A couple of days ago, I wrote about negative stigma attached to only children in my journal. Later that day, I mentioned the Adler quote that I included in the journal entry in conversation with my wife and son. Adler was an Austrian psychotherapist who described only children as pampered and wrote that parents who chose not to have more than one child were inflicting psychological harm on that one child. My wife was surprised at the quote and the attitude and asked me, “Where did you learn that?” I responded, “In psychology class in college.” She didn’t think that such a theory had much of a place in contemporary psychology and doesn’t remember having learned anything about psychologists that weighed in on family size.

The interesting thing about the conversation is that we both took the same introduction to psychology class in college, that we had the same professor and the same textbook. She took it one or two semesters before I. Furthermore, I didn’t take another psychology class in my undergraduate studies. To make matters worse from my perspective, we were competitive about grades in college, so I know that she got an A in that class while I got a B+. At least at the time that we took the class, the professor believed that she had done a better job of learning than I. The grades were based on a carefully designed scoring system of quizzes and tests, so there is evidence to back up the professor’s conclusions and the grades awarded. The grades may not have accurately reflected the actual learning that occurred, but they were fairly awarded.

Chances are good that she remembers more about general psychology than I. I tend to remember small details, individual quotes, and trivia while she tends to remember overall principles and concepts.

The conversation, however, reminded me of another important reality of my stage in life. Although I have grown and gained a great deal from experience and the constant exercise of my professional skills, my technical education is pretty far back in my life. I was 25 when I earned my doctorate and I’m over 68 now. Although I’ve participated in continuing education, post-doctoral studies and even done some additional degree work, my formal eduction took place a long time ago and there have been a lot of advancements in research and understanding since I was a student. Furthermore the development of computers and the World Wide Web has resulted in easier access to information and research, so today’s students are learning more content than was the case when I was a student and most of our research was done in the library.

I don’t remember evolutionary psychology as a field of study from any of my college experiences. I have only fairly recently begun to encounter articles that mention the work of evolutionary psychologists. The big names in psychology when I was a student were clinical psychologists, who worked with, studied and provided care for actual people. Educational psychologists focused primarily on human development and did their research in lab schools and other educational settings where there was some control of the subjects they observed. The ideas of human behaviors somehow being inherited, or hardwired in contemporary language, weren’t considered very much.

These days, psychologists frequently ask questions of why a particular human behavior exists and often they discover, or at least speculate, about evolutionary reasons for particular behaviors. The survival of the human species in the early stages of humanity favored communities and those who formed close relationships with others over lone individuals. Lone individuals had fewer opportunities to mate and reproduce, they had less support in times of famine or illness, and so those who lived in community became more successful. The urge to form deep and lasting relationships and to live in community are not the product of a single generation or our own notion of right and wrong as much as they are the result of many generations of human experience.

The theories of evolutionary behavior can be used to explain the development of moral codes and even religions. If evolution favors communities where the good of the group is valued over the good of any individual, altruistic behavior and even sacrifice of self for the good of the group becomes a positive moral choice. Other religious principles and practices have produced generations of people who have lived meaningful lives and passed on the stories of the past to their children.

Were I to return to college and begin studies all over, an unlikely event, I think I would be intrigued by studies of evolutionary psychology and invest more time in reading and learning about the insights that could be gained from understanding the evolution of human behavior. The study fascinates me and I may read more on the subject in years to come as I have a bit more time to follow my interests. Being a reader, I’ll probably find a few books at the library that deepen my understanding.

I might even discover that there is an evolutionary reason for my continuing curiosity and desire to study and learn. I know that I am happier when I have a bit of understanding not only of what motivates me, but also of why my friends and neighbors behave the way that they do. Learning about psychology helps me be more effective and satisfied in the work that I do and more connected as a citizen and member of the community. Deepening my capacity to understand others makes it easier for me to accept behaviors and lifestyles that are different from my own.

I haven’t yet come to a full understanding of why two people with decades of shared experiences retain different memories, but I have come to appreciate it a lot. I value Susan’s feedback and reactions more highly as time passes. I rely on her memories to reinforce my own and to give me a fuller picture of our past. I count myself as very fortunate to have a life partner with whom I shared so much of my student experience. Among other things, she helps me check my memory, which seems to be getting less, not more, accurate.

We’re still learning together.