QUESTION 1

Autism spectrum disorders are severe developmental disorders. Autism touches every aspect of the child's interaction with his or her world, involves many parts of the brain, and undermines the traits that make us human - our social responsiveness, ability to communicate and feelings for other people

Explain fully the following two hypotheses on autism and its implications for the understanding of normal social behaviour

i) Theory of the mind

ii) Extreme male brain theory

QUESTION 2

The evolutionary theory of parent-offspring and genetic conflict suggest that the "interests" of parents and children will not coincide perfectly because they are genetically related by only 50 percent

How have the issues of parent-offspring and genetic conflict affected

a) morphological adaptations

b) behavioural adaptations

QUESTION 3

The pronounced dispute in incest taboo literature reflects the mind/body debate. Some argue that incest avoidance is an inheritable social behaviour while others argue that incest avoidance is a social behaviour produced through environmental experiences.

a) Explain and evaluate the different views on the universality of the incest taboo

b) Which explanation do you prefer and why?

QUESTION 4

William Hamilton (1964) demonstrated rigorously, in a pair of seminal papers, that an altruistic gene will be favoured by natural selection when a certain condition, known as Hamilton's rule, is satisfied

a) What is Hamilton's rule?

b) What types of behaviour are predicted by Hamilton's theory of inclusive fitness?

c) Explain the evidence for two examples of such behaviours