Week 7 Lecture 6 - conflict Flashcards
What doe competition result in?
conflict
What is conflict often resolved by?
aggression
What are 3 types of conflict?
- scramble competition –> equal opportunity to access a limited resource
- contest competition –> winner takes all
- spiteful competition –> competing so someone else suffers
Is warfare a cultural universal?
yes
What is the best predictor of warfare? Why?
a high proportion of young men in a population:
- men physically better adapted for war (and violence in general
Is warfare a cooperative enterprise?
yes
For war to exist the benefits must outweigh the costs. Give some examples of benefits of war.
- access to mates and resources
- destruction of rivals
What are 2 possible products of cultural group selection?
- parochialism
- xenophobia
What is parochialism?
- in-group favouritism
What is xenophobia?
- out-group hostility
Why have kids?
- ultimate reason for having sex (not a good proximate reason)
- the kids have to be able to reproduce, otherwise there’s no point
How do you calculate relatedness (r)?
- path analysis –> trace pedigree from actor to recipient
- 1/2 of each parent’s genes passes on to each offspring
- probability of sharing a gene is the product sum of the independent probabilities and the sum of the separate paths
What is the parental investment theory?
- you have resources as a parent and you will invest them in your child
- this in turn should improve the child’s fitness
- but this may cost the parent’s ability to invest in other children
What are the three fundamental trade-offs in parental investment theory
- energy devoted to parenting cannot be used for other functions (e.g., mating, maintenance)
- how much to invest in current as opposed to future offspring
- quantity vs quality
What is the trade-off between quality and quantity of offspring also known as?
r/k theory
k = carrying capacity
r = growth rate
have either an r strategy (quantity) or a k strategy (quality)
What did a study into parental investment theory and money left in wills find?
- people leave more in will for kin with higher relatedness
- however, leave more to kids and than siblings (have same relatedness)
- also leave more to spouses
What are parental biases?
- adjust level of investment
- goal is to produce grandchildren
Who invests the most to the least in grandparental investment?
- maternal grandmother (due to paternal certainty)
- maternal grandfather
- paternal grandmother
- paternal grandfather
True or false?
adoptions are an exception to kin-based investment
true
Why invest in kids?
- they are cute –> can be adaptive by acting as a proximate mechanism for extracting care –> can also be exploited
- neoteny (juvenalisation)
- delayed development
- elicit parental affection
What are examples of in utero conflict?
- spontaneous abortion –> embryo must honestly signal quality by releasing a hormone
- competition for blood
- pregnancy sickness –> prevent ingestion of teratogen and abortifacients
What is an example of post natal conflict?
- weaning conflict
What are some examples of parent-offspring conflict with mum?
parental resources:
- the burden of twins
- widowhood
- young, single women and abortion
What are some examples of parent-offspring conflict with mum (and dad)?
Cinderella effect
- stepparents are more likely to abuse and kill “their” kids than biological parents
- consistent with parental investment theory
What are some examples of parent-offspring conflict with dad?
- paternity uncertainty –> infant appearance: anonymity, or like dad?
in animals can lead to infanticide
Does infanticide occur in humans?
yes
- scheduling investment
- culturally universal
What are some causes of infanticide in humans?
- paternity uncertainty
- offspring quality
- paternal resources
- selective infanticide
What is selective infanticide?
- getting rid of offspring to achieve a certain sex ratio
What is Trivers-Willard hypothesis?
- invest more in males when in good condition and more in females when in poor condition
- invest most in the most valuable sex
What are some more general examples of parent-offspring conflict?
- honour killings –> typically directed at sisters and daughters
- chastity guarding –> reproductive control by parents
- sibling rivalry, siblicide –> surplus offspring, siblings killing each other over resources
Is aggression adaptive?
- co-opt resources
- defence
- intra-sexual competition –> particularly male-male competition
- dominance and status
- deterrence of aggression –> e.g., punishment can deter theft
- inter-sexual coercion
Why is there sexual aggression?
- males benefit more from polygyny, females benefit more from monogamy
- the result is sexual jealousy
- males more likely to regard mates as “property” leading to sexual coercion
- rape has been proposed as a conditional mating strategy
What are the sex differences in aggression?
- women less physically violent than men
- women more likely to kill men out of self defence
80% homicides committed by men, regardless of culture
What could this be a by product of?
- sexual jealousy
- sexual loss –> abandoned males more likely to kill
True or false?
men are more likely to be victims of aggression, especially young men
true
Is aggression learned?
- evidence for video games and TV leading to violence are sketchy at best
Is aggression cultural?
- there are cultural elements
- culture of honour
- southern states of US are more aggressive to insults regarding reputation
Is there evolutionary origins to aggression?
- based on an evolutionary (sociobiological) approach to anthropology
- successful warriors had more offspring
- highly controversial work led to fierce attacks by anthropologists
potentially yes
