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Isolation (German: Isolierung) is a defence mechanism in psychoanalytic theory, first proposed by Sigmund Freud. While related to repression , the concept distinguishes itself in several ways. It is characterized as a mental process involving the creation of a gap between an unpleasant or threatening cognition and other thoughts and feelings.
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
Much work in psychology has focused on feelings of social isolation and/or loneliness. [4] Only recently have psychologists begun to explore the concept of existential isolation. [2] Existential isolation is the subjective sense that persons are alone in their experience and that others are unable to understand their perspective.
The most prominent example of evolutionary psychology, notably advanced in the early work of Noam Chomsky and later by Steven Pinker, is the hypothesis that the human brain has adapted to acquire the grammatical rules of natural language. [126]
Mainstream evolutionary psychology grew out of earlier movements which applied the principles of evolutionary biology to understand the mind and behavior such as sociobiology, ethology, and behavioral ecology, [5] differing from these earlier approaches by focusing on identifying psychological adaptations rather than adaptive behavior. [20]
Nevertheless, much of the current research suggests that, "...speciation is a process of emerging genealogical distinctness, rather than a discontinuity affecting all genes simultaneously" [212] and, in allopatry (the most common form of speciation), "reproductive isolation is a byproduct of evolutionary change in isolated populations, and thus ...
The study of the evolution of emotions dates back to the 19th century. Evolution and natural selection has been applied to the study of human communication , mainly by Charles Darwin in his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . [ 1 ]
Unwittingly, humans have carried out evolution experiments for as long as they have been domesticating plants and animals. Selective breeding of plants and animals has led to varieties that differ dramatically from their original wild-type ancestors. Examples are the cabbage varieties, maize, or the large number of different dog breeds.