#529 David Pietraszewski: Modularity of Mind, Coalitional Psychology, and Politics
RECORDED ON SEPTEMBER 21st 2021.
Dr. David Pietraszewski is Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. He is an experimental psychologist who applies evolutionary theorizing to Social, Cognitive, and Developmental questions. He is particularly interested in characterizing the psychology of multi-agent conflict and cooperation (“coalitional psychology”). The goal of his research is to not simply describe behavior, but rather to use behavior to make inferences about the mind---described at the level of mechanisms (or functions). He also does theoretical work to address common confusions surrounding this approach.
In this episode, we talk about modularity of mind and coalitional psychology. In terms of modularity of mind, we cover topics like: Fodorian modularity, modularity in evolutionary psychology, and different levels of analysis when thinking about modularity. In terms of coalitional psychology, we talk about what it is from an evolutionary perspective, social categorization and the categories people pay attention to, race, the relationship between coalitional psychology and politics, and hierarchy and leadership in human societies.
Time Links:
Intro
The history of modularity of mind
Fodor, and the evolutionary psychologists
How important massive modularity is to evolutionary psychology
Levels of analysis, and why evolutionary psychology should abandon modularity
Coalitional psychology
Social categorization, and the case of race
Political behavior
Hierarchy and leadership
Follow Dr. Pietraszewski’s work!
Follow Dr. Pietraszewski’s work:
University page: https://bit.ly/3t6eq37
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3u4yRyN
Twitter handle: @DavePietrasz
Paper (Why evolutionary psychology should abandon modularity): https://bit.ly/2Z6OHOH