Psych 124: The Evolution of Human Behavior

Psych 124 explores how cultural evolution and biological evolution have jointly shaped human cognition and behavior. Topics span the WEIRD phenomenon, cumulative culture, language, mating systems, kinship and reproduction, norm psychology and religion, hierarchy and power, and the origins of organized warfare.

These notes were taken by hand during the Fall 2021 offering at Berkeley and OCR-transcribed into Markdown. Each lecture page embeds the original handwritten PDF for cross-reference.

Table of Contents #

• Intro to Evolution
• Culture and Evolution
• WEIRD
• Cumulative Culture
• Evolutionary Thought
• Behavioral Immunity
• The Startup Problem
• Olfaction
• Tool Use, Taxonomy
• Language
• Reproduction
• Mating Systems
• Religion
• Power
• Patriarchy
• Norm Psychology
• Gods
• War