Week 8

Question 1

What is problematic about the statement “individual choice matters” in reference to lifestyle choices and chronic disease predisposition?

Answer 1

Not everyone has access to the same choices

Question 2

How does the human niche incorporate behavioural interactions into it?

Answer 2

The choices of one person affect the choices of people around them

Question 3

What are the two ends of the spectrum of strategies on how to manage human access to resources?

Answer 3

Competition and cooperation

Question 4

What are 3 key types of hierarchical relationships (of varying severities)

Answer 4

1. competition and outright aggression
2. manipulation
3. cooperation and collaboration / altruism

Question 5

How can individuals of a species maximize their access to certain resources?

Answer 5

Behavioural variability in hierarchical relationships - alter your behaviour to fit a situation to get what you want out of it

Question 6

Why might people have a tendency to fall more on one end of the aggressive/altruistic spectrum?

Answer 6

We differ in our abilities to get energy/gain out of social situations, might adopt one strategy out of necessity based on personal limitations

Question 7

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?

Answer 7

Personal gain if you throw people under the bus - risk/reward tradeoff

Question 8

When is producing favoured? (2)

Answer 8

1. there are fewer scroungers
2. you have first access to resources

Question 9

When is producing costly?

Answer 9

1. when there are a lot of scroungers (expending energy and losing payoff)

Question 10

When is scrounging favoured?

Answer 10

1. there are a lot of producers
2. food items are high in quality (don’t want to bother producing when resources are shit)
3. food items/resources are easy to see or find

Question 11

How did early farmers create conditions that were optimal for scroungers?

Answer 11

Plant fields: anyone can come up and steal them - now need to expend energy on defending resources

Question 12

How did the producer/scrounger model affect life history after the advent of agriculture?

Answer 12

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)

Question 13

When scrounging becomes a consistent strategy, what emerges?

Answer 13

Social differentiation - creates power imbalance

Question 14

Power imbalances always involve…

Answer 14

Unequal access to resources

Question 15

What is the biological basis for social differentiation?

Answer 15

Dominant (aggressive or otherwise) can invest their extra energy in traits which help them maintain their high social rank and increase their reproductive fitness

Question 16

Glucocorticoids in urine are a marker of…

Answer 16

Psychological stress

Question 17

In urine samples of male chimpanzees, which individuals tend to have the highest urinary cortisol?

Answer 17

High-ranking males

Question 18

Aggression is highest in high-ranking male chimpanzees when…

Answer 18

Glucocorticoids are high

Question 19

When hierarchies are unstable, describe the glucocorticoids of chimpanzees

Answer 19

High at this time

Question 20

When are the three situations in which glucocorticoids in chimps will be elevated?

Answer 20

1. when a male is high-ranking
2. when there are many females receptive to mating
3. when the hierarchy is unstable

Question 21

Describe the long term tradeoff between chimpanzee status and health

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

What is the overall result of gender inequality on maternal health?

Answer 22

Gender inequality tends to deplete maternal capital

Question 23

Describe how social rank in primates tends to affect offspring

Answer 23

High social rank promotes fitness - females will compete for the best food, their babies will be born healthier, have better survival rates

Question 24

What are the inter-generational consequences of low maternal status?

Answer 24

Low maternal status = baby adapts to maternal environment, if stores are low the baby will develop lower metabolic capacity

Question 25

Describe the clashing of needs between low ranking mothers and their offspring

Answer 25

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

Question 26

There is an association across all societies that low maternal socioeconomic status directly correlates with…

Answer 26

Low birth weight of offspring

Question 27

Low socioeconomic status mothers giving birth to low weight babies demonstrates that…

Answer 27

Mothers imprint their life histories on their offspring via social rank

Question 28

A baby born with low birth weight is more likely to have a (fast/slow) life history strategy

Answer 28

Fast

Question 29

Describe the body size and bone density of low birth weight women. Does this change with frequent exercise?

Answer 29

Smaller bodies and less bone density. Trend does not change even with frequent exercise

Question 30

Describe the adiposity of normal versus low birth weight women independent of exercise

Answer 30

Normal birth weight have less adiposity even if they don’t exercise as much as low birth weight women

Question 31

Why do poverty cycles tend to continue?

Answer 31

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