School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2011 Feb 12;366(1563):313-24. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0267.
Human beings persist in an extraordinary range of ecological settings, in the process exhibiting enormous behavioural diversity, both within and between populations. People vary in their social, mating and parental behaviour and have diverse and elaborate beliefs, traditions, norms and institutions. The aim of this theme issue is to ask whether, and how, evolutionary theory can help us to understand this diversity. In this introductory article, we provide a background to the debate surrounding how best to understand behavioural diversity using evolutionary models of human behaviour. In particular, we examine how diversity has been viewed by the main subdisciplines within the human evolutionary behavioural sciences, focusing in particular on the human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution approaches. In addition to differences in focus and methodology, these subdisciplines have traditionally varied in the emphasis placed on human universals, ecological factors and socially learned behaviour, and on how they have addressed the issue of genetic variation. We reaffirm that evolutionary theory provides an essential framework for understanding behavioural diversity within and between human populations, but argue that greater integration between the subfields is critical to developing a satisfactory understanding of diversity.
人类在各种生态环境中生存，展现出了巨大的行为多样性，无论是在个体内部还是群体之间。人类在社交、交配和育儿行为方面存在差异，并且拥有多样而复杂的信仰、传统、规范和制度。本期特刊的目的是探讨进化理论是否以及如何帮助我们理解这种多样性。在这篇引言文章中，我们提供了一个背景，探讨了如何使用人类行为的进化模型来最好地理解行为多样性。特别是，我们研究了主要的人类进化行为科学子学科如何看待多样性，特别关注人类行为生态学、进化心理学和文化进化方法。除了重点和方法上的差异外，这些子学科在强调人类普遍性、生态因素和社会学习行为方面以及在解决遗传变异问题方面传统上存在差异。我们重申，进化理论为理解人类群体内部和之间的行为多样性提供了一个重要的框架，但认为加强子领域之间的整合对于发展对多样性的满意理解至关重要。
