The Scientific Revolution of Evolutionary Psychology: Current Status and Future Directions. A Commentary on Zagaria (2024)

• Published in: Adaptive human behavior and physiology Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 232 - 244
• Main Authors: Costello, William, Thomas, Andrew G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 30.05.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adaptation; Animal behavior; Anthropology; Art therapy; Behavioral Sciences; Bibliometrics; Biological Psychology; Comment; Culture; Dance therapy; Evolutionary Biology; Evolutionary psychology; Feminism; Human Physiology; Neurosciences; Social Sciences; Tissue culture; Tourism; Standard Social Science Model; Evolutionary Psychology; Scientific Revolution
• ISSN: 2198-7335; 2198-7335
• DOI: 10.1007/s40750-024-00240-7

Objectives: A bibliometric analysis by Zagaria (2024) claimed that research in Evolutionary Psychology (EP) lags behind research grounded in the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) in prevalence and growth rate, questioning EP’s status as a scientific revolution. This commentary aims to re-evaluate Zagaria’s findings and conclusions. We raise two major concerns about his analysis. First, Zagaria’s EP syntax excluded key EP terms like fitness, psychological adaptation, and parental investment, while the SSSM syntax included homonyms (e.g., culture) not always relevant to SSSM (e.g., tissue culture in medicine). Second, the analysis included non-scientific journals from fields like gender studies, skewing results since EP is not intended to influence non-scientific fields like dance therapy or tourism studies. Focusing on high-impact psychology journals would better reflect EP’s influence. Methods: We revised the SSSM syntax to “cultural” and updated the EP syntax by adding “inclusive fitness,” “parental investment,” and “psychological adaptation.” Our analysis also used year-by-year data and 5- and 10-year rolling averages to assess trends more accurately. Results: Our analysis found that growth in EP and SSSM research is comparable over time, and the ratio of SSSM to EP papers was overstated by at least 23%. Conclusion: We highlight metrics that should be weighted more heavily than publication quantity, such as effect magnitude, universality, and replicability. By these metrics, EP is arguably outperforming the SSSM and embodies elements of the Kuhnian scientific revolution discussed by Zagaria (2024). This commentary offers a more optimistic vision for EP’s current status and future direction.