Biological Approach In Psychology

The biological approach believes behavior to be a consequence of our genetics and physiology.

It is the only approach in psychology that examines thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from a biological and, thus physical point of view.

Therefore, all that is psychological is first physiological. All thoughts, feelings & behavior ultimately have a biological cause. 

Five core assumptions run through the approach:

• Biological basis: genes, the nervous system, and body chemistry are needed to fully explain behaviour.
• Genetic inheritance: patterns of behaviour, not just physical traits, can be inherited.
• Evolution: behaviours that helped survival or reproduction were naturally selected and passed on.
• Animal research: because humans share physiology and evolutionary history with other species, findings from animals can inform human behaviour.
• Science: the approach favours objective, replicable, quantitative methods, though many of its findings are correlational rather than causal.

The Four Strands of Biology in Behaviour

Biology shapes behaviour in four distinguishable ways.

• The “here and now”: immediate bodily pathways that produce an effect, such as pain signals following an injury.
• Genetic inheritance: genes shape the nervous system, and therefore behaviour.
• Growth and maturation: genes and environment jointly shape development over a lifetime.
• Evolution: the species itself has changed over time, shaping both structure and behaviour.

The first two strands explain the machinery producing behaviour right now. The last two explain how that machinery came to exist, across a lifetime and across evolutionary time.

All Behaviour Has a Biological Basis

Nervous System:

The structure of organs like the brain, central nervous system (CNS), peripheral nervous system (PNS), and the endocrine system shapes behaviour. Biological psychologists treat these physical structures as key determinants of what we think, feel, and do. The evidence is extensive.

Behaviour is controlled by neuronal action, such as eating or breathing.

Case studies, like that of Phineas Gage, are used to demonstrate the influence of biological structures (e.g., frontal cortex) on behaviour (e.g., inhibition)

Brain:

The brain is central to consciousness and controls voluntary and involuntary movements and bodily functions.

It communicates with the body through the nervous system.

Specific areas of the brain are linked to general functions, for example, the occipital lobe with visual perception and the parietal lobe with sensory information processing.

Biological psychologists study how the structure and function of the brain relate to behaviour.

Neurochemistry:

Chemicals like neurotransmitters transmit signals between neurons at synapses.

Imbalances in neurotransmitters are associated with atypical behaviour, such as low serotonin (mood) linked to depression or aggressive behaviour, and high dopamine (reward) associated with schizophrenia.

Drugs can change how these chemicals act: an agonist enhances a neurotransmitter’s effect at the receptor, while an antagonist opposes it.

This is the mechanism behind most psychiatric medication. Antipsychotics, for example, act as dopamine antagonists.

Hormones, released by the endocrine system, organise the nervous system and body tissues and activate behaviours such as alertness, sleepiness, sexual behaviour, concentration, aggressiveness, and reaction to stress.

Hormones can influence behaviour, for example, high testosterone levels are associated with defensiveness and territoriality.

Genetics:

The biological approach posits that genes, which carry information in the form of DNA, are passed down through generations and carry instructions for characteristics, including some behavioural or psychological traits.

Genetic makeup is referred to as genotype, while phenotype is the expression of genes, influenced by both genetic inheritance and interaction with the environment.

Heritability measures how strongly differences among individuals for a trait are related to differences among their genes.

Twin studies quantify this genetic contribution. They compare people with different degrees of genetic relatedness who were raised in similar or different environments.

Researchers sometimes formalise this using the ACE model, which splits a trait into additive genetic, shared-environment, and non-shared-environment components (Falconer, 1960).

Research of identical (MZ) and non-identical (DZ) twins, has provided evidence suggesting a genetic component to psychological conditions like schizophrenia and depression.

Psychologists study genetics to understand behaviour’s biological basis. Humans share the same biological mechanisms, but each person is unique, so these mechanisms are expressed in a wide variety of behaviours, thoughts, and reactions.

Some Human Behaviours Are the Result of Evolution and Natural Selection

The biological approach, particularly through evolutionary psychology, assumes that some human behaviours are adaptations that have evolved over time.

These behaviours are shaped by genetics. They are thought to provide an evolutionary advantage, maximising survival and reproduction, so they were ‘naturally selected’ and passed down across generations.

This perspective originates with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

Evolutionary psychology seeks to understand the ultimate biological causes of behaviour, viewing behaviour like any anatomical characteristic as demonstrating adaptation to surroundings, including the physical and social environment.

Research in this area tests predictions empirically.

It covers preferences for food, habitat, or mates, and traits that improve group living, such as cooperation or detecting frauds.

Studies comparing mate selection preferences across cultures, for example, are presented as evidence for evolved traits promoting reproductive success.

The laws of behavior are the same for all species and knowledge gained by studying rats, dogs, cats and other animals can be generalized to humans

Methods Used in Biological Psychology

The approach draws on a distinctive toolkit of methods for studying the biology behind behaviour.

• Twin, family and adoption studies: natural experiments comparing people who differ in genetic relatedness (see Genetic Studies and Twin Studies, below).
• Molecular genetics: genome-wide association studies (GWAS) scan millions of DNA variants to find those statistically linked to a trait (see Contemporary Research, below).
• EEG: recording the brain’s electrical activity through scalp electrodes (below).
• Structural and functional brain imaging: CAT, PET and MRI scans (below).
• Neurosurgery and lesion case studies: studying what changes when part of the brain is removed or damaged (below).
• Pharmacological (drug) studies: manipulating neurotransmitter systems and observing the resulting behavioural change (see Applications, above).

Many of these techniques are correlational, and most are conducted in artificial laboratory settings that may not reflect natural, everyday functioning.

1. Genetic Studies and Twin Studies

Twin studies provide geneticists with a kind of natural experiment. They compare the behavioural likeness of identical twins (genetic relatedness 1.0) with that of dizygotic twins (genetic relatedness 0.5).

In other words, if heredity (i.e., genetics) affects a given trait or behavior, then identical twins should show a greater similarity for that trait compared to fraternal (non-identical) twins.

There are two types of twins:

• Monozygotic = identical twins (share 100% genetic information).
• Dizygotic = non-identical twins (share 50% genetic information, similar to siblings).

Research using twin studies looks for the degree of concordance (or similarity) between identical and fraternal (i.e., non-identical) twins.

Twins are concordant for a trait if both or neither shows it, and disconcordant if only one does.

Identical twins have the same genetic makeup, and fraternal twins have just 50 percent of genes in common.

Concordance rates can range from 0 to 100.

When identical twins show a significantly higher rate than fraternal twins, this is evidence that genetics play an important role in the expression of that behaviour.

Twin studies have shown that genetic influence varies significantly across different traits. For example:

• Height: Has a high genetic influence, around 90% (0.9).
• General Mental Ability (IQ): Is estimated to be influenced by genetic factors by about 50% to 70%, closer to 70% according to more recent studies. Mean correlations for IQ in identical twins across multiple studies are around 0.73, suggesting about three-quarters of general ability is genetically influenced.
• Personality Traits (e.g., extroversion, sociability): Show a genetic influence of around 50% (0.5). Personality similarity between identical twins raised apart and those raised together did not differ, suggesting personality similarity to family is due to shared genes, not the shared environment of growing up together.
• Other Traits: Genetic influence has also been found for traits like sexual orientation, vocational interests, job satisfaction, migraine headaches, diet preferences, and whether someone is a morning or evening person. Dental health (cavities, appearance, missing teeth) and periodontal disease also show significant genetic effects (around 50% for periodontal disease).

Bouchard and McGue (1981) conducted a review of 111 worldwide studies which compared the IQ of family members.

The correlation figures below represent the average degree of similarity between the two people (the higher the similarity, the more similar the IQ scores).

• Identical twins raised together = .86 (correlation).
• Identical twins raised apart = .72
• Non-identical twins reared together = .60
• Siblings reared together = .47
• Siblings reared apart = .24
• Cousins = .15

However, there are methodological flaws that reduce the validity of twin studies.

For example, Bouchard and McGue included many poorly performed and biased studies in their meta-analysis.

Also, studies comparing the behavior of twins raised apart have been criticized as the twins often share similar environments and are sometimes raised by a non-parental family member.

Key Study: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart

Aim: Bouchard et al. (1990) set out to estimate the heritability of psychological traits using identical and fraternal twins separated in infancy and reared apart.

Method: More than 100 sets of reared-apart twins and triplets each completed about a week of intensive testing, covering IQ, personality, interests, and social attitudes.

They were compared with twins reared together.

Results: About 70% of the variance in IQ was linked to genetic variation. On measures of personality, interests, and attitudes, identical twins reared apart were about as similar as identical twins reared together.

Conclusion: Shared genes did most of the work.

Growing up in the same home added comparatively little beyond what the twins’ genes already produced.

Evaluation: This is one of the most persuasive demonstrations of heritability, given its large samples and exhaustive testing.

But some “separated” twins were reunited before testing, and identical twins share a prenatal environment and are often treated more alike.

2. Electroencephalograms (EEGs)

This is a way of recording the electrical activity of the brain (it doesn’t hurt, and it isn’t dangerous). Electrodes are attached to the scalp, and brain waves can be traced.

EEGs have been used to study sleep. Researchers have found that during a typical night’s sleep, we pass through a series of stages, each marked by a different pattern of brain wave.

One of these stages is REM sleep.

REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement.

During REM sleep, our brain waves begin to resemble those of our waking state, even though we are still fast asleep.

This is thought to be when we dream, whether we remember it afterwards or not.

3. Brain imaging (MRI, PET, EEG)

More recently, methods of studying the brain have been developed using various types of scanning equipment hooked up to powerful computers.

For example, brain imaging fMRI and PET scans map areas of the brain to cognitive function, allowing the processing of information by centers in the brain to be seen directly.

Such processing causes the area of the brain involved to increase metabolism and “light up” on the scan.

This is called activation.

The CAT scan (Computerised Axial Tomography) uses a moving X-ray beam to take “pictures” from different angles around the head.

This builds a 3-D image of the damaged areas.

Even more sophisticated is the PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography) which uses a radioactive marker as a way of studying the brain at work.

The procedure works on a simple principle: brain regions that are more active during a task use more energy. More energy means more signal.

What the scan, therefore, enables researchers to do is to provide ongoing pictures of the brain as it engages in mental activity.

These (and other) methods for producing images of brain structure and functioning have been extensively used to study language. PET scans, in particular, suggest that the Wernicke-Geschwind model may not, after all, be the full answer to how language is possible.

4. Neuro Surgery

We know so little about the brain and its functions are so closely integrated that brain surgery is usually only attempted as a last resort.

H.M. suffered such devastating epileptic fits that, in the end, a surgical technique that had never been used before was tried out.

This technique cured his epilepsy, but in the process, the hippocampus had to be removed (this is part of the limbic system in the middle of the brain.)

Afterwards, H.M. was left with severe anterograde amnesia. I.e., He could remember what happened to him in his life up to when he had the operation, but he couldn’t remember anything new. So now we know the hippocampus is involved in memory.

Classic Localisation Studies

Other case studies mapped specific functions onto specific brain regions.

Broca (1861) studied a patient who could only utter the syllable “tan,” though he understood language perfectly well.

An autopsy revealed a lesion in the left frontal lobe, now called Broca’s area, and loss of articulate speech is still known as Broca’s aphasia.

Wernicke (1874) found a different pattern.

Damage to a nearby temporal-lobe region, now Wernicke’s area, left patients speaking fluently but without making sense, and struggling to understand others.

Not every finding supports strict localisation, though.

Lashley (1929) found that memory loss in brain-damaged rats depended on how much cortex was removed, not which part.

This suggested memory is spread across the brain rather than confined to one place.

Split-brain research later showed that the two hemispheres specialise for different functions, language mostly on the left and visuospatial skills favouring the right.

Modern neuroscience backs relative, not strict, localisation.

The brain can also reorganise itself over time.

Critical Evaluation

Limitations

A significant limitation of the biological approach is its reductionist perspective, simplifying complex behaviors to purely biological factors.

By reducing behavior to genetics, neurotransmitters, or brain structures alone, the biological approach neglects important psychological, social, and cultural influences.

For instance, the biological explanation of depression focuses primarily on neurotransmitter imbalance (low serotonin), ignoring cognitive factors like negative thinking patterns, life stressors, or social isolation.

The implications of this reductionism are negative. It can lead to incomplete understanding and treatments that may overlook crucial psychological or environmental causes.

Patients may be given medication to correct neurochemical imbalances without addressing underlying cognitive or social factors, potentially limiting treatment effectiveness and overlooking comprehensive, holistic interventions.

Another limitation of the biological approach is its deterministic view, suggesting behavior is entirely governed by biological factors beyond personal control.

Biological determinism argues behaviors result solely from genetic makeup, brain structure, or biochemical imbalances, implying limited individual agency.

For instance, attributing aggressive behavior strictly to genetic predisposition could lead individuals to disclaim personal responsibility.

The consequences are negative, as this perspective may undermine personal accountability, discourage behavioral change efforts, and potentially affect legal responsibility and treatment adherence.

Thus, biological determinism risks socially and ethically problematic outcomes.

The biological approach frequently struggles to establish definitive causal relationships.

Much biological research, particularly neuroimaging or genetic studies, is correlational.

For instance, brain abnormalities observed in individuals with OCD (caudate nucleus issues) could either cause OCD symptoms or result from prolonged symptoms (reverse causality).

The consequence of this limitation is negative, reducing clarity about cause-effect relationships.

Misinterpreting correlational data may lead to incorrect conclusions about treatments, which might target symptoms rather than underlying causes.

Research in biological psychology often lacks ecological validity due to controlled laboratory environments.

Highly controlled settings, such as brain scans conducted in artificial laboratory conditions, may not reflect natural brain activity.

Participants might behave differently in unnatural, experimental conditions, distorting true biological responses (e.g., exaggerated stress reactions measured in a laboratory rather than real life).

This negative implication limits generalisability, potentially making biological findings less relevant to everyday life contexts.

Treatments or theories developed from these studies might be less effective when applied in real-world environments.

A practical limitation is that treatments developed from biological explanations often carry significant side effects.

Psychotropic medications, although beneficial, can have substantial side effects, including addiction, withdrawal symptoms, emotional blunting, or physical health impacts.

For example, antipsychotic medications can lead to weight gain, diabetes, or motor dysfunction.

The consequence is negative, as these side effects can deter patients from continuing treatment, reduce quality of life, and sometimes make the biological treatment less beneficial overall.

This highlights the necessity of balanced approaches, integrating biological treatments with psychological or behavioral support.

Strengths

A major strength of the biological approach in psychology is its use of highly scientific and objective research methods.

Methods such as brain imaging techniques (fMRI, PET), biochemical tests, and controlled laboratory experiments provide quantitative, objective data.

This reduces researcher bias and increases reliability.

For example, studies using fMRI to measure brain activity, such as investigating amygdala responses related to emotional memory (Canli et al.), have produced replicable findings.

The consequence of employing scientific methods is positive. It strengthens the validity of biological explanations, allows replication, and enhances psychology’s credibility as a scientific discipline.

Thus, biological psychology’s findings are widely respected and practically applied, for example, in developing pharmacological treatments for disorders like depression or OCD.

Another strength of the biological approach is its practical real-world applications, particularly in treating psychological disorders.

By identifying biological factors such as neurotransmitter imbalances (e.g., serotonin deficiency in depression), effective pharmacological treatments such as antidepressants (SSRIs) can be developed.

For instance, SSRIs have been effectively used to manage symptoms of OCD, depression, and anxiety.

The consequence of this practical approach is highly positive, as it provides effective symptom management and relief to sufferers.

This significantly enhances patients’ quality of life and demonstrates the biological approach’s tangible impact on healthcare.

The biological approach effectively integrates with cognitive psychology through cognitive neuroscience.

Cognitive neuroscience merges biological and cognitive approaches, using brain imaging to verify cognitive theories empirically.

For instance, brain scans during memory tasks empirically confirm cognitive theories about memory encoding.

The consequence is positively significant, as it enables a more complete understanding of psychological phenomena, bridging gaps between cognitive theories and biological evidence, enhancing interdisciplinary collaboration.

Contemporary Research

Recent evidence weighs unevenly across three questions.

The approach stands firmest wherever a claim rests on a meta-analysis or a very large genetic dataset, rather than on a single study.

How Heritable Is Behaviour?

Aim: Polderman et al. (2015) set out to settle the relative importance of genes and environment across human traits.

Method: A meta-analysis pooled twin correlations from 2,748 publications, covering 17,804 traits and over 14.5 million twin pairs.

Results: Average heritability across all traits was 49%.

For most traits (69%), twin resemblance fitted a simple additive-genetic model, with little role for the shared environment.

Conclusion: Individual differences in human traits are, on average, roughly half genetic.

This is the most comprehensive test yet of the genetic assumption, though it says nothing about which genes are involved.

The Candidate-Gene Reckoning

An earlier generation of molecular studies claimed to pin behaviour to single genes.

Caspi et al.’s (2003) finding that a serotonin-transporter gene interacted with life stress to predict depression was the most famous example.

It did not hold up.

Border et al. (2019) retested 18 such genes, including that one, across samples of up to 620,000 people, and found no support for any of them.

Weighted by evidence quality, the large, well-powered replication outweighs the small original reports.

Behaviour is heritable and polygenic, but the specific single-gene stories of the 2000s do not stand.

Do Biological Treatments Work?

Aim: Cipriani et al. (2018) compared 21 antidepressant drugs for adults with major depressive disorder.

Method: A systematic review and network meta-analysis of double-blind randomised controlled trials, drawing on 522 trials and 116,477 participants.

Results: All 21 antidepressants beat placebo.

The certainty of the underlying evidence, though, was rated moderate to very low.

Conclusion: Antidepressants genuinely outperform placebo, on average, supporting the biological treatment model, though the effect is modest.

The theory behind the drugs is a separate question.

Moncrieff et al.’s (2022) umbrella review synthesised 17 major reviews and found no consistent evidence that depression is linked to low serotonin.

Yet the drugs that target serotonin still work better than placebo.

The treatment stands; the textbook explanation for why it works does not.

Issues and Debates

Free will vs. determinism

The biological approach is strongly deterministic. It views human behaviour as driven by biological processes, such as genetics, brain chemistry, and brain structure, over which individuals have little or no personal control.

For example, attributing depression primarily to genetic inheritance or neurotransmitter imbalances (like low serotonin levels) illustrates biological determinism.

This perspective implies individuals have limited personal agency over their behavior or mental health, raising important ethical considerations about personal responsibility and autonomy.

Nature vs. nurture

The biological approach largely emphasizes the nature side of the nature vs. nurture debate, highlighting genetic and biological factors as primary determinants of behavior.

But environment matters too.

For example, the brain is recognized as a plastic organ – meaning it continually changes and adapts through life experiences, interactions, and learning.

Thus, while biological psychologists believe genes set the potential for certain traits (genotype), they recognize that how these traits are actually expressed (phenotype) depends significantly on environmental interactions.

A clear illustration is temperament: individuals may inherit a genetic predisposition to certain personality traits, such as introversion or extraversion.

Yet life also shapes these traits.

Parenting, socialisation, and culture all influence how they develop and manifest.

This demonstrates a nuanced understanding: behaviour always emerges from complex gene-environment interactions, highlighting a reciprocal relationship between nature and nurture.

Holism vs. reductionism

The biological approach is often criticized as reductionist because it attempts to simplify complex behaviors into explanations solely based on genetics, biochemical processes, or neurological functioning.

For instance, the biomedical explanation for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) tends to focus narrowly on genetic predisposition, neurotransmitter imbalances (such as serotonin deficits), or abnormalities in specific brain structures.

This biological reductionism overlooks other influential factors, such as early childhood experiences, conditioning (learning from rewards or punishments), cognitive processes (such as irrational beliefs), and socio-cultural context. These factors also shape psychological disorders and everyday behaviour.

While reductionism allows precise scientific investigation of specific biological mechanisms, it risks oversimplifying and missing the broader, holistic understanding of behavior.

Idiographic vs. nomothetic

The biological approach generally adopts a nomothetic perspective, meaning it seeks universal laws and general principles that apply broadly across all humans.

It operates on the assumption that humans share fundamental physiological processes (like neural transmission, genetic inheritance patterns, and brain functions).

By investigating these shared biological mechanisms through large-scale studies, biological psychologists aim to identify predictable patterns of behavior.

For example, research into the role of neurotransmitters such as serotonin in mood regulation is based on the belief that these biological processes universally influence emotional experiences across human populations.

Are the research methods used scientific?

These research methods are scientific and empirical. They involve rigorous, objective techniques, such as neuroimaging scans (e.g., MRI, PET scans), genetic testing, biochemical analysis, and laboratory experiments. The result is objective, replicable data.

These methods allow precise, quantifiable observations and facilitate repeatability, increasing the credibility of biological research findings.

Moreover, the biological approach frequently uses animal studies, justified by the assumption that humans and animals share many fundamental physiological processes.

Studying animals provides greater control over experimental conditions and can ethically enable biological manipulations impossible with human participants, although this raises ethical considerations regarding generalizability and animal welfare.

Timeline

1. The Voyage of the Beagle (1805 – 1836) – Darwin formulated his theory of natural selection by observing animals while traveling the world.
2. Harlow (1848): Phineas Gage brain injury case study provides neuroscience with significant information regarding the working of the brain.
3. Darwin (1859) publishes On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 1,250 copies were printed, most of which were sold on the first day.
4. Jane Goodall (1957) began her study of primates in Africa, discovering that chimps have behaviors similar to those of all the human cultures on the planet.
5. Edward Wilson (1975) published his book, Sociobiology which brought together an evolutionary perspective to psychology.
6. The birth of Evolutionary Psychology begins with the publication of an essay, The Psychological Foundations of Culture, by Tooby and Cosmides (1992).

References

Border, R., Johnson, E. C., Evans, L. M., Smolen, A., Berley, N., Sullivan, P. F., & Keller, M. C. (2019). No support for historical candidate gene or candidate gene-by-interaction hypotheses for major depression across multiple large samples. American Journal of Psychiatry, 176(5), 376-387. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.18070881

Bouchard, T. J., Jr., Lykken, D. T., McGue, M., Segal, N. L., & Tellegen, A. (1990). Sources of human psychological differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. Science, 250(4978), 223-228. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.2218526

Bouchard, T. J., & McGue, M. (1981). Familial studies of intelligence: A review. Science, 212(4498), 1055-1059.

Caspi, A., Sugden, K., Moffitt, T. E., Taylor, A., Craig, I. W., Harrington, H., McClay, J., Mill, J., Martin, J., Braithwaite, A., & Poulton, R. (2003). Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301(5631), 386-389. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1083968

Cipriani, A., Furukawa, T. A., Salanti, G., Chaimani, A., Atkinson, L. Z., Ogawa, Y., Leucht, S., Ruhe, H. G., Turner, E. H., Higgins, J. P. T., Egger, M., Takeshima, N., Hayasaka, Y., Imai, H., Shinohara, K., Tajika, A., Ioannidis, J. P. A., & Geddes, J. R. (2018). Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: A systematic review and network meta-analysis. The Lancet, 391(10128), 1357-1366. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32802-7

Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1st ed.). London: John Murray.

Falconer, D. S. (1960). Introduction to quantitative genetics. Oliver & Boyd.

Harlow, J. M. (1848). Passage of an iron rod through the head. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 39, 389–393.

Moncrieff, J., Cooper, R. E., Stockmann, T., Amendola, S., Hengartner, M. P., & Horowitz, M. A. (2022). The serotonin theory of depression: A systematic umbrella review of the evidence. Molecular Psychiatry, 28(8), 3243-3256. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-022-01661-0

Polderman, T. J. C., Benyamin, B., de Leeuw, C. A., Sullivan, P. F., van Bochoven, A., Visscher, P. M., & Posthuma, D. (2015). Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on fifty years of twin studies. Nature Genetics, 47(7), 702-709. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3285

Raine, A., Buchsbaum, M., & LaCasse, L. (1997). Brain abnormalities in murderers indicated by positron emission tomography. Biological Psychiatry, 42(6), 495-508. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-3223(96)00362-9

Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wilson, E. (1975). Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Harvard University Press

Further Reading

• How Experience Changes Brain Plasticity
• Sex differences in the brain
• What has neuroscience ever done for us?
• Are Bigger Brains Better?
• BBC Radio 4: The influence of evolutionary theory, phrenology and a hole in Phineas Gage’s head.
• BBC Radio 4: Dr Bunn discusses the impact of neurology on how we understand ourselves today.