#190 Philip Kavanagh: Evolution And Clinical Psychology, Self-Esteem, And The Dark Triad
Dr. Phillip Kavanagh is an Associate Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the Institute for Social Neuroscience, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of South Australia. Dr. Kavanagh lectures across both the undergraduate and postgraduate psychology programs, provides research supervision to honors, master’s, and PhD students, and clinical supervision to students in the clinical program.
In this episode, we talk about the relationship between evolutionary psychology and clinical psychology, and the discipline of evolutionary clinical psychology. We go through some major issues, like how to properly classify something as a mental disorder/disease; how our modern environments differ in significant ways from the environments we evolved in, and the problems that brings, and the phenomenon of evolutionary mismatch; the several different schools of thought that we have in clinical psychology, and if it would be possible to unify them under a core theory; the difficulties in objectively evaluating patients; life history strategies, and the problems that arise when we have unfulfilled expectations. We also talk about personality variation, and the relevance of personality inventories, like the Big Five, in a clinical context; the sociometer theory, and its explanatory power; how our modern obsession with happiness might be problematic. Finally, we discuss recent literature on the Dark Triad and the Light Triad of human nature.
Time Links:
The relationship between evolutionary psychology and clinical psychology
Classifying something as a mental disorder/disease
Evolutionary mismatch, and problem in our modern environments
Issues with the different approaches in clinical psychology, and how to possibly unify them
Limitations of the clinical context
Life history strategies, and the problem with unfulfilled expectations
Personality variation and personality inventories in a clinical context
The sociometer theory, self-esteem, and suicide
The problem with focusing too much on happiness
The Dark Triad of human nature (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy)
The Light Triad (Humanism, Kantianism, and Faith in Humanity), and the interplay between the Dark Triad and the Light Triad
Follow Dr. Kavanagh’s work!
Follow Dr. Kavanagh’s work:
Institute for Social Neuroscience: https://bit.ly/2P6L3vp
Faculty page (University of South Australia): https://bit.ly/2KzFc2T
Articles on Researchgate: https://bit.ly/2tGSek1
Twitter handle: @Dr_Phil_K
Relevant papers:
Are Expectations the Missing Link between Life History Strategies and Psychopathology?: https://bit.ly/2UhtXLX
Social Exclusion, Self-Esteem, & Mating Relationships: Testing a Domain-Specific Variant of Sociometer Theory: https://bit.ly/2IvvtYW
Testing the Sociometer Model of Social Rejection: The Role of Self-Esteem as a Domain-Specific Mediator of Relationship Outcomes: https://bit.ly/2DbyHNI
The Light vs. Dark Triad of Personality: Contrasting Two Very Different Profiles of Human Nature: https://bit.ly/2Ip1stI