Evolutionary aesthetics - Wikipedia Evolutionary aesthetics From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Evolutionary psychology theories in which the basic aesthetic preferences of Homo sapiens are argued to have evolved in order to enhance survival and reproductive success Part of a series on Evolutionary biology Darwin's finches by John Gould Key topics Introduction to evolution Common descent Evidence Processes and outcomes Population genetics Variation Diversity Mutation Natural selection Adaptation Polymorphism Genetic drift Gene flow Speciation Adaptive radiation Co-operation Coevolution Coextinction Divergence Convergence Parallel evolution Extinction Natural history Origin of life History of life Timeline of evolution Human evolution Phylogeny Biodiversity Biogeography Classification Evolutionary taxonomy Cladistics Transitional fossil Extinction event History of evolutionary theory Overview Renaissance Before Darwin Darwin Origin of Species Before synthesis Modern synthesis Molecular evolution Evo-devo Current research History of speciation History of paleontology (timeline) Fields and applications Applications of evolution Biosocial criminology Ecological genetics Evolutionary aesthetics Evolutionary anthropology Evolutionary computation Evolutionary ecology Evolutionary economics Evolutionary epistemology Evolutionary ethics Evolutionary game theory Evolutionary linguistics Evolutionary medicine Evolutionary neuroscience Evolutionary physiology Evolutionary psychology Experimental evolution Phylogenetics Paleontology Selective breeding Speciation experiments Sociobiology Systematics Universal Darwinism Social implications Evolution as fact and theory Social effects Creation–evolution controversy Objections to evolution Level of support  Evolutionary biology portal  Category Related topics v t e Evolutionary aesthetics refers to evolutionary psychology theories in which the basic aesthetic preferences of Homo sapiens are argued to have evolved in order to enhance survival and reproductive success.[1] Based on this theory, things like color preference, preferred mate body ratios, shapes, emotional ties with objects, and many other aspects of the aesthetic experience can be explained with reference to human evolution.[2] Contents 1 Aesthetics and evolutionary psychology 2 Landscape and other visual arts preferences 3 Physical attractiveness 4 Evolutionary musicology 5 Darwinian literary studies 6 Evolution of emotion 7 Sexy son hypothesis, handicap principle, and arts 8 References Aesthetics and evolutionary psychology[edit] Many animal and human traits have been argued to have evolved in order to enhance survival and reproductive success. Evolutionary psychology extends this to psychological traits including aesthetical preferences. Such traits are generally seen as being adaptations to the environment during the Pleistocene era and are not necessarily adaptative in our present environment. Examples include disgust of potentially harmful spoiled foods; pleasure from sex and from eating sweet and fatty foods; and fear of spiders, snakes, and the dark.[1] All known cultures have some form of art. This universality suggests that art is related to evolutionary adaptations. The strong emotions associated with art suggest the same.[1] Landscape and other visual arts preferences[edit] San Rafael Gran Sabana, Venezuela. An important choice for a mobile organism is selecting a good habitat to live in. Humans are argued to have strong aesthetical preferences for landscapes which were good habitats in the ancestral environment. When young human children from different nations are asked to select which landscape they prefer, from a selection of standardized landscape photographs, there is a strong preference for savannas with trees. The East African savanna is the ancestral environment in which much of human evolution is argued to have taken place. There is also a preference for landscapes with water, with both open and wooded areas, with trees with branches at a suitable height for climbing and taking foods, with features encouraging exploration such as a path or river curving out of view, with seen or implied game animals, and with some clouds. These are all features that are often featured in calendar art and in the design of public parks.[1] A survey of art preferences in many different nations found that realistic painting was preferred. Favorite features were water, trees as well as other plants, humans (in particular beautiful women, children, and well-known historical figures), and animals (in particular both wild and domestic large animals). Blue, followed by green, was the favorite color. Using the survey, the study authors constructed a painting showing the preferences of each nation. Despite the many different cultures, the paintings all showed a strong similarity to landscape calendar art. The authors argued that this similarity was in fact due to the influence of the Western calendar industry. Another explanation is that these features are those evolutionary psychology predicts should be popular for evolutionary reasons.[1] Physical attractiveness[edit] Main article: Physical attractiveness See also: Fluctuating asymmetry Various evolutionary concerns have been argued to influence what is perceived to be physically attractive.[1][3] Such evolutionary based preferences are not necessarily static but may vary depending on environmental cues. Thus, availability of food influences which female body size is attractive which may have evolutionary reasons. Societies with food scarcities prefer larger female body size than societies having plenty of food. In Western society males who are hungry prefer a larger female body size than they do when not hungry.[4] Evolutionary musicology[edit] Main article: Evolutionary musicology Evolutionary musicology is a subfield of biomusicology that grounds the psychological mechanisms of music perception and production in evolutionary theory. It covers vocal communication in non-human animal species, theories of the evolution of human music, and cross-cultural human universals in musical ability and processing. It also includes evolutionary explanations for what is considered aesthetically pleasing or not. Darwinian literary studies[edit] Main article: Darwinian literary studies Darwinian Literary Studies (aka Literary Darwinism) is a branch of literary criticism that studies literature, including aesthetical aspects, in the context of evolution.[improper synthesis?] Evolution of emotion[edit] Main article: Evolution of emotion Aesthetics are tied to emotions. There are several explanations regarding the evolution of emotion.[improper synthesis?] One example is the emotion disgust which has been argued to have evolved in order to avoid several harmful actions such as infectious diseases due to contact with spoiled foods, feces, and decaying bodies.[5] Sexy son hypothesis, handicap principle, and arts[edit] A male peacock does its best to court a female, dancing and displaying its extravagant plumage. The sexy son hypothesis suggests that a female optimal choice among potential mates is a male whose genes will produce male offspring with the best chance of reproductive success by having trait(s) being attractive to other females. Sometimes the trait may have no reproductive benefit in itself, apart from attracting females, because of Fisherian runaway. The peacock's tail may be one example. It has also been seen as an example of the handicap principle. It has been argued that the ability of the human brain by far exceeds what is needed for survival on the savanna. One explanation could be that the human brain and associated traits (such as artistic ability and creativity) are the equivalent of the peacock's tail for humans. According to this theory superior execution of art was important because it attracted mates.[1] References[edit] ^ a b c d e f g Dutton, Denis. 2003. 'Aesthetics and Evolutionary Psychology' in "The Oxford Handbook for Aesthetics". Oxford University Press. ^ Wang, H.M., Chen, K. H., & Chou, G. J. 2011. 'Pleasurable elements in emotional design,' Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces. ^ Carey, Bjorn. 2006. 'The Rules of Attraction in the Game of Love,' "Live Science."" ^ Nettle, D. (2009). "Ecological influences on human behavioural diversity: A review of recent findings". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 24 (11): 618–24. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2009.05.013. PMID 19683831. ^ Tybur, J. M.; Lieberman, D.; Griskevicius, V. (2009). "Microbes, mating, and morality: Individual differences in three functional domains of disgust". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 97 (1): 103–122. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.186.6114. doi:10.1037/a0015474. PMID 19586243. v t e Aesthetics topics Philosophers Abhinavagupta Theodor W. Adorno Leon Battista Alberti Thomas Aquinas Hans Urs von Balthasar Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Clive Bell Bernard Bosanquet Edward Bullough R. G. Collingwood Ananda Coomaraswamy Arthur Danto John Dewey Denis Diderot Hubert Dreyfus Curt John Ducasse Thierry de Duve Roger Fry Nelson Goodman Clement Greenberg Georg Hegel Martin Heidegger David Hume Immanuel Kant Paul Klee Susanne Langer Theodor Lipps György Lukács Jean-François Lyotard Joseph Margolis Jacques Maritain Thomas Munro Friedrich Nietzsche José Ortega y Gasset Dewitt H. Parker Stephen Pepper David Prall Jacques Rancière Ayn Rand Louis Lavelle George Lansing Raymond I. A. Richards George Santayana Friedrich Schiller Arthur Schopenhauer Roger Scruton Irving Singer Rabindranath Tagore Giorgio Vasari Morris Weitz Johann Joachim Winckelmann Richard Wollheim more... Theories Classicism Evolutionary aesthetics Historicism Modernism New Classical Postmodernism Psychoanalytic theory Romanticism Symbolism more... Concepts Aesthetic emotions Aesthetic interpretation Art manifesto Avant-garde Axiology Beauty Boredom Camp Comedy Creativity Cuteness Disgust Ecstasy Elegance Entertainment Eroticism Fun Gaze Harmony Judgement Kama Kitsch Life imitating art Magnificence Mimesis Perception Quality Rasa Recreation Reverence Style Sthayibhava Sublime Taste Work of art Related Aesthetics of music Applied aesthetics Architecture Art Arts criticism Feminist aesthetics Gastronomy History of painting Humour Japanese aesthetics Literary merit Mathematical beauty Mathematics and architecture Mathematics and art Medieval aesthetics Music theory Neuroesthetics Painting Patterns in nature Philosophy of design Philosophy of film Philosophy of music Poetry Sculpture Theory of painting Theory of art Tragedy Visual arts Index Outline Category  Philosophy portal v t e Evolutionary psychology History Processes Adaptation Altruism Coevolution Cultural group selection Kin selection Sexual selection Evolutionarily stable strategy Social selection Areas Psychological development Morality Religion Depression Educational psychology Evolutionary aesthetics Music Darwinian literary studies Evolution of emotion Biologists/ neuroscientists John Crook Charles Darwin Richard Dawkins Jared Diamond W. D. Hamilton Peter Kropotkin Gordon Orians Jaak Panksepp Margie Profet Peter Richerson Giacomo Rizzolatti Randy Thornhill Robert Trivers Carel van Schaik Claus Wedekind Wolfgang Wickler David Sloan Wilson E. O. Wilson George C. Williams Richard Wrangham Anthropologists Jerome H. Barkow Robert Boyd Napoleon Chagnon Gregory Cochran Robin Dunbar Daniel Fessler Mark Flinn Henry Harpending John D. Hawks Joseph Henrich Ruth Mace Daniel Nettle Stephen Shennan Donald Symons John Tooby Pierre van den Berghe Behavioral economists/ political scientists Samuel Bowles Ernst Fehr Herbert Gintis Dominic D. P. Johnson Gad Saad Literary theory/ aesthetics Edmund Burke Joseph Carroll Denis Dutton Psychologists/ cognitive scientists Simon Baron-Cohen Justin L. Barrett Jay Belsky David F. Bjorklund Paul Bloom Pascal Boyer Joseph Bulbulia David Buss Josep Call Anne Campbell Peter Carruthers Noam Chomsky Leda Cosmides Martin Daly Daniel Dennett Paul Ekman Anne Fernald Aurelio José Figueredo David C. Geary Gerd Gigerenzer Jonathan Haidt Judith Rich Harris Stephen Kaplan Douglas T. Kenrick Simon M. Kirby Robert Kurzban Michael T. McGuire Geoffrey Miller Darcia Narvaez Randolph M. Nesse Steven Neuberg David Perrett Steven Pinker Paul Rozin Mark Schaller David P. Schmitt Todd K. Shackelford Roger Shepard Peter K. Smith Dan Sperber Anthony Stevens Frank Sulloway Michael Tomasello Mark van Vugt Andrew Whiten Glenn Wilson Margo Wilson Research centers/ organizations Center for Evolutionary Psychology Human Behavior and Evolution Society Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences New England Complex Systems Institute Related subjects and articles The Adapted Mind The Evolution of Human Sexuality Evolutionary Psychology Evolution and Human Behavior Dual inheritance theory Memetics Group selection Sociobiology Evolutionary neuroscience Human evolution Sociocultural evolution Evolutionary anthropology Evolutionary medicine Evolutionary linguistics Evolutionary psychology and culture Primatology Biosocial criminology Criticism of evolutionary psychology Lists Evolutionary psychologists Evolutionary psychology research groups and centers Bibliography of evolution and human behavior Evolutionary psychology Psychology portal Evolutionary biology portal Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evolutionary_aesthetics&oldid=992031009" Categories: Sociobiology Human evolution Evolutionary psychology Aesthetics Hidden categories: Articles with short description Articles with long short description Short description matches Wikidata Articles that may contain original research from August 2018 Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages Català Deutsch Español فارسی Edit links This page was last edited on 3 December 2020, at 03:02 (UTC). 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