Evolutionary psychology and explanation in personality psychology - How dowe know which module to invoke?

Personality psychology explores personal determinants of social behavior th at is, psychological systems that causally contribute to the coherent patte rns of experience and action that distinguish individuals from one another This article explores two obstacles faced by evolutionary accounts of perso nality functioning. The first is the problem of act identification. Explain ing social behavior by reference to an evolved mental module requires that one determine which module to invoke. This generally requires identifying t he meaning of complex, culturally and socially embedded actions. Evolutiona ry psychology provides no tools for unambiguously making these identificati ons. The second obstacle derives from the fact that in evolutionary psychol ogy, behavior may reflect the joint action of multiple mental modules. Pred iction and explanation would require assessment of the relative strengths o f activation of the multiple modules. This commonly is not possible. Altern ative accounts of personality structure and functioning, including that of social-cognitive theories of personality are considered.