Cooperation + Aggression: Evol Psych Flashcards
What is the theory of reciprocal altruism?
Adapataions to provide benefits to non-kin can evolve as long as altruistic investment can be returned or reciprocated at some point in the future
What are the types of reciprocity interactions?
Tit-for-tat/Contingent Reciprocity and Indirect Reciprocity
What does tit for tat/contigent reciprocity entails?
Organism cooperates first and reciprocates on every move and if cooperative partner deflect, deflect in kind
What is indirect reciprocity?
Advertising a propensity for generosity and cooperation, promoting a +ve reputation –> make them attractive as a cooperator
What does indirect reciprocity explains?
- Why we help strangers w/o expectations of returns
- More helpful and generous when others are watching
- Helpful people are most likely to receive help from others in the same social group
What is the premise of reciprocal altruism?
Hunting yields are random → successful sometimes → rely on allies with excess food → excess food is perishable, cannot be stored long → distribute food to allies → generate reciprocal debt + insurance against future shortage
-Short term cost for long term benefit - Win win social exchange
–Benefit of allies > benefit of hogging food
How does the problem of cheaters arise?
Social exchange is not simultaneous -> debt repaid in the future -> huge advantage for cheaters -> get benefit from act of altruism + avoid reciprocal cost
So how does natural selection deals with the problem of cheaters?
Selection favours a social exchange whenever the provisioner can change the behaviour of a target to the provisioner’s advantage by making the target to fufill conditional requirement for the benefit.
Psych mech to detect fellow cooperators and avoid cheaters (SCT)
What cognitive capacities have we develop to partner with cooperators and avoid cheators?
- Ability to recognise many different individual humans
- Ability to remember the histories of interactions with different individuals
- Ability to communicate one’s value to others (what you want)
- Abilty to model the values of others (what others want)
- Ability to represent cost and benefits independent of the particular items exchanged (basically represening any item we trade)
What is the evidence for cheater-detection adaptations?
Humans are bad at solving logical problems (Wason et al) but we do super well when problems is structured as a social exchange/contract (Cosmides & Tooby)
Do we remember cheaters?
Yes, we remb them better if its
* Rare in the population -> benefits of cheating are highest when every1 is cooperative
* No knowledge of cheating actually occured
Why do we remember cheaters of low status better than high status?
- Low status cheaters → unlikely to have resources to repay us back in the first place!! → avoid
Social status: based on probabilistic cues - looking at their appearance, jobs ect → estimate likelihood of their resources → likelihood of giving back what is owed
How are we able to identify genuine cooperators?
Atruists tend to display “genuine smiles” than non-altruists -> spontaneous smiling is a valid input use indicative of cooperative disposition
People tend to cooperate with healthy-looking individuals becoz they likey to live longer and possess higher-quality resources
What is the recalibration theory of anger?
If cheaters are always present + limited number of cooperators -> we either a. avoid social exchange by outputing disgust or if we cannot avoid cheaters/have to work with them, we will b. demand cheaters to reciprocate - recalibration via anger
What is the contextual input for the recalibration theory of anger?
Whether a person can demand value recalibration depends on their ability to inflict cost on cheaters or provide greater benefits than intially valued
* Physical strength in men
What is costly signalling theory?
Signal desirable characteristics as means of advertising those qualities
Costly signal are honest signal → cannot easily be faked and a low quality singers will exhaust whatever resources they have to fake a high-quality signal → Hard for a poor person to do it consistently → signals a person’s wealth, potential, intelligence and other high fitness indication characteristics
What is the banker’s paradox?
Those who need money the omst, are least likely to afford a loan –> ends up not getting the loan
What is the problem of friendship?
- Finding friends who are most likely to return help
- Not abandoning friends in need who will return help
How would selection shape the friendship adaptation?
- Whether a person whom they extend help will be willing to repay in the future
- Whether a person is in a position to repay in the future
- If helping this person is the best use of one’s limited capacity to help relative to other people who might be more attractive objects of investment
How can we tell true friends from fair weather friends?
Desperate times as a costly signaling test - friends who absord high fitness cost and tend to us during desperate times are likley to be true friends
What are some problems in a coalition?
- Defectors - individuals who renounce allegience and break off from cooperation for personal benefits
- Free-riders - individuals who claim shares in reward of cooperation without contributing a fair share of work
What is the problem of just punishing dectors and free riders?
Punisher faces costs such as retaliation, ability for target of aggression to defend themeleves, condemnation, repuation as a cooperator
What are the solutions to the problem of punishment?
Punitive sentiments - desire to harm deflectors and free riders
* more you contribute, more you harbor punitive sentiment -> increase chance a reluctant member of gorup will contribute
Cultural adapations → norms, idea, traditions → if it helps the group to survival → these things will be transferred to new members of the groups → if there is a problem of punishers + defectors and free riders → serve interest in group to minimise free riders and defectors → therefore we teach people to reciprocate back → why some cultures have high emphasis on honour, status → if you break these norms, you are punished.
Reputational benefits for cooperators and punishments
* less likely to cheat with known possibility of punishment + punishers benefit reputation for being trustworhty
Ostracism -> shunning free riders minimize bost cost of free riders and cost of punishment -> causes psychological and physical pain and motivates reparative action
Are we violent?
Yes, homo sapiens is a violent species. Of the 10 mil animal species observed, only two are known to cary warefare: humans and chimpanzees
What can aggression as an adaptive solution solve?
- Co-opting resources aka stealing/extortion
- Defend against attacks
- Deterrence against aggression
- Negotiating status and power hierchies
- Inflicting cost on intrasexual rivals
- Deterring sexual infidelity
Why are men more aggresive than women?
. Sexual selection theory -> higher reproductive celling + lower obligatory parentival investment cost –> risk to get women aka resources
Young male syndrome - demographic where selection for confrontational, competitive capability is most intense (acquire resources, reputation, protect themselves)
Waging war is incredible costly, how could natural selection favour warfare in humans?
Long term gain in reproductive resource > reproductive cost of engaging wars
* access of resources, elimination of threats vs loss of mates, offspring, kins and death
Coalition members must believe grp will win + collective resources will be better off
* reduce defection risk
Risk each member take + importance = share of benefits
* reduce free rider
Must be cloacked in veil of ignorance about who will live or die
* risk of death distributed equally -> minimize self-protection mechanism -> less risk of deflection
What are the predictions of warefare?
- men, but not women, have evolved psych mech. designed for coalition warfare
- sexual access to women is primary benefit for men to join male coalition
- men should have evolved psych mech functions to detect, prefer and enlist men in colaiton who are willing and able to contribute to its sucess
