed a more flexible group structure than those which have received light exposure during this period. Position in the social hierarchy was scored in terms of competition for access to a food source on Days 8–16 of post-hatching life. Groups of chicks expo...

Examined eye preference during courtship in 44 testosterone-treated domestic chicks and in 12 male zebra finches. Observations of both types of birds provide evidence for the theory that lateralization of function in the central nervous system (CNS) of birds might be accompanied by preferential use of right or left eye according to need. (PsycINFO...

The response was observed of territory-holding male European Robins ETithacus rubecula to red— and brown-breasted model Robins which were presented either simultaneously with tape-recorded Robin song, or with no song. Robins displayed and sang at the silent red-breasted model, but sang and displayed much more at the models that were presented with...