Oxford Handbook of Evolution, Biology, and Society

This book contains an overview of research on the interaction of biological and sociological processes. Issues explored include: the origins of social solidarity; religious beliefs; sex differences; gender inequality; human happiness; social stratification and inequality; identity, status, and other group processes; race, ethnicity, and discrimination; fertility and family processes; crime and deviance; cultural and social change.

Evolution, biology, and society is a catch-all phrase encompassing any scholarly work that utilizes evolutionary theory and/or biological or behavioral genetic methods in the study of the human social group, and The Oxford Handbook of Evolution, Biology, and Society contains an much needed overview of research in the area by sociologists and other social scientists. The examined topics cover a wide variety of issues, including the origins of social solidarity; religious beliefs; sex differences; gender inequality; determinants of human happiness; the nature of social stratification and inequality and its effects; identity, status, and other group processes; race, ethnicity, and race discrimination; fertility and family processes; crime and deviance; and cultural and social change.

The scholars whose work is presented in this volume come from a variety of disciplines in addition to sociology, including psychology, political science, and criminology. Yet, as the essays in this volume demonstrate, the potential of theory and methods from biology for illuminating social phenomena is clear, and sociologists stand to gain from learning more about them and using them in their own work. The theory focuses on evolution by natural selection, the primary paradigm of the biological sciences, while the methods include the statistical analyses sociologists are familiar with, as well as other methods that they may not be familiar with, such as behavioral genetic methods, methods for including genetic factors in statistical analyses, gene-wide association studies, candidate gene studies, and methods for testing levels of hormones and other biochemicals in blood and saliva and including these factors in analyses.

This work will be of interest to any sociologist with an interest in exploring the interaction of biological and sociological processes. As an introduction to the field it is useful for teaching upper-level or graduate students in sociology or a related social science.

Every department member responsible for library orders should have this volume on their list. Everyone who works in this field biologists, sociologists, dare one say philosophers? should have their own copy.

Auteur
Rosemary L. Hopcroft is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has published widely in the areas of evolutionary sociology and comparative and historical sociology, in journals that include the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Evolution and Human Behavior, and Human Nature. She is the author of Evolution and Gender: Why It Matters for Contemporary Life, Routledge 2016).

Contenu

• Part I: Introduction

• 1. Introduction: Evolution, Biology, and Society

• Rosemary L. Hopcroft

• 2. Divergence and Possible Consilience between Evolutionary Biology and Sociology

• Richard Machalek

• 3. Sociology's Contentious Courtship with Biology: A Ballad

• Douglas A. Marshall

• 4. Edward Westermarck: The First Sociobiologist

• Stephen K. Sanderson

• Part II: Social Psychological Approaches

• 5. Discovering Human Nature through Cross-Species Analysis

• Jonathan H. Turner

• 6. The Neurology of Religion: An Explanation from Evolutionary Sociology

• Alexandra Maryanski and Jonathan H. Turner

• 7. Reward Allowances and Contrast Effects in Social Evolution: A Challenge to Zygmunt Bauman's Liquid Modernity

• Michael Hammond

• 8. Sex Differences in the Human Brain

• David D. Franks

• 9. The Savanna Theory of Happiness

• Satoshi Kanazawa and Norman P. Li

• 10. How Evolutionary Psychology Can Contribute to Group Process Research

• Joseph M. Whitmeyer

• Part III: Biosociological Approaches

• 11. The Genetics of Human Behavior: A Hopeless Opus?

• Colter Mitchell

• 12. DNA is Not Destiny

• Rose McDermott and Peter K. Hatemi

• 13. On the Genetic and Genomic Basis of Aggression, Violence, and Antisocial Behavior

• Kevin M. Beaver, Eric J. Connolly, Joseph L. Nedelec, and Joseph A. Schwartz

• 14. Genetics and Politics: A Review for the Social Scientist

• Adam Lockyer and Peter K. Hatemi

• 15. Genes and Status Achievement

• François Nielsen

• 16. Peer Networks, Psychobiology of Stress Response, and Adolescent Development

• Olga Kornienko and Douglas A. Granger

• 17. Stress and Stress Hormones

• Jeff Davis and Kristen Damron

• 18. Social Epigenetics of Human Behavior

• Daniel E. Adkins, Kelli M. Rasmussen, and Anna R. Docherty

• 19. Physiology of Face-to-face Competition

• Allan Mazur

• Part IV: Evolutionary Approaches

• 20. Evolutionary Behavioral Science: Core Principles, Common Misconceptions, and a Troubling Tendency

• Timothy Crippen

• 21. Evolutionary Family Sociology

• Anna Rotkirch

• 22. Evolution and Human Reproduction

• Martin Fieder and Susanne Huber

• 23. Evolution, Societal Sexism, and Universal Average Sex Differences in Cognition and Behavior

• Lee Ellis

• 24. Evolutionary Theory and Criminology

• Anthony Walsh and Cody Jorgensen

• 25. The Biosocial Study of Ethnicity

• Frank Salter

• 26. Human Sociosexual Dominance Theory

• Kristin Liv Rauch and Rosemary L. Hopcroft

• Part V: Sociocultural Evolution

• 27. From Paganism to World Transcendence: Religious Attachment Theory and the Evolution of the World Religions

• Stephen K. Sanderson

• 28. The Evolutionary Approach to History: Sociocultural Phylogenetics

• Marion Blute and Fiona Jordan

• Part VI: Conclusion

• 29. Why Sociology Should Incorporate Biology

• Rosemary L. Hopcroft