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Development of Adaptations

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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The concept of adaptation is central to evolutionary psychology. Three types of developmental adaptations are described: ontogenetic adaptations, deferred adaptations, and conditional adaptations. Adaptations develop and are based on the highly plastic nature of infants’ and children’s behavior/cognition/brains. The concept of evolved probabilistic cognitive mechanismsis introduced, defined as information-processing mechanisms evolved to solve recurrent problems faced by ancestral populations that are expressed in a probabilistic fashion in each individual in a generation, based on the continuous and bidirectional interaction over time at all levels of organization, from the genetic through the cultural. Early perceptual/cognitive/affective biases result in behavior that, when occurring in a species-typical environment, produce adaptive changes in behavior and cognition, yielding stable and adaptive outcomes. Examples from three domains, the development of face processing...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, 33431, USA

    David F. Bjorklund

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  1. David F. Bjorklund
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Correspondence to David F. Bjorklund .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of South Carolina - Beaufort, Bluffton, SC, USA

    Carey Fitzgerald

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Bjorklund, D.F. (2016). Development of Adaptations. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2385-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2385-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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