UA ALLELE Lecture Explores Darwin’s Legacy of Evolutionary Psychology

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. Brad Sagarin, a psychology professor at Northern Illinois University, will present his lecture, “Evolutionary Psychology: Exploring Darwin’s Psychological Legacy,” on Oct.13 at 7:30 p.m. in 127 Biology Building on The University of Alabama campus.

This lecture, which is part of the ALLELE series, is designed for a non-technical audience. It is free and open to the public.

Sagarin works in the field of evolutionary psychology, which many perceive as a new and controversial branch of psychology. According to Sagarin, evolutionary psychology uses the principles of natural and sexual selection to understand human thought, emotion and behavior.

In his planned remarks, Sagarin intends to offer a guided tour of evolutionary psychology’s boldest theories, which range from understanding gender differences from an evolutionary perspective to how evolution might have produced altruistic behavior.

“We’ll explore the systematic differences between women and men and the ancestral challenges that provoked these differences, examining sex differences in mate preferences, mating strategies and jealousy, as well as the many cases in which women and men are far more similar than different,” Sagarin said.

“Finally, we’ll consider the ways our evolved predispositions may work against achieving contentment and whether we can transcend this part of our nature to experience serenity.”

Sagarin studied social influence with Robert Cialdini and quantitative psychology with Stephen West at Arizona State University, where he earned his doctorate. Some of his research interests include attitude change, resistance to persuasion, deception, jealousy, and infidelity, evolutionary psychology, human sexuality, and statistical approaches to missing data and non-compliance.

His presentation is the first lecture in the 2011-2012 Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution, known as ALLELE. The lecture series, now in its sixth year, is supported by UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, Honors College, Blount Undergraduate Initiative, New College, and the departments of anthropology, biological sciences, chemistry, English, gender and race studies, geological sciences, history, philosophy, psychology and telecommunications and film.

The ALLELE lecture series is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.