From Mating to Mentality

Proceedings of the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science Workshop on Evolutionary PsychologyEvolutionary psychology, a relatively new approach to understanding the origins and workings of the human mind, is currently attracting passionate interest and debate within both academia and the wider lay community. In July 2001 the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science sponsored an interdisciplinary workshop on evolutionary psychology in conjunction with the Philosophy Program at the Australian National University. The aim of the workshop was to bring together a multidisciplinary group of scholars with interests in different aspects of evolutionary psychology for critical discussion and debate. An outstanding cast of theorists and researchers from a diversity of psychological, philosophical, anthropological and biological backgrounds participated in the conference, and this volume contains some of the most intriguing and important papers to emerge from it. Covering a range of topics, from the evolution of language, theory of mind, and the mentality of apes, through to psychological disorders, human mating strategies and relationship processes, this volume makes a timely and significant contribution to what is fast becoming one of the most prominent and fruitful approaches to understanding the nature and psychology of the human mind.