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Evolutionary Psychology: Toward a New View of Human Nature and Organizational Society

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Human Relations

Abstract

The paper argues that evolutionary psychologyoffers a radical and challenging new perspective onhuman nature and organizational society. Its roots in aconvergence of insights and scientific discoveries from diverse natural and human sciences aredescribed, and how it seeks to avoid common fallacies ofearlier biological reasoning about human society.Recurrent themes in human nature and theirmanifestations are summarized, including sex and personalitydifferences, cognitive and affective biases, socialorientations, and preferred modes of social exchange.The paper concludes that we suffer the consequences of poor fit between our inherited natures andmany of the constructed environments in organizationalsociety, but that new emerging forms of organization maypresent us with the opportunities for social relations closer to the ancestral paradigms ofour psychology.

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Nicholson, N. Evolutionary Psychology: Toward a New View of Human Nature and Organizational Society. Human Relations 50, 1053–1078 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016937216809

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