Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-5ngxj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-19T18:45:21.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why would we expect the mind to work that way? The fitness costs to inaccurate beliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2017

Jesse Marczyk
Jesse Marczyk*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003. jmarczyk@nmsu.edu http://Popsych.org
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An adaptationist analysis of beliefs yields the prediction that we ought to expect accuracy in the cognitive systems which generate them – stereotypes or otherwise – for the most part. There are, however, some limited situations in which some inaccuracy in beliefs advertised to others might be adaptive.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e10
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Jussim, L. (2012) Social perception and social reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurzban, R. (2012) On the advantages of being wrong. Bioscience 62:516–17.Google Scholar
Mercier, H. & Sperber, D. (2011) Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34(2):57–111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Milkman, K., Akinola, M. & Chugh, D. (2015) What happens before? A field experiment exploring how pay and representation differentially shape bias on the pathway into organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology 100:1678–712.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moss-Racusin, C., Dovidio, J., Brescoll, V., Graham, M. & Handelsman, J. (2012) Science faculty's subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109:16474–79.Google Scholar
Perilloux, C., Munoz-Reyes, J., Turiegano, E., Kurzban, R. & Pita, M. (2015) Do (non-American) men overestimate women's sexual intentions? Evolutionary Psychological Science 1:150–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tinbergen, N. (1963) On aims and methods of Ethology. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 20:410–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1992) The psychological foundations of culture. In: The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, ed. Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J., pp. 19–136. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahavi, A. (1975) Mate selection – A selection for a handicap. Journal of Theoretical Biology 53(1):205–14.Google Scholar