Week 8 Flashcards
What is problematic about the statement “individual choice matters” in reference to lifestyle choices and chronic disease predisposition?
Not everyone has access to the same choices
How does the human niche incorporate behavioural interactions into it?
The choices of one person affect the choices of people around them
What are the two ends of the spectrum of strategies on how to manage human access to resources?
Competition and cooperation
What are 3 key types of hierarchical relationships (of varying severities)
- competition and outright aggression
- manipulation
- cooperation and collaboration / altruism
How can individuals of a species maximize their access to certain resources?
Behavioural variability in hierarchical relationships - alter your behaviour to fit a situation to get what you want out of it
Why might people have a tendency to fall more on one end of the aggressive/altruistic spectrum?
We differ in our abilities to get energy/gain out of social situations, might adopt one strategy out of necessity based on personal limitations
What is demonstrated well by the prisoner’s dilemma which may describe why two individuals might not cooperate even if it is in both of their best interests to do so?
Personal gain if you throw people under the bus - risk/reward tradeoff
When is producing favoured? (2)
- there are fewer scroungers
- you have first access to resources
When is producing costly?
- when there are a lot of scroungers (expending energy and losing payoff)
When is scrounging favoured?
- there are a lot of producers
- food items are high in quality (don’t want to bother producing when resources are shit)
- food items/resources are easy to see or find
How did early farmers create conditions that were optimal for scroungers?
Plant fields: anyone can come up and steal them - now need to expend energy on defending resources
How did the producer/scrounger model affect life history after the advent of agriculture?
Powerful people systematically scrounging - producers are losing energy to the point where they have to sacrifice some life history functions as a result (malnutrition, disease, etc)
When scrounging becomes a consistent strategy, what emerges?
Social differentiation - creates power imbalance
Power imbalances always involve…
Unequal access to resources
What is the biological basis for social differentiation?
Dominant (aggressive or otherwise) can invest their extra energy in traits which help them maintain their high social rank and increase their reproductive fitness
Glucocorticoids in urine are a marker of…
Psychological stress
In urine samples of male chimpanzees, which individuals tend to have the highest urinary cortisol?
High-ranking males
Aggression is highest in high-ranking male chimpanzees when…
Glucocorticoids are high
When hierarchies are unstable, describe the glucocorticoids of chimpanzees
High at this time
When are the three situations in which glucocorticoids in chimps will be elevated?
- when a male is high-ranking
- when there are many females receptive to mating
- when the hierarchy is unstable
Describe the long term tradeoff between chimpanzee status and health
If an individual has high status, they will have to allocate a lot of energy on maintaining their status, will not invest in health: immunity, maintenance, etc.
What is the overall result of gender inequality on maternal health?
Gender inequality tends to deplete maternal capital
Describe how social rank in primates tends to affect offspring
High social rank promotes fitness - females will compete for the best food, their babies will be born healthier, have better survival rates
What are the inter-generational consequences of low maternal status?
Low maternal status = baby adapts to maternal environment, if stores are low the baby will develop lower metabolic capacity
Describe the clashing of needs between low ranking mothers and their offspring
As a fetus, you are subject to a mother’s life history strategy (to maximize her fitness) but as a growing fetus, this strategy might not benefit you
There is an association across all societies that low maternal socioeconomic status directly correlates with…
Low birth weight of offspring
Low socioeconomic status mothers giving birth to low weight babies demonstrates that…
Mothers imprint their life histories on their offspring via social rank
A baby born with low birth weight is more likely to have a (fast/slow) life history strategy
Fast
Describe the body size and bone density of low birth weight women. Does this change with frequent exercise?
Smaller bodies and less bone density. Trend does not change even with frequent exercise
Describe the adiposity of normal versus low birth weight women independent of exercise
Normal birth weight have less adiposity even if they don’t exercise as much as low birth weight women
Why do poverty cycles tend to continue?
Higher rank people just keep leeching off the lower rank people, and then will all their shit to their kids so the cycle is always happening
