Human development in an evolutionary perspective

Abstract

This article presents an evolutionary perspectiveto the study of human development. Some generalassumptions for the study of development are discussedand the principal building blocks of evolutionarypsychology are presented. One of them isthat there is a universal human nature (which is modulatealso by particular conditions of each context)and the cognitive architecture of human beings isthe resulted of interactions between genes and environment.Based on those, and other assumptions,directions for the study of child development in anevolutionary stance are discussed, along with theconsiderations of context and development. Thus, itis assumed there is a relationship between phylogeniesand ontogenetic development (the ontogenesisneeds to be understood also as a product of evolution),considering the inseparability of biological,socio-cultural, cognitive emotional aspects thatconstitute this development. It has been concludedthat the evolutionary developmental psychologyhas scientific relevance because it broadens ourvision on human development.

Keywords

• human development
• evolutionary developmental psychology
• biology and culture
• phylogeny and ontogeny