Practice question · Multiple choice
People solve the Wason selection task poorly when it is stated abstractly, but solve the same logical problem easily when it is framed as checking whether anyone is drinking underage. What does this contrast support, and what does it not establish?
Hints
- Separate the finding from the interpretation. What was actually observed?
- This lesson lists what is required before calling a trait an adaptation. Check the finding against that list.
Show the answer
B. It supports content-sensitive reasoning, not that it is an adaptation.
Why
Two problems with identical logical structure produce very different performance, so whatever people are doing is not applying a content-free rule, that much is solid. The adaptationist step needs more: evidence the trait was selected for that function rather than being a by-product or a product of learning with permission rules.
Practise Evolutionary Psychology
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Psychology I is free to start.
More questions on Evolutionary Psychology
- Evolutionary psychology explains the modern taste for sugar and fat by the EEA: the environment we adapted…
- Select every statement that is TRUE about evolutionary psychology.
- Human beings enjoy music, and the taste is universal across cultures. Why is that pair of facts not yet…
- Showing that a trait is useful today is enough to prove it is an evolutionary adaptation.
- Sort each trait as an adaptation, a by-product, or noise.
- Order the reasoning steps for establishing that a trait is an evolutionary adaptation.