A very short (but incomplete) intro can be found in Evolutionary psychology: A primer
For a deep dive into the field, see The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby, eds. 1992 Oxford University Press) or The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, Second edition. (David Buss, ed. 2015 Wiley)
For the most complete introduction to principles of evolutionary psychology, see:
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
or for something more recent:
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (2015). The theoretical foundations of evolutionary psychology.. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, 2nd edition (2nd ed., pp. 3–87).
For something briefer on two key points (1) why evolutionary explanations of behavior necessarily imply evolved information-processing systems, and (2) why some of these will have to be domain-specific, imbued with content of their own):
Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1987). From evolution to behavior: Evolutionary psychology as the missing link. In J. Dupre (Ed.), The Latest on the Best: Essays on evolution and optimality (pp. 277–306).
The 1992 and 2015 papers refer to arguments presented more fully in:
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1990). On the universality of human nature and the uniqueness of the individual: The role of genetics and adaptation. Journal of Personality, 58, 17-67.
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1990). The past explains the present: Emotional adaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethology and Sociobiology, 11, 375-424.
For an updated version of the emotion argument in this 1990 paper, see:
Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (2000). Evolutionary psychology and the emotions. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of Emotions, 2nd Edition. (pp. 91-115.) NY: Guilford.
For similar, but including internal regulatory variables and motivation, see
Tooby J. & Cosmides L. (2008) The evolutionary psychology of the emotions and their relationship to internal regulatory variables. In: Lewis, Michael; Haviland-Jones, J. M.; Barrett, Lisa Feldman (Ed.): Handbook of Emotions, 3rd Edition, pp. 114-137, The Guilford Press, New York, 2008.
Tooby, John; Cosmides, Leda; Sell, Aaron; Lieberman, Debra; Sznycer, Daniel (2008) Internal regulatory variables and the design of human motivation: A computational and evolutionary approach. In: Elliot, Andrew J. (Ed.): Handbook of Approach and Avoidance Motivation, pp. 251-271, Laurence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
The 1990 Journal of Personality article above refers to the argument in:
Tooby J. (1982). Pathogens, polymorphism, and the evolution of sex. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 97, 557-576.
To see why motivational adaptations require “innate ideas”, see:
Tooby, J., Cosmides, L. & Barrett, H. C. (2005). Resolving the debate on innate ideas: Learnability constraints and the evolved interpenetration of motivational and conceptual functions. In Carruthers, P., Laurence, S. & Stich, S. (Eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Content. NY: Oxford University Press.
Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1987). From evolution to behavior: Evolutionary psychology as the missing link. In J. Dupre (Ed.), The latest on the best: Essays on evolution and optimality. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
On why theories of adaptive function are necessary for cognitive psychologists, see:
Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1994). Beyond intuition and instinct blindness: The case for an evolutionarily rigorous cognitive science. Cognition, 50, 41-77.
Cosmides L. & Tooby J. (1994) Origins of domain specificity: The evolution of functional organization. In: Hirschfeld, Lawrence; Gelman, Susan (Ed.): Mapping the Mind: Domain-specificity in cognition and culture, pp. 85-116, Cambridge University Press, New York.
For a shorter version of why general purpose learning is insufficient for understanding cultural transmission (including why population genetic models have limitations when imported as models of cultural transmission), see:
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1989). Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, Part I. Theoretical considerations. Ethology & Sociobiology, 10, 29-49.
What is the difference between an adaptationist and a phylogenetic approach? Which is more useful for a psychologist trying to reconstruct the architecture of the human mind? To find out, see:
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1989). Adaptation versus phylogeny: The role of animal psychology in the study of human behavior. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 2, 105-118.
For relevance to cognitive development, see:
Cosmides L. & Tooby J. (1994) Origins of domain specificity: The evolution of functional organization. In: Hirschfeld, Lawrence; Gelman, Susan (Ed.): Mapping the Mind: Domain-specificity in cognition and culture, pp. 85-116, Cambridge University Press, New York.
For relevance to cognitive neuroscience, see:
Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (Section editors). (1995). Section Introduction: Evolutionary approaches to cognitive neuroscience. In M. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (2000). Introduction. Evolution, Section X (Chapters 80-87). In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The New Cognitive Neurosciences, Second Edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (pp. 1163-1166.)
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2000). Toward mapping the evolved functional organization of mind and brain. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The New Cognitive Neurosciences, Second Edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Chapter 80, pp. 1167-1178.)
Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1995). From function to structure: The role of evolutionary biology and computational theories in cognitive neuroscience. In M. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Duchaine, B., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2001). Evolutionary psychology and the brain. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 11(2), 225-230.
For relevance to economics, see:
Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1994). Better than rational: Evolutionary psychology and the invisible hand. American Economic Review (May), 327-332.
