Remembering Cheaters: Evolutionary Perspective on Memory

Evolutionary psychology is based on the idea that the human mind is composed of highly specialized modules that represent solutions for adaptive problems faced by our ancestors during the course of human evolution. This includes a module for remembering cheaters that has been proposed as an adaptation to reciprocal altruism. Indeed, several studies show that people may have enhanced memory for behaviors that violate social norms. However, a general tendency to focus attention to expectancy-violating information is better suited to explain these results than a highly specialized cheater-detection module.

This makes sense from a functional perspective as well. It is generally a highly efficient and frugal strategy to preferentially attend to information that cannot be inferred from existing schemas.

The aim of this lecture series, organized by the Interdisciplinary Center for Applied Cognitive Studies, is to popularize cognitive psychology and to show how the results of research in this field may improve understanding of many processes and help solve everyday problems.