SOCIAL 6 Flashcards
Aggression
Behavior done with the intention of physically, mentally, or socially hurting or killing another living thing does not wish to be harmed.
Types of targets of aggression
- Allospecific aggression: aggression towards members of other species.
- Conspecific aggression: aggression towards members of one’s own species (e.g. war)
Three types of conspecific aggression
Hostile aggression: aggressive behavior intended to physically harm another person.
Instrumental aggression: goal-directed aggressive behavior intended to primarily acquire an object, person, or social status.
Relational aggression: aggressive behavior intended to hurt another person’s social status or relationships.
Why do we hurt each other?
It protects and or acquires you resources
Assuming aggression protects and/or acquires resources, what should we expect:
Other Animals: conspecific aggression should be very common.
Biological predictors: that there are strong biological predictors of aggression (genes, hormonal triggers)
Minimal environmental impact: aggression does not vary much with environmental exposure.
Three situations when conspecific aggression is common in social animals:
- Dominance: Increase their social status and get access to females they can mate with.
- Eliminating Competition: when new male become dominant, he will frequently kill the young children of the previously dominant male.
- Protecting resources: group of animals will fight other groups to protect their territory and resources.
Hostile and instrumental aggression is biologically, strongly related to the presence of _________
Testosterone
Fraternity study
Fraternity members with higher levels of testosterone in their saliva had more campus reports of violence.
Experimental injection
Castration –> testosterone drops –> levels of aggression drop
The presence of testosterone _________ directly cause aggression, but instead likely increases _________ and _________
doesn’t
irritability
impulsivity
The relationship between testosterone and aggression has led many to
hypothesize that men should therefore be
substantially more aggressive than women
Hostile: men universally show show higher levels of hostile aggression, but
women’s hostile aggression is much more affected by fluctuations in T (e.g.,
through injections).
Instrumental: men and women show near-identical rates of instrumental
aggression.
Relational: women tend to show higher levels of relational aggression, though
there is cultural variability in this finding.
Why is the relationship between biology and aggression not clear cut?
Because there are also substantial effects of culture on aggression.
Bobo doll experiement
An adult either hitting or playing with an inflatable “Bobo” doll.
Children seeing the aggression showed higher levels of aggression towards bobo, and invented new ways to hurt bobo.
Children who did not observe hitting subsequently played with bobo or ignored him
Culture of honour
Many cultures around the world emphasize the importance of social status; these cultures have a social norm whereby any insult to one’s honor must be responded to with aggression.
Cooperation
The behavior of two or more individuals who work together for mutual benefit
Time scales of cooperative behavior
- Immediate/ short-term: two or more agents work together on the same problem at the same time in order to increase the chance of success for everyone (e.g. collective hunting)
- Delayed/ long-term: one agent cooperates without immediate benefit to themselves in order to increase the survival of the group or to get a benefit at a later time (social exchange).
Examples of cooperation for immediate benefit for both parties not restricted to conspecific.
- Cleaner fish: many fish will attach themselves to a big fish to clean parasites while the big fish offers protection.
- Cooperative hunts: many species will hunt together for larger prey and then split the food
Cooperation for delayed benefit is reserved for _________
Conspecifics
Examples of cooperation with delayed benefit
Vampire bats: will feed other bats that are not genetically related to.
What is the fundamental problem for long-term cooperative behavior?
Somebody might get the benefits now, but not return them in the future
When is long-term cooperation viable?
When there are mechanisms that:
- Encourage people to be cooperative at first
- Have ways of identifying those who are exploiting the system.
- Have clear means of punishing and excluding them from the long term cooperative behaviors.
Reciprocity norm
The norm stating that if somebody does something good for us, we have the responsibility to return the favor.
DOOR IN THE FACE THECHNIQUE
Tit-for-Tat strategy
In conspecifics in same group, people retaliate against the cheater until they correct their behavior.
Reputation
Cheaters in long term-cooperative system are quickly identified as untrustworthy.
Gossip
Adaptive behavior that allow us to communicate about cheaters in our community
Prisoner’s dilemma
a famous example of a “cooperative” game/model that
helps model the principles of trust, reputation, and cheating detection.
Betray or stay silent
