D. Cervone, Evolutionary psychology and explanation in personality psychology - How dowe know which module to invoke?, AM BEHAV SC, 43(6), 2000, pp. 1001-1014
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.