Human Evolution and Evolutionary Psychology

Order Description

The title of the essay is “Compare and contrast the mate choice strategies of males and females and explain why the various gender differences and similarities exist. To what extent are these differences relevant today ?” This question is drawn from a lecture called ” Sexual Selection” given as part of a module called ” Human Evolution and Evolutionary Psychology ” in the final year of a BSc in Psychology.
Please note there are two parts to the question and they both need to be addressed: compare and contrast from an evolutionary perspective as well as the second one being comparison with nowadays.
I’ll provide lecture slides and here is a list of references recommended by the lecturer:
Dunbar. R., Lycett. J. & Barrett. L., (2007) Evolutionary Psychology: A Beginner’s Guide (Beginner’s Guides) OneWorld Publications Chapter 5 sexual selection ;
Nettle. D (2009) Evolution and Genetics for Psychology, OUP Chapter 6 – Sexual Selection;
Swarmi, V. (2011) Evolutionary Psychology (BPS Textbooks in Psychology) Blackwell Chapter 4 – Mate selection ;
Workman., L. & Readrer., W. (2012) Evolutionary Psychology – An Introduction, Cambridge University Press Chapter 3 – Sexual Selection;
Buss, D.M. (2005) (ed) Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, New York, Wiley;
Buss, D.M. (1989) Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypothesis tested in 37 cultures .Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 12 pp 39-49;
Buss, D.M. (2008) Evolutionary Psychology: The new science of the Mind. Boston Allyn & Bacon ;
Gangestad, S.W. & Thornhill R. (1997) The evolutionary psychology of extra-pair mating. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 18, pp69-88 ;
Gangestad S W & Simpson J. A. (2000) The evolution of human mating , Behavioural and Brain Science, 25, pp573-87;
Kokko, H., Brooks. R., Jennions. M.D. & Morley. J. (2003) The evolution of mate choice and mating biases. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B. Biological Sciences, 270, pp653-64;
Wesr, S.A., Lively. C.M., & Read. A.F. (1999) A pluralist approach to sex and recombination. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 82, pp 327-48.
Only academic books and academic journals are excepted as references, so no magazines or newspapers please. The number of references will have to be around 25, no less than 23. Respecting the requests above will assure the essay will not be marked down. I will upload lecture slides later and I can be contacted at any time if needed.
Another very important comment I would make is about the focus of the paper. As differences between males and females in selecting their sexual partners can refer to any species on Earth, therefore it is a broad subject. For that reason, I believe the best way to approach the subject it to have a narrow focus and concentrate on the humans. That way, evolutionary strategies of both genders can be compared and contrasted as well as look at how did that change nowadays. Hope all this makes sense.