1.8: Cooperation and competition Flashcards
According to evolutionary theory, should individuals help others at their own expense?
This should not happen, because selection favours those who act in their own interest
If evolutionary theory is right, how can it be explained that individuals help others?
Helpers rarely help others at their own expense
What looks like selflessness is selfishness in disguise
True altruism
Donor suffers net-costs; helping reduces the altruist’s prospects of survival and reproduction
Pseudo-altruism
Donor gains net-benefit; helping provides indirect benefits to the ‘altruist’, who in fact is an egotist
Give 3 circumstances in which true altruism exists
Social manipulation – individuals are duped/coerced into selfless behaviour
Maladaptation – individuals are voluntarily selfless, but it does not benefit offspring and so would not be selected for
Group-selection – individuals put other above self-interest in efforts to preserve the species, population or group
Give three ways in which social manipulation provokes true altruism
Cuckoldry – helpers are deceived
Indoctrination – helpers are manipulated
Slavery – helpers are forced
Give 2 examples of cuckoldry that provokes true altruism and critique them
Cuckoos exploit songbirds
Scam-artists cash in on victims
(Is it true altruism if you believe you are helping yourself as you help another?)
Give an example of indoctrination that provokes true altruism and critique it
Politicians often use religious brain washing or Machiavellian Intelligence
(Is it true altruism if you are helping a social group that helps you?)
Give an example of slavery that provokes true altruism and critique it
Meerkat milk slaves
Is it true altruism if there is consequence of punishment?
What did Richard Dawkins argue in reference to group selection theory?
It is the individual selected for, not the group
Give 3 examples of group-selectionist thought and critique them using individual-selectionist thought
Clutch size (colony birds lay fewer eggs than they could so as not to create famine OR individual colony birds lay fewer eggs to ensure the greatest number of surviving young)
Self-sacrifice in insects (bees are willing to die to deter attackers of their hive OR bees are willing to die to deter attackers of their hive because they are better off if they protect genes carried by their many sisters)
Inhibition to kill conspecifics (victorious male combatants refrain from killing a defeated rival in order to preserve the species and spread out the population OR killing defeated rivals is risky, as defeated combatants have nothing to lose)
Give 2 arguments that explain why group selection flawed?
Free-rider problem: genes promoting selfishness will spread at the expense of those associated with altruism
Reductionism: individual interests alone can bring about cooperation and (pseudo) altruism
What are Fisher’s Principle and the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) and how do they illustrate the ‘group-selection-fallacy’?
Fisher’s Principle argues that to propagate mammalian species effectively, offspring should be mostly female and rarely male, because it is female reproduction that constrains population growth
But the sex ratio is 1:1, which is the equilibrium ratio, because the minority sex has better mating prospects, which makes the birth of that sex more common; this is the ESS
This illustrate ‘group-selection-fallacy’, because group selection theory predicts male births to be less common than female births
Give 4 circumstances in which pseudo altruism exists
Kin-selection – increasing fitness of kin through cooperative breeding allows replication of ‘altruist’s’ genes
Reciprocity – reciprocal altruism amongst non-kin/mutualism
Reputational magnanimity – costly signals and showing-off for the benefit of others increases individual prestige
Multi-level selection – groups with altruists out-compete those with only selfish individuals, but once to selfish group is extinct, the altruism is individually selected against (selection is both group and individual)
Give an example of pseudo altruism in kin-selection
Insect eusociality
Female bees/wasps/ants are more related to their sisters than the queen, or other males because bees/wasps/ants reproduce in haplo-diploid mode
Therefore females are ‘super sisters’ and are better off helping each other than reproducing directly on their own (cooperative breeding)
