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Is evolutionary psychology a scientic revolution? A
bibliometric response to Buss (2020)
Andrea Zagaria ( andrea.zagaria@unitn.it )
University of Trento https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0781-1557
Research Article
Keywords: evolutionary psychology, paradigm, standard social science model, paradigm, Kuhn,
philosophy of science
Posted Date: November 7th, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3569018/v1
License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Is evolutionary psychology a scientific revolution? A bibliometric response to Buss (2020)
Andrea Zagaria¹
¹Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Andrea Zagaria, Department
of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Corso Bettini, 31 – 38068
Rovereto (TN), E-mail: andrea.zagaria@unitn.it
ORCID:
Andrea Zagaria: 0000-0002-0781-1557
Funding:No financial support has been received from any agency.
Conflict of Interest: Andrea Zagaria declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Ethics approval: This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals
performed by any of the authors.
Consent for Publication
All the authors mentioned in the manuscript have agreed for authorship, read and approved
the manuscript, and given consent for submission and subsequent publication of the
manuscript.
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
Abstract
In recent times, David Buss (2020) has claimed that Evolutionary Psychology (EP)
represents a genuine "scientific revolution," drawing parallels with the Kuhnian
concept. This paper aims to empirically examine Buss's assertion by conducting a
bibliometric analysis of the prevalence of the evolutionary approach in Psychology. EP
(broadly defined) is juxtaposed with its classical counterpart, the Standard Social
Science Model (SSSM). According to Kuhn's framework, a discipline undergoing a
scientific revolution evolves into the dominant school of thought, eclipsing all other
theories. Contrary to Buss's contention, the analysis uncovers that the SSSM enjoys
significantly greater prominence than EP and is advancing at a swifter pace. The data
also indicates a “cultural evolutionary” approach is somewhat lacking (i.e.
cross-fertilization between EP and SSSM is not evident). Despite sharing the aspiration
for an evolutionary revolution in psychology, it is contended that, for this purpose, a
prudent approach involves recognizing the current status of affairs, envisioning
realistic change, and building a more methodologically diverse research community.
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
In a recent thought-provoking paper, David Buss (2020), one of the founders of
Evolutionary Psychology (EP), claimed that EP is the sole viable metatheory in Psychology.
The evolutionary framework has been elected as a candidate for a psychological metatheory
for several years now, albeit from various viewpoints (e.g., Badcock 2012; Buss 1995;
Caporael 2001; Cosmides, Tooby & Barkow, 1992; Dunbar and Barrett 2007; Duntley and
Buss 2008; Tooby & Cosmides 1992; Zagaria, Ando’ & Zennaro, 2020). However, the recent
claims by Buss are rather lapidary; from them, it seems that it is not desirable for EP to
become a metatheory, but that it is already a paradigm/metatheory: “Evolutionary psychology
truly is a scientific revolution providing a fundamental paradigm shift and remains today the
only cogent metatheory for understanding the complexities of the human mind and all of its
multifaceted components” (Buss, 2020, p. 316, my emphases).
Buss also added that EP has a “mountain of evidence” (Buss, 2020, p. 321); and that it
is a “seismic theoretical shift, a new paradigm that fundamentally alters how scientists view
their subject matter” (Buss, 2020, p. 316). Although Buss never mentions Thomas Kuhn’s
Structure of Scientific Revolution (Kuhn,1962/1996), it is implicit that he is referring to
Kuhn’s theory when he mentions paradigms,paradigm shifts,scientific revolutions, and
parallels EP with Copernicus’ heliocentric theory.
The aim of this paper is to confront Buss’ claim with empirical evidence, contrasting it
with its “rival”, the Standard Social Sciences Model (SSSM). The goal is not to disconfirm the
revolutionary potential of EP; on the contrary, it is contended that if we understand the actual
status of EP among the psychological sciences, we could serve more realistically the aim of
EP as a future paradigm for Psychology.
Note that with “EP” I will refer, throughout the entire paper, to a “broad sense
evolutionary psychology” (e.g. Zagaria, Ando’ & Zennaro, 2020), not specifically anchored to
particular theoretical or methodological assumptions. EP will refer to “evolutionary behavioral
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
sciences” broadly defined (i.e. evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology,
dual-inheritance theory, etc…), which, despite claims to the contrary (e.g. Buller, 2007), have
been empirically demonstrated to be sufficiently homogeneous (Machery & Cohen, 2012).
What blends together all these different research traditions under the same umbrella concept is
the assumption that mind and behavior are significantly shaped by phylogenesis and by genes,
i.e.: in order to understand human behavior properly, we can not ignore evolution. This kind
of claim is not accepted, on the other hand, by the SSSM (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992).
Keeping in mind this broad distinction, we will consider as “evolutionary-informed” other
parallel disciplines, such as behavioral genetics, ethology, or animal cognition. A similar
“broad” inclusion will be also guaranteed to the SSSM (see Method section).
What is a scientific revolution? Some clues from Kuhn (1962/1996)
Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a landmark in the philosophy of science.
It changed radically the way scientists look at their practice (Bird, 2022). Even though it has
received extensive criticism in the field, and other popular theories about scientific progress
are available (e.g., Lakatos, 1978), the Kuhnian perspective on the history of science remains
extremely popular among psychologists (Driver-Linn, 2003).
According to Kuhn, scientific progress can be described as going roughly through
five/six stages. The first stage is the pre-paradigmatic one, in which different “competing
schools and subschools” (Kuhn, 1962/1996, p.12) disagree over fundamentals - although they
base their research on the scientific method. Kuhn refers to physical optics before Newton as
an example of a pre-paradigmatic science. Epicurean, Aristotelian, and Platonic theories were
all about light, but having different ontologies (i.e., what light is) they were non-unified and
contrasting (Kuhn, 1962/1996).
The second stage is that of the “scientific revolution”, in which a school (e.g., the one
initiated by Newton’s Optics) takes over the other ones, especially because it is the one having
3
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
the best explanatory power over some phenomena that could not be explained/predicted
according to other ontologies and methodologies. The emerging paradigm may encounter
different oppositions, both for scientific, sociological, or psychological reasons, but eventually
prevails and becomes the norm.
The third stage is that of “normal science”. The paradigm, now accepted, is the
“normal” lens through which scientists interpret (and solve) problems (an activity labeled by
Kuhn as “puzzle-solving”). Kuhn (1962/1996) indicated some indices related to a scientific
revolution have become a paradigm. First, the now-accepted theories and laws are exposed in
introductory textbooks to the discipline and are the principal means through which a young
researcher is educated in the practice of science. As a consequence, scholars do not need any
more to justify their choices/the theories and methodology they rely on, because these
fundamentals are taken for granted. Third, scholars who do not accept the paradigm proceed in
isolation, or attach themselves to some marginal groups.
Normal science continues in puzzle-solving as long as a certain number of anomalies
(facts that cannot be explained through the paradigm’s usual ontology and methodology)
accumulate, to the point that the science enters a stage of crisis (fourth stage). If a new set of
theories/methodologies eventually demonstrate to have more explanatory power than the
previous paradigm, then a scientific revolution occurs again (fifth stage) to the point that a
new “normal science” is instantiated (sixth stage). Phase 4-5-6 can virtually perpetuate
themselves endlessly, even though such seismic paradigm shifts are very rare and occur over a
relatively long period of time.
Is EP a scientific revolution?
Buss seems to espouse a similar narrative to the history of Psychology, seeing
behaviorism as the first paradigm, superseded then by cognitivism and eventually by EP
(Buss, 2020, p. 317, 318). However, this linear characterization of the History of Psychology
4
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
is at odds with an impressive number of claims of disunification and fragmentation of the
field, which have been around since the inception of Psychology and that define it as a
pre-paradigmatic discipline (e.g., Cronbach 1957, Heidbreder 1933; Henriques, 2011; James
1894, Kuhn, 1962/1996; Miller, 1985, Koch, 1993; Vygotsky, 1927/2004; Toomela, 2020;
Zagaria, Ando’ & Zennaro, 2020). These claims, rather than being impressions, have been
shown to be empirically founded (Friman et al., 1993; Kiselica & Ruscio, 2014; Robin et al.,
1999, Tracey et al., 2005; Spear, 2007; Zagaria & Lombardi, 2023).
Moreover, EP seems to fail on two of the three Kuhnian indexes of a normal science
previously exposed. First, evolutionary principles are more and more illustrated in
introductory textbooks to Psychology, but they are misrepresented about 70% of the time as of
2004 (Cornwell et al., 2005), which is not exactly a good sign of the reception of EP among
the wider context of Psychology. Also, evolutionary biology is still not taught in the majority
of behavioral science degrees (Tooby, 2020), so the evolutionary approach is far from being
the customary introduction to the practice of Psychology.
Secondly, evolutionary psychologists still dedicate a huge amount of their scientific
effort to exposing the basic tenets of evolutionary theory/ justifying their methodology before
getting to the actual gist of their contribution (for recent examples, see: Del Giudice, 2018;
Lukaszewski, 2021; Simpson & Belsky, 2016). This happens to the degree that many papers,
even in high-influential journals, had to be introduced with a brief outline of basic
evolutionary principles (e.g., Lukaszewski et al., 2020), which clearly means that the majority
of psychologists are not accustomed to/do not understand EP.
Eventually, a paradigm shift implies a profound shift in the endorsement of a
particular theory by the scientific community. Kuhn (1962/1996) underscores how a scientific
revolution resulting in a paradigm shift entails that proponents of theories not aligned with the
dominant one "gradually disappear" or continue their work in obscurity. In other words, the
5
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
most reliable indicator to identify a scientific paradigm is its prominence: if a school of
thought overwhelmingly dominates over others, then it signifies a scientific revolution that has
resulted in a paradigm.
EP vs the Standard Social Science Model
One of the most effective ways to evaluate a theory's potential to become a new
paradigm is to compare its performance with its competitors. It has been considered that the
most suitable approach to test the potential revolutionary character of evolutionary psychology
(EP) is by examining it in contrast to its archetypal rival: the Standard Social Science Model
(SSSM). Since its inception, EP has had its major dialectical counterpart in the SSSM. The
SMSS is aptly characterized by Tooby & Cosmides (1992) as an approach that gives the
primacy of explanatory power to culture/social dynamics/learned behaviors over innate
predispositions/instincts/biological motivations.
The SSSM is traditionally represented by scholars such as Durkheim and more
contemporarily Clifford Geertz. The assumption is that to understand human behavior, we
have to look chiefly at the social and cultural dynamics rather than at innate predispositions
(Tooby & Cosmides, 1992). According to the SSSM, nature is:
"merely the indeterminate material that the social factor molds and
transforms. [This] contribution consists exclusively in very general
attitudes, in vague and consequently plastic predispositions which, by
themselves, if other agents did not intervene, could not take on the definite
and complex forms which characterize social phenomena" (Durkheim,
1895/1962, p. 106, as cited by Tooby & Cosmides, 1992, p.7)
The SSSM is still largely popular nowadays, even among researchers in the
neuroscience area, who preferably lean toward a domain-general/blank-state vision of the
6
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
human mind (Tooby, 2020). When talking about the debate about sex and gender, Del Giudice
labels feminist theories as “dominant” (Del Giudice, 2021, p. 2). An analysis of “hot topics”
in Psychology sees cultural psychology as dramatically rising in the last years, but no
reference to EP, strictly speaking, can be found (Bittermann & Fischer, 20181). We, therefore,
expect SSSM to be likely more cited than EP contributions, thus undermining the latter as a
paradigm shift.
Method
Aligning with a significant line of research of investigations of the prominence of
subdisciplines in Psychology (Friman, Allen, Kerwin, and Larzelere, 1993; Robins, Gosling,
and Craik, 1999; Tracy, Robins, and Gosling, 2005; Singer, 2022; Spear, 2007; Webster, 2007;
Zagaria & Lombardi, 2023) the paper uses bibliometric tools to attest the prominence of EP
and SSSM respectively. The idea behind these bibliometrics indexes is that a sub-discipline
(such as cognitivism, behaviorism, EP, or SSSM) is more prominent within psychological
studies if it is mentioned more frequently.
A subdiscipline can be operationalized in different ways: selecting influential journals
that represent it (e.g., Cognitive Psychology for the cognitive approach; e.g. Friman et al.,
1993) or selecting some search keywords representing it (for instance, “cognit*” for
cognitivism2; e.g. Robins, Gosling, and Craik, 1993). Then, the count of mentions to a given
subdiscipline can be investigated in PsycInfo in different sources - e.g. “flagships” journals
(e.g. Tracy, Robins, and Gosling, 2005), convenience journals (e.g. Webster, 2007),
2With the use of the wildcard *, PsycINFO will automatically search terms that start with this stem, such as
psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic, etc.
1Scrutinizing the Electronic Supplementary Material 2 of the paper, we do find a topic that could be related to
evolutionary psychology (topic 430); however, no info is given about is trend (increasing, stable or decreasing);
for sure it is not increasing as much as the topic of cultural psychology.
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
dissertations (e.g. Tracy, Robins, and Gosling, 2005), all indexed peer-reviewed journals (e.g.
Spear, 2007), etc (see Zagaria & Lombardi, 2023).
Each value associated with an approach (e.g. EP vs SSSM) is usually determined by
the ratio of papers labeled as "subdiscipline-laden” divided by the total number of papers
published in the same source. For instance, if journal X published 200 papers in 1983 and
there were 50 EP publications among them as identified through the operationalization, that
would mean that 25% of journal X's total output in 1983 that year was evolutionary.
Eventually, the relative frequencies are then registered and plotted over time. Usually,
the interpretation of the graphs is mainly qualitative/eye-balled, but some regression analysis
of the significance of the intercept and the slopes within journals/across journals over time can
be done as well (e.g. Webster, 2007).
The specific method implemented in the current work is inspired by Zagaria &
Lombardi (2023), who elaborated a rigorous and systematic protocol to address the limitations
of previous studies. First, a) specific words were selected by consulting the APA Thesaurus to
identify optimal "descriptor terms" for both EP and the SSSM. Then, b) the keywords were
inputted in specific “field codes” for the actual research, and eventually c) the percentage of
subdiscipline-laden contributions was plotted over time.
Regarding the first step a, the APA Thesaurus is the official lexicon adopted by the
American Psychological Association, and it controls for redundancy and specificity (i.e. some
specific variants of words are univocally decided to match a specific concept - for instance,
work-related injuries is the official name that designs “work-related injuries”, “workplace
injuries", "occupational injuries" and "occupational-related injuries”). The APA Theusaurs has
been proven to be a valid source in scientometric studies (Bitterman & Fisher 2018).
In the first step, the following terms from the APA Thesaurus were considered:
●Evolutionary Psychology
8
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
●Sociocultural Factors3
Each word was examined along with all its "related terms" and "narrower terms."
Additionally, the "related terms" and "narrower terms" of the initial "narrower terms" and
"related terms" were considered. The collected terms can be found in Appendix A, available at
this link: [Appendix A
(https://osf.io/3jpvu/?view_only=9f9be7a1555b43e9a497f38c73c345b1)].
Among the wide variety of names, the 20 terms that best matched EP and the SSSM
were:
●for EP: animal behavior* OR animal behaviour*, animal cognition*, animal
communication*, behavioral genetic* OR behavioural genetic*, breeding,
darwinis*, etholog*, evolut*, heritability, human behavioral ecology OR human
behavioural ecology, interspecies, instinct*, life history, mating OR mate OR
mates, natural selection, phylogen*, population genetics, sexual selection,
sociobiolog*, species
●for SSSM: acculturation, critical race theory, cultur*, feminis*, gender identit*,
gender role*, intersectionality, majority group*, microaggression*, minority
group*, patriarch*, racis*, sex role*, sexis*, social capital, social categoriz*, social
discriminat*, social identit*, sociocultural, transcultural psychiatry
Note that the same term has been expanded through the use of wildcard “*” and
different orthographies have been specified when necessary (as is the case for “behavior” or
3“Cultural Psychology” would have been a better choice; however, it is not present at the time speaking in the
APA Thesaurus. Cross-Cultural psychology, on the other hand would not have been a good operationalizations of
the SSSM, as cross-cultural investigations are one of the main means of EP.
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
“behaviour”). Also, when the wild card was not an appropriate solution (e.g. mat* for
“mating”, “mate”, “mates” would have returned also “maths”, “mathematical”, etc) the single
orthographies are specified. Note also that “human behavioral ecology”, “sexual selection”,
and “life history” were forcedly included in the EP words even though they are not included in
the APA Thesaurus because of their importance in the evolutionary behavioral sciences.
Control has been exercised to account for the emerging "cultural evolutive" research
paradigm, which represents the intersection of both genetic/evolutionary and environmentalist
assumptions (e.g., Zagaria, 2021). To achieve this, a search has been conducted in which all
the terms of EP and SSSM will be combined (EP-keywords AND SSSM keywords). This
helped in identifying papers that belong to the intersection of the EP and SSSM paradigm.
Subtracting this intersection between the two paradigms from the normal search, “purer”
indexes of “only EP” vs “only SSSM” contributions were also obtained.
The "unqualified search" method - i.e. typing the keyword into the search bar without
further qualifications - was not used; for the limitations of this approach, see Zagaria &
Lombardi (2023). Instead, a focus on the specific field codes was favored. "Field codes" are
specific parts of a document. For instance, AB stands for abstract, TI for the paper's title, and
KW for keywords selected by the authors. PsycInfo has also “special” field codes, such as
subject keywords officially chosen by the APA Thesaurus (DE) (see Burman, 2018) and
Medical Subject Headings (MESH) used by PubMed as its controlled vocabulary. For the
current study, the following field codes were selected: Abstract [AB], Keywords/Key
Concepts/Identifiers [KW], Title [TI], Subjects/Subject Headings/Index Terms [DE], and
Medical Subject Headings [MA]4. See Appendix B for the specific syntaxes
4We conducted the analysis using the Ebsco platform. It should be noted that the acronym for the field code may
vary slightly across different platforms. However, these field codes should remain consistent across platforms
(APA, n.d.b). Please also note that when searching by field code, the "apply equivalent subject" option in Ebsco
10
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
https://osf.io/3jpvu/?view_only=9f9be7a1555b43e9a497f38c73c345b1). This new method
was chosen because it is more reliable and can be easily replicated in comparison to the
unqualified search.
Eventually, in order to control for the “noise” that using such a wide array of keywords
could have introduced (e.g. an abstract mentioning racism would have qualified as SSSM, an
abstract mentioning the “evolution” of a given practice would have been labeled as EP), a
more “specific” search using a restricted set of keywords5investigated only the field code
[DE] (Subjects)6. The “Subject” field code is the most reliable in PsycInfo (Burman, 2018).
Also in this search, the intersection of EP and SSSM contributions has been investigated (see
Appendix B).
As for the sources investigated, all peer-reviewed journals in PsycInfo were chosen, like
Spear (2007) and Zagaria & Lombardi (2023) did. The aim was indeed to track the trends in
the entire field of Psychology, so focusing on specific sources (e.g. highly influential journals,
Ph.D. dissertations) would have been misleading. The time period investigated was
1950-2022. The citations will be computed four years per decade (i.e. 1950, 1952, 1955, 1958;
1960, 1962, 1965, 1968, etc) until getting to 2022. The lower bound (1950) is in line with past
6The search on PsycInfo through EBSCO presents a minor issue with the DE code. This issue caused searches
within the DE field code to also include MESH terms (MA field code) (Zagaria & Lombardi, 2023; APA
personal communication, November 2022). Since MESH terms are also controlled for lexicon, this should have
no substantial consequences on the search.
5Specifically, behavioral human ecology, life history, and sexual selection were removed from the EP set, as they
are not part of the APA thesaurus. Social identity, transcultural psychiatry, and social categorization were
removed too from the SSSM set, in order to maintain a balance of terms between the two approaches.
advanced search is automatically deactivated. This option usually matches unspecified terms to their official
counterparts in the APA Thesaurus.
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
research (Friman et al., 1999; Tracy et al., 2004) and it roughly delimits post-World War II
trends, which are the focus of interest.
As the sample coincides with the population of interest, a qualitative interpretation of
the graphs seems to be the elective choice. However, statistical tests have been used when an
eye-balled solution did not reveal clear results (e.g. not understanding clearly if a growth is
statistically significantly different from zero or not).
Results
The results have been plotted in Figures 1, 2, 3,4. Detailed data can be consulted in
Appendix C (https://osf.io/3jpvu/?view_only=9f9be7a1555b43e9a497f38c73c345b1).
An eye-ball investigation of trends of evolutionary contributions in all selected
PsycInfo field codes (Figure 1, green line) reveals a scattered but stable growth, fluctuating
around 3% from 1950 to 1990, and then growing and reaching 4% in 2005, a quote that
remains approximately constant until 2020. Past studies have indeed shown a statistically
significant increase in evolutionary-laden contributions (as operationalized in “evolut*”
unqualified search in PsycInfo) in a convenience sample of neuroscientific journals (Webster,
2007). On the other hand, the increase in SSSM (red line) is much more dramatic, going from
roughly 5% in the period 1950-1968 and then going up to about 11% in 2005, and then
stabilizing at about 10%.
The intersection between EP and SSSM approaches (a sort of “cultural evolutionary”
approach, blue line) fluctuates around 0, which dubious increase through an eye-ball
interpretation. An OLS regression with years as the independent variable and
logit-transformed percentage as the outcome variable (Warton & Hui, 2011)7was run in order
7As some of percentage were 0%, I elaborated the logit function using proportions obtained by adding 1 to the
raw number of papers divided by the total number of paper, in order to have proportions that were not exactly 0
and using the minimum proportion useful at stake (Warton & Hui, 2011).
12
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
Figure 1
Evolutionary Psychology and the Standard Social Science Model in Mainstream
Psychology
to see if the increase was statistically significant. Only linear trends were considered
because investigating polynomial trends would have introduced an unnecessary degree of
complication in the interpretation of the results. Moreover, the qualitative investigation of the
graphs did not support nonlinear trends as regards EP and SSSM in this figure. The model was
13
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
significant (R² = .48, F(1,28) = 26.38, p. < 0.01); both intercept and slope were too (p.
<0.01). After back transforming the slope through exponentiation, the interpretation was that
as a unit increase of a year, there was a 0.01% in the percentage of publications, which means
that each year EP & SSSM significantly increased by 0.01%.
As regards the gap between the two approaches, Figure 2 offers a detailed comparison
(ratio between SSSM and EP papers in all PsycInfo field codes).
Figure 2
Ratio between SSSM and EP papers PsycInfo - all field codes
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
The “peak” in 1968 is likely due to the high number of culturally relevant keywords
introduced in that year (table 1), but if that is left behind as an “artifact” a more stable and
linear growth can be appreciated. Overall, we can see that SSSM contributions are on average
more than two times EP contributions (mean 2.20) and that the hiatus also steadily increases
as the years go on, reaching about 2.5 times nowadays.
Table 1
Year of Introduction in the APA Thesaurus of SSSM and EP-related terms
SSSM terms
Year of Introduction
EP terms
Year of Introduction
Acculturation
2003
Animal Behavior
1973
Critical race theory
2022
Animal Breeding
1973
Culture
(Anthropological)
1967
Animal Cognition
2008
Feminism
1978
Animal
Communication
1967
Gender Identity
1985
Animal Ethology
1967
Gender roles
1997
Animal Mating
Behavior
1967
Intersectionality
2021
Behavioral Genetics
1994
Majority Groups
2012
Darwinism
1973
Microaggression
2015
Theory of Evolution
1967
Minority Groups
1967
Heritability
2005
Patriarchy
1973
Human Behavioral
Ecology
//
Racism
1973
Interspecies
Interaction
1991
Sex Roles
1967
Instinctive Behavior
1982
Sexism
1988
Life History
//
Social Capital
2004
Natural Selection
1997
Social Categorization
2020
Phylogenesis
1973
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
Social Discrimination
1982
Population Genetics
1973
Social Identity
1988
Sexual selection
//
Sociocultural Factors
1967
Sociobiology
1982
Transcultural
psychiatry
1973
Species Recognition
1985
Note. We only noted the main terms, but our search could also have detected related terms in
the APA thesaurus. For instance, the search “feminis*” match for the APA thesaurus lexicon
Feminism (year of introduction: 1978), Feminist Psychology (2007), and Feminist Therapy
(1994). In other cases, the term was wider than the original terms (e.g., “breeding” instead of
“Animal Breeding”. Also notice that as anticipated Human Behavioral Ecology, Life History,
and Sexual Selection are not included in the APA Thesaurus.
In Figure 3, specifically dedicated to PsycInfo Subjects field code (DE), we can see that
EP (green line) evolved disorderly from 0% in 1950 to 0.5% in 2015 (with a downward
fluctuation from 1975 to 1980, and then an upward fluctuation again). EP seems to be
dramatically increasing from 2018 onward and in 2020/2022 peaked at 1/1.5%. The recent
introduction of many APA Thesaurus keywords can not explain this tendency. The only
“recent” EP keywords introduced in the APA Thesaurus have been “animal cognition” [2008],
evolutionary psychology [2003], and “heritability” [2005]. All the other keywords have been
introduced before (Table 1). Also, many SSSM-related keywords have been introduced even
more lately (e.g. “microaggression” in 2015, see Table 1).
SSSM grew dramatically from 1960 to 1970 (going from 0.3% in 1950 to about 3% in
the mid of the 70s; ten times its original value). It continued growing not as exponentially
later, peaking at about 4% in the early 2000s and then stabilizing at about 3% in the latest
years. The dramatic growth in the late sixties and seventies can arguably be attributed to the
16
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
introduction of many important APA thesaurus terms (i.e. “culture”, “racism”, “patriarchy”,
etc) in this period (see Table 1).
Figure 3
Evolutionary Psychology and the Standard Social Science Model in PsycInfo - De Code
In Figure 3, EP & SSSM (cultural-evolutionary contributions, blue line) always
fluctuated negligibly around 0. An OLS linear regression run with the same transformation as
the previous one (years as the independent variable and logit-transformed percentage as the
17
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
outcome variable) led to a non-significant model (R² = .01, F(1,28) = 0.307, p. = 0.58), so the
cultural-evolutionary research program is almost absent in the DE code. The nonimportance
of this cross-fertilization has been so marked to the degree the transparent lines (“pure EP”
and “pure SSSM”) had to be removed because they were substantially overlapping with the
ticker ones obscuring a clear visualization of the data.
As regards the gap between the two approaches in the Subjects code, the hiatus is even
more considerable (Figure 4) than the previous one (Figure 2). The two trends were as much
as important until 1962, but after that date and before 2020 the gap appeared to be severe:
SSSM being 5.17 times EP on average, with a peak of 12.5 in 1988.
Discussion
The analysis problematized Buss's (2020) claims about a scientific revolution led by
Evolutionary Psychology. On the contrary, the always more prominent popularity of the SSSM
was attested. There is no single period in which EP contributions have been more prominent
than SSSM contributions if we exclude 1958 in the only-subject graph (Figure 3). Even
though SSSM can not be said to be a “scientific revolution” as well, its dominance is
indisputable. SSSM could be probably seen comparable as to other popular schools of thought
as neuroscience or cognitivism (Zagaria & Lombardi, 2023)8while EP is more marginal.
Even though SSSM scholars do indeed often lament the dominance of “biologist” theories, the
current data challenges dramatically this perspective. In fact, EP, in comparison to SSSM is a
full-fledged “minority”.
SSSM is not only more prevalent but is advancing at a swifter pace, as we can see from
8To verify this assertion, control for the syntaxes implemented shoul be exercised. In Zagaria & Lombardi
(2023) work, each paradigm had only 10 descriptors, in contrast to the 20 descriptors used here. Also, its
overlapping with the other other dominant paradigms (neuroscience and cognitivism) should be controlled; in
other words, SSSM should exhibit a sufficient autonomy (e.g. 60% of non overlapping contributions) with
neuroscience or cognitivism. A future work might shed light on this.
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
Figure 4
Evolutionary Psychology and the Standard Social Science Model in PsycInfo De Code
Figures 2 and 4. In mainstream Psychology (Figure 2), the hiatus is bigger lately
(from 1990 on) than in past years. Kuhn’s theory posits that a paradigm shift involves the
abrupt rise in prominence of a given theory, and SSSM is indicative of this trend, rather than
EP.
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
Another striking result of our analysis is that cultural-evolutionary informed work (EP
& SSSM), seems quite non-substantial and represents a minority of both the EP and the
SSSM-laden work. In Figure 1 both the blue line (EP & SSSM) and light red and light green
lines ( “pure” SSSM and “pure” EP) are not indicative of a substantive research program. The
EP & SSSM trend of Figure 1 does reveal a statistically significant growth but not a marked
one (0.01% increase each year). In Figure 3, the “pure” lines are even less significant, to the
degree that they had to be removed to ease the visualization of the data, and the EP & SSSM
intersection does not reveal a statistically significant growth. This evidence echoes with other
results of non-cross fertilization and insularity of different psychological research programs
(Kiselica & Ruscio, 2014; Zagaria & Lombardi, 2023), which is quite dismaying if we
contrast with the major-exposed “multidisciplinarity” which is told to be sought-after in many
research traditions.
As regards the shape of the distributions, the trends overall support a standard “linear”
interpretation, with some exceptions. EP in DE code after 2015 hinted at an exponential
growth and SSSM in DE code hinted at a tendency that could be investigated through
piecewise regression. Also, the “triangular shape” of the ratio between SSSM and EP in the
DE code (Figure 4) is puzzling. However, this might be linked to the specificity of the
“Subjects” field code. “Mainstream” Psychology (all the field codes selected, Figure 1 and 2)
is certainly a more robust and reliable source for investigating general trends.
Buss' (2020) claim of an evolutionary scientific revolution in Psychology has not been
substantiated by the current bibliometric analysis. Additionally, when we consider the results
discussed in the section "Is EP a scientific revolution?" regarding the need to justify the
evolutionary tenets and the absence of a foundational exposition of evolutionary theory among
undergraduates, the verdict becomes even more compelling. In this light, it becomes evident
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
that evolutionary psychology does not meet the criteria of a scientific revolution as defined by
Kuhn.
Limitations
The keyword-based search approach comes with certain limitations. This method carries
implicit assumptions, such as considering the presence or absence of specific keywords as
indicative of a paper being theoretically-laden (EP vs SSSM), which may lead to false
positives or false negatives. Additionally, there is also the potential for the selected field codes
to be either overly inclusive or excessively exclusive. Nonetheless, it is believed that overall
the chosen keywords and field codes were logically justified and reasonable.
However, there is a slight difference from Zagaria & Lombardi (2023) work. In their
study, the authors chose to conduct a frequency analysis of all candidate keywords with the
seed term (for instance, examining how "schema" is associated with "cognit*" over the entire
period covered by PsycINFO for peer-reviewed journals) to identify the most indicative search
keywords for a research program (i.e. which words are most indicative of “cognitivism”, for
example: “schema”, “human information storage”, “mental model*”, etc).
However, such an analysis was initially deemed to be not feasible in this context because
the term "culture" (and to a lesser extent, "evolution") is not as representative as the original
study's seed term. For instance, cross-cultural analyses are a crucial aspect of evolutionary
psychology. In this context, a qualitative choice of the search keywords was favored. It was
only after the search that EP & SSSM contributions (including cross-cultural contributions in
EP) were discovered to be so insignificant in comparison to the total number of contributions,
underlining that maybe a frequency analysis might have been previously conducted.
Also, the number of descriptor terms is different (20 against 10) from Zagaria &
Lombardi (2023) work. However, SSSM and EP are not classical “paradigms” like the ones
investigated in Zagaria & Lombardi (2023) work (i.e. psychoanalysis, cognitivism,
21
IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
neuroscience, behaviorism), so they did need an extended set of search terms to ensure the
sensibility of the analysis.
The Subjects-Only search (DE code) is also disturbed by a spurious variable: the terms
have been included in the APA Thesaurus and in [DE] as a consequence at different timing
(e.g., “Theory of evolution” was included in 1967; as well as the term “Culture
(Anthropological)”; even though “Natural selection” was included in 1997 and
“microaggression” in 2015, see table 1). However, the inclusion itself is informative of the
wider acceptance in the psychological lexicon over time, so was deemed to be informative
itself and not a confounding factor.
Conclusion
EP does not seem to be a scientific revolution. On the other hand, SSSM, its archetypal
rival, seems to enjoy more scientific popularity and is experiencing more rapid growth. As
scholars with evolutionary tendencies, what to do with this empirical evidence? High
prevalence and popularity do not equate with theoretical and empirical soundness; however,
that applies as well to lower prominence and prevalence. As I firmly believe in the theoretical
rigor and empirical confirmation comprehensively achieved by the behavioral evolutionary
sciences, why the EP approach has not yet received the popularity it deserves should be
investigated.
Many factors concurring with this status have already been investigated (e.g. political
concerns, methodological concerns, ideological biases, evolved psychological mechanisms
involved in the coalition, and in-group vs out-group dynamics), to the degree that there is a
full-fledged micro line of research within EP that discuss the reason EP being so opposed by
the rest of the psychological science and how we this status of being can be ameliorated (see
Buss & von Hippel, 2018; Jonason & Schmitt, 2016 and references within ). In my opinion, a
leading factor that has been discussed only tangentially (e.g. Buss & von Hippel, 2018) is the
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
eminent social nature of human reasoning, which seemed to have evolved to persuade, rather
than to seek an “objective” truth (Henriques, 2011, ch.5; Mercier & Sperber, 2017). In many
individuals the descriptive is (the one that should be achieved by science) can not be properly
distinguished by the moral ought (pace Hume), resulting in obscuring and neglecting all
evidence that may sound like legitimizing “evil” human tendencies (i.e. racism, sexism,
homophobia, etc). As Buss & von Hippel (2018) ironically note, our evolved psychology
could indeed explain why we do not are prone to study our evolved psychology.
Defending the EP research program from accuses of reductionism, determinism,
political illiberality, or racist or sexist attitudes have been around since the very inception of
the discipline (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992; Zagaria, Ando’ & Zennaro, 2021) and it seems to be
one of the ineludible practices of the evolutionary psychologist even - if not especially - today
(e.g. Del Giudice, 2021). So far, so useless, it sadly seems.
Looking for possible solutions and hoping for an evolutionary-informed future, we
should look for a way out. In this regard, I believe that to unify psychology (and
evolutionary-informed reasoning having an important part in this) we have to envision a
“disciplinary maneuver” rather than an “epistemological act” (see Stam, 2004). I believe that
the practice of interdisciplinary networks, rather than cold reasoning and debunking could
help in the long run, and it may be the only way to ameliorate this unsatisfactory status of
research. I do acknowledge that building interpersonal relationships of collaboration is
arguably way more difficult than exposing a scientific argument carrying logical flaws, but the
empirical evidence seems to confirm that this way of resolving the problem has not given our
much-hoped-for results.
Our knowledge of evolved psychology and collaborative and empathetic social
networks should persuade us to make inroads through human “warm” persuasive
communication rather than exclusively through a cold debunking reason. For instance, the EP
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IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION?
program may also open up to more “socially” grounded researchers, like qualitative research
paradigms, and to a more methodologically diverse research community. Even though this
may sound hazardous to some evolutionary scholars, I believe that this is the only way
forward.
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