Positive evolutionary psychology uses evolutionary principles to shed light on living the good life.

Three lessons from positive evolutionary psychology are this: Be kind, believe in love, and be trustworthy.

If you're looking to improve your life at any level, pay close attention to positive evolutionary psychology.

The evolutionary perspective on the human experience is rich and full of guiding light if you take a minute to look for it. The basic idea of evolutionary psychology is that human behavior—and all that goes with it (emotions, thoughts, attitudes, to name a few)—was shaped by eons of natural selection, leading to the special kind of ape that you see in the mirror each day. Evolutionary psychology is, briefly, an approach to understanding behavior by applying principles of evolutionary science. For instance, evolutionary psychology asks how some common behaviors (such as smiling when something goes well) would have helped our ancestors to survive and, ultimately, reproduce (see Evolutionary Psychology 101 for a detailed introduction).

While I have co-written book-length treatments (Positive Evolutionary Psychology and An Introduction to Positive Evolutionary Psychology) regarding how the ideas from evolutionary psychology can help us lead richer lives, here are three that are useful to keep at our mind's forefront:

Be kind. While people often think of evolution as a set of forces that set organisms in some competitive and nasty competition with one another, that's really only part of the story. Humans (as is true with many mammals, in fact) evolved to seek out others who display genuine indices of kindness (see Buss, 2017). This is partly because we are a deeply social species, and humans are interdependent on one another in so many ways. This point is easily explicated. Imagine that you have a choice to date someone who is described as "extremely kind" versus "not kind at all." Or you can choose a partner to work on a project who is either known to be kind or nasty. Or you get to elect a supervisor for your team who is either very kind or very cruel. It's easy. We evolved to appreciate kindness in others because being connected with kind (vs. unkind) others ultimately provides us with social dividends. It is no wonder that kindness is one of the most sought-after features of long-term mates based on research conducted around the globe.

Believe in love. Love is a complicated emotion that some people seem to dismiss as the stuff of Disney movies. Based on solid work in the field of evolutionary science, love is definitely an actual social-emotional state that evolved to keep people connected to and supportive of important others in their lives (see Fisher, 1993). People who don't believe in love and who don't prioritize love in important relationships often end up paying a price down the line. That is because true love does exist, and it benefits not only couples but also individual members of couples, along with all their long-term goals. Love has been seen in multiple studies of the brain using advanced fMRI techniques (e.g., Acevedo et al., 2019). It is an important part of our evolutionary heritage. Dismiss the idea of love to your own detriment.

Cultivate a reputation as being trustworthy. When it comes to human reputations, one of the core elements pertains to whether someone is seen as trustworthy or not (Geher et al., 2019). Under ancestral human conditions, people lived in small, tight-knit communities—they were surrounded by pretty much the same people for their entire lives (see Geher, 2014). These are the conditions that surrounded our evolutionary history. In such a context, gaining a reputation as someone who cannot be trusted (to be on time, to be faithful, to be on one's side, to be kind, etc.) would have had majorly damaging consequences that could have threatened one's capacity for survival and/or reproduction. We don't like cheaters. We like people who have reputations for being honest and trustworthy. And this fact is built deeply into our evolved psychology. Bottom Line The field of positive evolutionary psychology suggests that evolutionary science is filled with evidence-based kernels of wisdom that can help us all to lead better lives. If you're like me (and countless others) and you're constantly in search of how you can work toward the good life, take some notes from evolutionary psychology. People appreciate kindness in others. So be kind. Further, believe in love. It has been documented to exist deeply in our evolutionary history (and our brains), so believe in it—and don't settle for anything less. And we evolved in small, tight-knit communities where trust issues were enormous. People with trustworthy reputations naturally were appreciated by others in their community. So work to be honest and trustworthy. Doing so will ultimately pay off. At the end of the day, we are apes shaped by eons of natural selection. Evolutionary psychology suggests that this fact has shaped nearly every facet of our minds and behavioral patterns. If you want to truly understand what it means to live the good life, pay close attention to the field of positive evolutionary psychology. We have answers.

Cultivate a reputation as being trustworthy. When it comes to human reputations, one of the core elements pertains to whether someone is seen as trustworthy or not (Geher et al., 2019). Under ancestral human conditions, people lived in small, tight-knit communities—they were surrounded by pretty much the same people for their entire lives (see Geher, 2014). These are the conditions that surrounded our evolutionary history. In such a context, gaining a reputation as someone who cannot be trusted (to be on time, to be faithful, to be on one's side, to be kind, etc.) would have had majorly damaging consequences that could have threatened one's capacity for survival and/or reproduction. We don't like cheaters. We like people who have reputations for being honest and trustworthy. And this fact is built deeply into our evolved psychology.

The field of positive evolutionary psychology suggests that evolutionary science is filled with evidence-based kernels of wisdom that can help us all to lead better lives. If you're like me (and countless others) and you're constantly in search of how you can work toward the good life, take some notes from evolutionary psychology.

People appreciate kindness in others. So be kind. Further, believe in love. It has been documented to exist deeply in our evolutionary history (and our brains), so believe in it—and don't settle for anything less. And we evolved in small, tight-knit communities where trust issues were enormous. People with trustworthy reputations naturally were appreciated by others in their community. So work to be honest and trustworthy. Doing so will ultimately pay off.

At the end of the day, we are apes shaped by eons of natural selection. Evolutionary psychology suggests that this fact has shaped nearly every facet of our minds and behavioral patterns. If you want to truly understand what it means to live the good life, pay close attention to the field of positive evolutionary psychology. We have answers.

Acevedo BP, Poulin MJ, Geher G, Grafton S, Brown LL. (2019). The neural and genetic correlates of satisfying sexual activity in heterosexual pair‐bonds. Brain Behav. 2019;e01289. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.1289

Buss, D. M. (2017). The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (Revised edition). New York: Basic Books.

Fisher, H. (1993). Anatomy of Love - A Natural History of Mating and Why We Stray. New York: Ballantine Books.

Geher, G. (2014). Evolutionary Psychology 101. New York: Springer.

Geher, G., Di Santo, J., & Planke, J. (2019). Social reputation. In T. Shackelford (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Science. New York: Springer.

Geher, G. & Wedberg, N. (2022). Positive Evolutionary Psychology: Darwin’s Guide to Living a Richer Life. New York: Oxford University Press.

Geher, G., Fritche, M., Goodwine, A., Lombard, J., Longo, K., & Montana, D. (2023). An Introduction to Positive Evolutionary Psychology. In D. Bjorklund (Series Ed.) Cambridge Elements in Applied Evolutionary Science.

There was a problem adding your email address. Please try again.

By submitting your information you agree to the Psychology Today Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy

© Psychology Today