Psy 330 - Bibliography of David Buss

Bibliography of David Buss

PSY330

Dr. M

February 10, 2012

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Bibliography of David Buss

Evolutionary psychologists, such as David Buss, approach the social and natural sciences to examine psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary psychologists also argue that much of human behavior is the output of psychological adaptations that have evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments. I chose to conduct my bibliography on David Buss for several reasons. For one, this adaptationist type of methodology is steadily increasing as an influence in the general field of psychology. Secondly, Dr. Buss’ work presents new contemporary discoveries based off of premises on established scientific principles of Darwinian evolutionary theory. And lastly, Dr. Buss is probably the foremost evolutionary psychologist in the world whom also resides in my home town. David Buss and evolutionary theorist like him continue to offer valuable insights to this field which in turn adds more pieces to the multifarious puzzle of psychology as a whole.

David M. Buss was born on April 14, 1953, in Indianapolis, Indiana. He didn’t decide on majoring in psychology until he one day concluded that “the human mind was the most complex and mysterious entity in the known universe” (Hergenhahn & Olson, 2011). He is currently a professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Austin, and is known for his evolutionary psychology research on human sex differences in mate selection. He is currently the head of the

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Individual Differences and Evolutionary Psychology Area and supervises a lab of evolutionary psychology Ph.D. students. After completing his doctorate in 1981 at the University of

California, Berkeley, Dr. Buss spent four years as Assistant Professor at Harvard University. In 1985, he transferred to the University of Michigan, where he taught for 11 years before accepting his current position at UT Austin in 1996.

He has authored roughly 300 scientific papers, as well as six books. He is co-editor of the Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, and is one of the most widely cited psychologists worldwide. Among his most well-cited books are The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating and the first textbook on evolutionary psychology, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind.

Dr. Buss’s primary topics of research include mating strategies, conflict between the sexes, status, social reputation, prestige, the emotion