Adaptation, Heritability, and the Emergence of Evolutionary Political Science

Abstract

Biological approaches to politics have witnessed the emergence of two major strands of research that are related but quite distinct: an “Adaptationist” approach and a “Heritability” approach. The former explains behavior as the product of complex psychological adaptations designed by natural selection that all humans share, while the latter explains behavior as a consequence of heritable genetic differences between individuals. Importantly, neither approach excludes environmental factors from a causal role in generating behavior. Heritability approaches are more familiar to political scientists, and one well‐known example is behavior genetics, as exemplified in twin study research. However, Adaptationist approaches, such as evolutionary psychology, remain theoretically underdeveloped in political science. We therefore provide a detailed outline of the theoretical framework of evolutionary psychology, and we explore its application toward the study of political behavior—an endeavor we label Evolutionary Political Science.