Evolutionary Health Psychology

For the last decade and a half the discipline of Evolutionary Psychology (EP) has been developing with great success. The first collection of significant papers was published in 1992 (Barkow et al.) and recently a landmark handbook has been produced summing the progress so far, as well as setting an agenda for future study (Buss, 2005). Unlike other areas within Psychology, EP extends its interest to all behaviours, rightly seeing them as part of an evolved phenotype, and health has not escaped attention, most notably in a paper by Eaton et al. (2002) about evolutionary health promotion. In this essay I will outline Eaton et al.’s position and then go on to suggest ways of further extending their perspective, concluding with some comments about the impact of Evolutionary Health Psychology on social policy.

Citation:
Dickins, T.E. (2006) ‘Evolutionary Health Psychology.’ Health Psychology Update 15 (1) 4-10.