Behavioral Ecology Flashcards
What is Behavioral Ecology?
The study of the evolutionary basis for organism decision-making and behavior due to selective pressure from the environment imposed upon the organism
What is Adaptive Phenotypic Plasticity?
Organisms of the same species often can develop distinct characteristics that are most adaptive to specific environmental conditions
Cultural and individual variations in humans may be
Outcomes of universal flexibilities that evolved to deal with adaptive problems posed by specific ecologies
What is the context of Life History Theory?
Energy is limited and thus organisms cannot maximize all life domains simultaneously
What are the two approaches to the Life History Theory?
- A slow life history
- A fast life history
What is a Slow Life History?
Energy may be preferentially allocated to the development and maintenance of bodily growth and competitive abilities
What is a Fast Life History?
Organisms may opt to rapidly achieve sexual maturity to focus on reproductive effort with little investment into further growth and maintenance
When would an organism adopt a Fast Life History?
Organisms that typically experience high environmental unpredictability and harshness
When would an organism adopt a Slow Life History?
Organisms that typically live under more predictable conditions
When would the Environmental Contingencies not apply?
When there are no trade-offs to be made such as children from ultra-rich families
What are the 6+2 Environmental Dimensions?
- Popularity density
- Genetic relatedness
- Sex ratio
- Resource availability
- Resource patchiness
- Resource unpredictability
- Mortality rates
- Pathogen prevalence
What is Population Density?
The number of individuals in the fixed amount of space
What are the effects of high Population Density on non-human organisms?
- Slower life history
- Greater aggression and territoriality
What are the effects of high Population Density on human organisms?
- Slower life history
- Slower level of prosociality
What is Genetic Relatedness?
The extent to which an individual organism is, on average, perceived to be genetically related to other individuals
What are the effects of high Genetic Relatedness on non-human organisms?
- Inclination towards altruism & higher willingness to provide costly help
- Alloparenting
- Sex-based dispersion to prevent reproduction with in-group members
What are the effects of high Genetic Relatedness on human organisms?
- Inclination towards altruism & higher willingness to provide costly help
- Greater within-group trust and cooperation
- Alloparenting
- Tendency for women to move between groups
- More chance of migration
What is Sex Ratio?
The ratio of reproductive viable males to reproductively viable females
What are the effects of Sex Ratio on non-human organisms?
- Direction of intersexual competition and sex roles
- Increased intrasexual competition for the sex bias in the population
What are the effects of Sex Ratio on human organisms?
- Direction of intersexual competition and sex roles
- Increased in intrasexual competition for the sex-biased in the population
- Increased emphasis on matching female long-term preferences when the population is male-based
- Increased emphasis on men’s short-term preferences when the population is female-biased
What is Resource Availability?
The absolute amount of resources available in an environment
What are the effects of low Resource Availability?
- Preferential allocation of energy towards survival over reproduction
- Avoidance of risky and costly competition
- Higher resource-seeking behaviors
What is Resource Patchiness?
The variability in resources across space
What are the effects of high Resource Patchiness in non-human organisms?
- High social competition
- Higher levels of aggression
- Territoriality
What are the effects of high Resource Patchiness in human organisms?
- Social attitudes that favors competition
- High prevalence of resource-focused emotions such as jealousy
- Competition-related antisociality and aggression
- Intolerance to strangers
What is Resource Unpredictability?
The variability in resources across time
What are the effects of high Resource Unpredictability in non-human organisms?
- Decreased aversion toward novelty
- Resource hoarding and conservation
What are the effects of high Resource Unpredictability in human organisms?
- Higher openness
- Pathological hoarding
- Decreased delay gratification
- Hedging social and romantic affiliation
2 types of nuances of resource subdivisions
- Resource availability vs. patchiness
- Resource availability vs. predictability
More details on Resource Availability vs. Patchiness
While lack of resources would lead to greater aggression, if the resource is evenly distributed there are no incentives to be aggressive and try to fight for resources that can be obtained elsewhere
More details on Resource Availability vs. Predictability
While lack of resources would lead to lower delayed gratification, if the resources are predictably low, individuals may adopt a planful approach of higher delayed gratification
What is Mortality Likelihood?
The likelihood of death within the ecology
What are the 2 types of mortality?
- Extrinsic mortality
- Intrinsic mortality
What is Extrinsic Mortality?
Death threat attributable to uncontrollable factors in the environment
What is Intrinsic Mortality?
Death threats that can be influenced by the organism
Which types of mortality are less of a core consideration of ecological influence on psychology and behavior?
Intrinsic mortality
What is the effect of high Mortality Likelihood on non-human organisms?
- Faster life history
- Lower boldness
- Higher vigilance
- Increase social grouping
- Development of defensive anatomy
What is the effect of high Mortality Likelihood on human organisms?
- Faster life history
- Lower boldness
- Higher vigilance
- Increased social conformity
- Increased agreeableness towards familiar others
What is Pathogen Prevalence?
The presence of pathogen threat
What are the 2 types of pathogen threat?
- Extrinsic Pathogen threat
- Intinsic Pathogen threat
What is Extrinsic Pathogen Threat?
Pathogen threat in which the individual tends to die
What is Intrinsic Pathogen Threat?
Pathogen threat in which organisms can recover from or be cured
What is the effect of high Pathogen Prevalence (Extrinsic) on non-human organisms?
Faster life history
What is the effect of high Pathogen Prevalence (Intrinsic) on non-human organisms?
Slower life history
What is the effect of high Pathogen Prevalence on human organisms?
- Faster life history
- Priortising physical attractiveness in mates
- Lower openness and extraversion
- Lower sexual permissiveness
- Lower exploratory behaviors
What is Dual Inheritance Theory?
We inherit evolved psychological mechanisms that generate cultural behaviors as well as cultural content
-> Cultural inheritance
-> Genetic inheritance
How does the culture emerge and get transmitted?
- Variation
- Transmission
- Selection
What is needed for culture to be transmitted?
Variations of culture; local ecology is the origins of the cultural differences
How does ‘Higher Population Density’ affect culture?
- Tighter culture
-> Strict adherence to social norms is required - Higher social attitudes and beliefs promotive of self-development
How does ‘Higher Genetic Relatedness’ affect culture?
- Higher collectivism
- Higher ingroup bias
- Higher nepotism
How does ‘Sex Ratio’ affect culture?
- Shift of sex roles according to the majority of the sex
- Higher social competition within the majority sex
- Lower sexual restrictiveness in a female-biased environment
How does ‘Higher Mortality Likelihood’ affect culture?
- Tighter culture
- Higher ingroup bias
How does ‘Higher Resource Availability’ affect culture?
- Individualism
- Less traditionalism
- Less survival-oriented values
How does ‘Higher Resource Patchiness’ affect culture?
- Social attitudes that favor competition
- Xenophobia
How does ‘Higher Resource Unpredictability’ affect culture?
- Lower emphasis on specialized education
-> As specialized education provide access only to limited types of resources
How does ‘Higher Pathogen Prevalence’ affect culture?
- Tighter culture
- Greater traditionalism
- Greater political conservatism
- Xenophobia
- Higher facial beauty standards
- Higher sexual restrictiveness
What are Subcultures?
They are cultures within cultures
How can Subcultures affect similarities between individuals?
Cultures in close geographical proximity are more likely to be similar to each other than cultures in different geographical regions due to ecological reasons
What causes Cultural Changes?
Ecological changes
What is Culture-Gene Coevolution?
Cultural practices and innovation may exert selective pressure on the genes responsible for adaptations themselves
What is Social Learning in Evolutionary Psychology’s perspective?
An evolved psychological mechanism shaped by natural selection
Types of learning biases/learning models in Social Learning
- Prestige bias/model
- Similarity bias/model
- Frequency bias/model`
What is Prestigious Model?
Models who have demonstrated prior skills and success
What is Similar Model?
Models who are similar to the learner
What is Frequency Model?
Adopting the beliefs and practices most prevalent in others via conformity
Which environment is the Prestige Bias favored in?
Ecology that promotes slow life history strategies
1. High population density
2. Low extrinsic mortality
Which environment is the Similarity Bias favored in?
Ecology with…
1. High genetic relatedness
2. Low resource patchiness
Which environment is the Frequency Bias favored in?
Ecology with…
1. High extrinsic mortality
2. High pathogen prevalence
Effect of population density on population growth
It manifests in a slow life history
1. Negatively related to fertility & sexual restrictiveness
2. Positively related to the age of marriage
When participants read about overcrowding, it resulted in…
- Preferences for fewer romantic partners
- Preferences for fewer children, but with higher parental investment
