Soft Core Evolutionary Psychology? Potential Evidence Against a Unified Research Program from a Survey of 581 Evolutionarily Informed Scholars

A recent philosophical examination of evolutionary psychology argues that it currently lacks a metatheoretical “hard core” and thus cannot be considered a mature science. It has been proposed instead that evolutionary psychology should be categorized as a pre-normal, but not pre-paradigm (as defined by Kuhn), science, given, on the one hand, substantial theoretical tensions but, on the other, evidence of impressive scientific progress. Yet a survey of controversial beliefs involving 581 evolutionarily informed scholars, the majority with psychology backgrounds, has found that they have “shared core beliefs” about a number of topics central to their field, which potentially suggests that there is a metatheory or “hard core” uniting evolutionary psychology. The current study reconsidered these data using factor analysis in an effort to identify the presence of a latent Core Beliefs factor, which if present could be reasonably interpreted as reflecting a widely accepted (implicitly or explicitly) metatheory. A single-factor solution did not fit these data, however. Instead, three belief-cluster factors emerged, corresponding to Behavioral Genetics , Mainstream Evolutionary Psychology (characterized by certain beliefs about massive modularity, menstrual cycles, sex differences, life history, and developmental influences), and Biocultural Dynamics (characterized by certain beliefs about population differences and group selection). Mostly weak but positive inter-factor correlations were noted, which suggest the potential future development of a unitary metatheory. Participant training background was examined as a predictor of endorsement of the different belief-cluster factors, and significant evidence of influence was observed in some cases. While these data could be taken as evidence that evolutionary psychology is not yet a fully “normal” science, having only a metatheoretical “soft core,” this view faces certain challenges.