Hunters in a Farmers World: ADHD and Hunter Gatherers

The field of evolutionary psychology has grown significantly in the past two decades. According to Brinkman, evolutionary psychology is one of the fastest growing fields in psychology. It is a theoretical approach topsychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits—suchas memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, i.e., as the functional products of natural selection. 

An adaptation is a trait that developed in the course of evolution as a result of the mechanism of natural or sexual selection. These adaptations are transmitted genetically and can be anatomicalor psychological. In the case of psychological adaptations, the selected genes help to form specific circuits in the brain. Thus the behaviours contributing to the most to successful reproduction will be selected. It is of interest that Darwin himself wrote about evolutionary psychology in that he suggested that like any other trait, human mental faculties are the outcome of evolution by natural and sexual selection and suggested these mental faculties should be understood in light of common descent.