In chapter 15 Lende uses examples of his own research, which
deals with adolescent drug use and abuse in Colombia to address how someone
should go about doing research using the evolutionary theory for behavioral
problems. He addresses that there are two main components that go into
substance abuse: “intensification and reinstatement”, since for drug users
usually the substance is a higher priority for them than other aspects of their
life and even after they stop using drugs, they may relapse on to their old
habits. Lende also points out the factors that lead to addiction, such as
sociocultural stress, an environment in which the substance is easy to find, as
well as multiple brain systems.
Lende then goes into the five steps that he used to do his
research. Step one is the human organism point of view, in which he looked at
the interaction between human biology and culture. One must keep in mind the
negative and positive outcomes that can occur while looking at how people behave.
The second step is adaptive analysis which focuses on the
proximate level and how the adaptions that we have gone through in the past
along with the present environment is what shapes how the neuropsychological
system’s functioning has adapted.
The third step is phylogenetic comparison, where Lende
explains that it is crucial to use animal models to understand brain evolution
and behavioral disorders.
The fourth step is
malfunction and discordance, which focuses on how there is a mismatch between
today’s environment and in the environment in the past, and how that can lead
to maladaptive behaviors.
The final step goes into the methods one should take while
doing their research, putting an emphasis on combining ethnography and
epidemiology.
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