Why are projects and project management so cool when managing projects is so problematic? This question is at the heart of this thesis which sets out to find answer using an evolutionary approach to the discipline. A conceptual evolutionary framework for investigation is developed, the heredity of the ideas and concepts that underpin project management are traced and their impact analysed, and a conceptual model of the project management environment is developed to demonstrate how individuals and corporations gain survival benefits from aspects of project management. To further investigate the evolutionary mechanisms that take place in the project management environment, the result of a phenomenological study are presented which show that various project management artefacts emotionally affect individuals, and that those individuals also use the emotional affects to emotionally manipulate others. The conclusions drawn from this investigation are that modern project management delivers cultural survival benefits to individuals and corporations, and its various behaviours and concepts are encoded genetically and memetically across our genes and Western culture. The memetic framework for project management contributes to the field by providing a means to debunk the ‘sacred cows’ of project management; it brings new understandings of how the various ideals, tools and concepts of project management deliver benefits, and to whom; and it provides a agenda for evidence based practice and the democratisation of work where project management is inculcated into the various work domains such as Health, Art, Agriculture, Commerce, etc, rather than a standalone discipline.

What happens when feminist body theory and reductionist theories of biological sex difference are brought together? In this work I take as my starting point the increasing ubiquity of appeals to biology as an explanation for ‘human’ and ‘woman’s’ nature on the one hand, and the reactive and reflexive distancing of biology within feminist body theory on the other, to begin to question the middle ground. I aim to constructively dissent from taking up either of these positions in order to confront the question: what if the reductionists prove to be, even partially, right? In acknowledging that possibility, I am interested in whether/where there is potential for feminist theory to be more relaxed about biologically sex differentiated attributes. I position myself as a women’s studies scholar taking a walk across the campus to see what evidence is being produced by ‘the opposition’. To place my walk in context, I first briefly explore various feminist approaches to the problem of biological sex differences, and the continuing difficulties surrounding binaries and binary thinking. Next, in the main part of the thesis, I review the historical and contemporary reasoning and claims made within three areas of reductionist science that are aligning at this time, and which have been reproached for promoting a return to a more biologically determinist social environment. I then take a brief excursion off campus to demonstrate the dangerous aspects of these scientific enterprises when their interpretation into popular culture is not carefully monitored. Finally, I return again to my own side of the campus to look at some of the ways feminists have already begun the work of overturning outworn and contested conventional theories about biology and human nature in conversation with reductionist theory. Having done this, was it worth the walk? My assessment is that while, in some cases, feminism’s defensive antiessentialism is warranted, there is work being undertaken within these reductionist sciences that is less rigid and reactionary than some critical interpretation would suggest. I conclude that there is a certain futility in feminist body theory’s oppositional stance to biology, and that its utility is put at risk by a continued investment in one side of a binary. Further, my walk across the campus leads me to believe that, while perhaps not imminent, there is every reason to expect that the scientific pursuit of an unequivocal genetic basis for specific sex differentiated behaviours will succeed. That being so, there are spaces where the insights of both sides might be productively brought together so as to avoid the worst excesses of biological determinism and, at the same time, loosen the grip of binary thinking on approaches to biology and the body.

Thesis (M.A.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 346 p. Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: Men may engage in financially risky behaviors when seeking mates for several reasons: Risky behaviors can signal to potential mates one's genetic fitness, may facilitate success in status competition with other men, and may be a necessary strategy for gaining sufficient resources to offer potential mates. Once in a relationship, however, the same financial riskiness may be problematic for males, potentially suggesting to partners an interest in (extra-curricular) mate-seeking and placing in jeopardy existing resources available to the partner and the relationship. In the current research, we employed guided visualization scenarios to activate either a mating motivation or no motivation in single and in attached men and women. Participants indicated their preference for either guaranteed sums of money or chances of getting significantly more money accompanied by chances of getting nothing. As predicted, mating motivation led single men to become more risky and attached men to become less risky. These findings replicated across different samples and measures. Interestingly, in all three studies, women exhibited the opposite pattern: Mating motivation led single women to become less financially risky and attached women to become more risky. Thus, two additional experiments were conducted to explore the potential causes of this effect. The results of these latter experiments support the "mate-switching" hypothesis of risk-taking in attached women. That is, women who are able (i.e. have high mate value) were more risky in order to exit an undesirable relationship and move into a better one. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2012

O objetivo desta pesquisa é explorar a motivação e as potenciais complicações do uso da tecnologia para melhorar fundamentalmente a condição humana. Inicialmente a pesquisa se debruçará sobre alguns pressupostos filosóficos básicos para a discussão deste melhoramento. Para tal será abordado a heurística evolutiva proposta por Anders Sandberg e Nick Bostrom, em seguida será apresentado brevemente alguns traços básicos da condição humana a saber: cognição, moralidade e ligação afetiva de acordo com a perspectiva da psicologia evolucionista, um passo importante na heurística evolutiva supramencionada. A seguir o trabalho versará especificamente sobre melhoramentos que tenham como alvo a própria moralidade humana, inicialmente sobre as fortes motivações de realizar tal melhoramento, e ao final sobre os riscos e problemas tanto filosóficos como técnicos de tentar realizar tal modificação na moralidade humana. Tentativamente, a análise será original ao (1) aceitar pressupostos dos defensores do melhoramento moral, e sua conclusão de que o mesmo é um imperativo caso conduzido de maneira correta, (2) abandonar alguns dos possíveis contra-argumentos, no entanto, também (3) concluir a existência de severos problemas em potencial no que tange ao melhoramento moral / The intent of this research is to investigate the motivations and potential risks of using technology to alter the human condition. Firstly, it will explore some of the basic philosophical assumptions behind such discussions. Hence, it will evaluate the evolutionary heuristics proposed by Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom and its potential for solving many issues arising when considering human enhancement, therefore introducting one basic philosophical ground when arguing for or against these modifications. Thence, it will be given an introduction to some basic traits of the human condition, e.g.: cognition, morality and pair-bonding, from the perspective of Evolutionary Psychology. Such traits will be then considered as targets for human enhancement. These are important steps in, and thus a application of, the aforementioned evolutionary heuristics. Secondly, this dissertation will specifically investigate the risks of using technology to alter human morality. It will focus on the possibility that attempting to improve human moral dispositions moral enhancement could in fact yield a future without moral value. This analysis will be tentatively novel in that it will focus on risks that could arise even if the claims of moral enhancement advocates are true and some arguments against it unsound

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Lester C. Loschky / Öhman and Mineka (2001) proposed the existence of an evolved fear module with four Fodorian characteristics of modularity. They presented evidence that the fear module is selective, automatic, encapsulated, and operates in dedicated subcortical neural circuitry. The consistently rapid physiological and behavioral (attention capture) evidence (e.g., Öhman & Mineka, 2001) provides clear support for its automaticity. However, recent developments (e.g., Blanchette, 2006) cast doubt on the selectivity of the module. Specifically, it is unclear whether or not the fear module automatically responds selectively to evolutionarily ancient fear stimuli or whether modern threats may also elicit automatic responding. Furthermore, previous research using visual search paradigms has produced unclear results regarding the evolutionarily derived selectivity of the fear module. Unfortunately, the visual search method is notoriously sensitive to visual characteristics of stimuli (Duncan & Humphreys, 1989). However, eye movements provide a valid alternative measure of covert attention capture. In order to clarify the issues, Experiment 1 used an oculomotor inhibition paradigm to present ancient and modern threats with one another or neutral stimuli in competition for visual attention. In addition, we collected measures of participants’ experience with the stimuli to assess the influence of experience/familiarity/learning on rapid attention to threats. Furthermore, because image inversion maintains low level stimulus characteristics (e.g., spatial frequencies, contrast, and luminance) while disrupting the semantic processing of images, presenting the stimulus pairs upside down was used to determine whether any observed effects were due to low level stimulus characteristics. Experiment 1 produced null results with respect to systematic differences in attentional processes as a function of threat type. Because Experiment 1 was modeled after Nummenmaa et al., (2009, Exp 3), it was therefore necessary to attempt to replicate their findings. Experiment 2 successfully replicated the findings of Nummenmaa et al. Therefore, it is suggested that the rapid attention processes responsible for systematic deviations in saccade trajectories seen in Experiment 2 (and Nummenmaa et al., 2009, Exp 3) do not translate to the methodology used in Experiment 1. Given the findings from the present study, the question of whether or not there exists and evolved fear module remains open. This study clearly supports the existence of an attentional bias for emotional content as indicated through the use of oculomotor inhibition paradigm. However, like the visual search methodology, the oculomotor inhibition paradigm appears to be very sensitive to visual differences of the stimuli.

Human behaviour can be explained not only through experience and environments but also by incorporating evolutionary explanation. Consumer behaviour could not be understood accurately without infusing Darwinian evolutionary theory which has contributed in the knowledge of human nature. Evolutionary psychology revolves around the human's evolved mental and the impact on human's traits and behaviour where the influence of the environment to our genes would determine our individual behaviour and traits, resulting in variation among us. Foraging which is a part of behavioural ecology involves many sequences or repetitions of animals' activities and decision making which is useful to relate these patterns of activities to the decisions made in human consumption. The aim of this research is to investigate the similarities of human consumption and ecological behaviour by employing interpretative and comparative approach. It is hoped that by applying the evolutionary theory in explaining consumer choice, this study is able to contribute to the development of behavioural ecology in human consumption.

Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Gary Brase / An evolutionary perspective suggests that changes in resource availability produce changes in fertility decisions and desires, and that these adaptive mechanisms are sensitive to sociocultural factors that act more proximally to the decision-maker. The current work systematically investigates several factors as potential predictors of fertility decisions at the level of the individual decision-maker in a three-study design, adding to an existing literature of fertility decision-making that has focused on demographic-level shifts. In study 1 (N=228, 69.3% female, average age=25.6), study 2 (N=232, 72.4% female, average age=24.7), and study 3 (N=333, 67% female, average age=25.1) data was collected from a general Internet sample and a student sample. Findings suggest that high resource variability produces insecure romantic attachment, which is associated with increased fertility plans and desires. Further, this work indicates that fertility decision making mechanisms are sensitive to sociocultural factors, particularly gender roles and identities, cultural pressures to become a parent, mothering expectations, and relationship status. These findings suggest that demographic-level changes in fertility can be understood, with strong predictive models, at the individual-level of analysis.

Throughout the empirical psychological literature on emotion, the general consensus is that shame is maladaptive, while guilt is the adaptive moral emotion. Conversely, evolutionary psychology concludes that all emotions serve adaptive functions. Specifically, shame serves an appeasement function in social relationships. In order to investigate the true nature of shame, the current study used an experimental design. Specifically, a 2 (high shame, no shame) X 2 (high guilt, no guilt) design with a no-mistakes control group was implemented, and shame and guilt were operationalized through an evolutionary lens (i.e., shame as a nonverbal display, guilt as verbalizations of apology). Participants (n = 110) were told they would be assisting psychology faculty members with interviewing candidates for a research position. During the interview, the candidate made three mistakes, and showed shame and/or guilt according to the 2 X 2 design. Participants then rated how well the candidate performed. Results were analyzed using a 2-way ANOVA and independent samples t tests, and it was found that participants rated the candidate more favorably in both shame conditions. Importantly, there were no significant differences between those participants who viewed the candidate who made no mistakes (control condition) and those that viewed the candidate showing shame after multiple mistakes. Thus, apparently saying 'sorry' is not quite enough.