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The Risk Contract of War: Offense and Defense in the Adapted Mind

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The Risk Contract of War: Offense and Defense in the Adapted Mind The Risk Contract of War: Offense and Defense in the Adapted Mind By Anthony Christopher Lopez Ph.D., Brown University, 2012 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2012 © Copyright 2012 by Anthony C. Lopez This dissertation by Anthony C. Lopez is accepted in its present form by the department of Political Science as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date_____________ ______________________________________ Rose McDermott, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date_____________ ______________________________________ Mark Blyth, Reader Date_____________ ______________________________________ Leda Cosmides, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date_____________ ______________________________________ Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii CURRICULUM VITAE Anthony Christopher Lopez was born on August 2, 1980 in Los Angeles, California. He received a B.A. from Pitzer College in 2002, and an M.A. in Global Finance, Trade, and Economic Integration from the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 2005. During this time, Anthony was a research assistant with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. (2001), as well as with the Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia (2004). Anthony began his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2005, and moved with his advisor, Rose McDermott, to Brown University in 2009, to complete his graduate training. While completing his Ph.D. at UCSB and Brown, Anthony has been a research affiliate with the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at UCSB. His publications during this time include “States in Mind: Evolution, Coalitional Psychology, and International Politics,” which was published in International Security (co-authored with Rose McDermott and Michael Petersen), and “Adaptationism, Heritability, and the Emergence of Evolutionary Political Science,” which was published in Political Psychology (co- authored with Rose McDermott). Anthony also has a book chapter, “Psychology and Constructivism: Uneasy Bedfellows?” which is co-authored with Rose McDermott and appears in the volume Ideational Allies, published by University of Michigan Press. iv PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project was conceived in 2006 as a consequence of two propitious events. The first was an inspiring discussion in the fall of 2005 with Rose McDermott, which not only reinforced my belief in the importance of evolutionary theory for understanding political behavior, but also led me to the realization that research in this area was increasingly common and viable. The second event was meeting Leda Cosmides in the spring of 2006 as a student in her course, “Evolution and Cognition.” It is no understatement that Rose and Leda together are the twin forces responsible for much of how I think about political behavior and human nature generally. Rose and Leda quickly introduced me to the vibrant intellectual community at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology (CEP) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and my thinking about evolutionary psychology and the evolution of warfare has been shaped largely through many interesting and engaging conversations with these scholars. Indeed, the framework I develop and refer to as the “risk contract of war” is built directly upon theoretical insights established by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides at the CEP. Thus, my greatest intellectual debt in this project is undoubtedly to scholars at the CEP, especially Rose, Leda, and John, and also to Steve Gaulin, Andy Delton, Max Krasnow, Dave Pietraszewski, Daniel Sznycer, and Aaron Sell. This academic journey has led to interactions with many individuals who have also impacted my views on evolution and political behavior. Of this I should like to v particularly note Michael Bang Petersen, with whom I have collaborated and continue to collaborate on many engaging and exciting projects. In addition, I have had the good fortune to learn directly from many of the seminal thinkers in this emerging field of inquiry. Among these are (in alphabetical order): John Alford, Oliver Curry, Mark Flinn, Azar Gat, Pete Hatemi, John Hibbing, Dom Johnson, John Orbell, Stephen Rosen, Darren Schreiber, Brad Thayer, Michael Wilson, and Richard Wrangham. Undoubtedly, I am especially grateful to Mark Blyth, whose advice and mentorship has enhanced my understanding of psychology, behavior, and institutions. This dissertation is greatly improved in rigor as a consequence of his critical eye. I would be remiss if I did not also take this opportunity to give a special thank you to Suzanne Brough in the Political Science Department at Brown University. I can say without exaggeration that it is because of Suzanne’s invaluable help and advice that I have been able to successfully complete what has been required of me at Brown! Of course, I must thank those who have been with me and supported me from the beginning. In this regard I am forever indebted to my mother, Melissa Hernandez, my grandfather, Pete Hernandez, and my grandmother, Dolores Hernandez, for giving me life and encouraging me every step of the way. My research has focused on the evolution of coalitional behavior in the political context, and in this regard, I have given great attention to the study of alliances. It is a happy twist of fate that I find myself engaged in the greatest alliance of all, with my wife, Nicole Cerra. I am forever fortunate for her partnership, which has been a steady source of love, support, and adventure throughout. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction: The Evolution of War II. Chapter 1: The Risk Contract of War III. Chapter 2: Study 1 & Study 2 IV. Chapter 3: General Discussion V. Chapter 4: Evolutionary Politics VI. Appendix A: Survey 1 VII. Appendix B: Survey 2 VIII. Appendix C: Additional Data vii LIST OF GRAPHS AND TABLES Graph 1: Domain-Specificity of Willingness to Participate Graph 2: Sex Differences in Expected Benefits – Defense Graph 3: Sex Differences in Expected Benefits – Offense Graph 4: Expected Probability of Success (Offense) Graph 5: Expected Probability of Success (Defense) Graph 5: Willingness to Participate (Males) Graph 6: Willingness to Participate (Females) Table 1 & 2: Sex Differences in Willingness to Participate Table 3: Male Punitive Sentiment Toward Non-Participating Males Table 4: Male Punitive Sentiment Toward Non-Participating Females Table 5: Female Punitive Sentiment Toward Non-Participating Males Table 6: Female Punitive Sentiment Toward Non-Participating Females viii INTRODUCTION: THE EVOLUTION OF WAR Offensive and defensive warfare represent two major, recurrent, and distinct forms of coalitional violence; however, the direct effects of these two types of warfare on decision-making and motivation have been largely ignored by political scientists specifically, as well as by social and natural scientists generally. Where it has been examined, it has been considered indirectly and in passing (Durham 1976; Gat 2006; Schultheiss and Wirth 2009), or it has been considered in non-human animals such as rats (Albert, Jonik, and Walsh 1992). Scholars of international relations often discuss the “offense-defense balance,” which represents an area of inquiry characterized by the attempt to understand how the nature of offensive and defensive military capabilities influences the likelihood and quality of warfare (Biddle 2001; Brown et al. 2004). Yet, none have examined how the quality of warfare affects political psychology. I argue that humans possess distinct psychological adaptations, built by natural selection, specialized for regulating behavior and motivation in offensive and defensive coalitional aggression, or warfare (Tooby and Cosmides 1988; Lopez 2010). Indeed, warfare has been a recurrent fixture of ancestral landscapes (Keeley 1996; Wrangham and Peterson 1996; LeBlanc and Register 2003), such that it is plausible to expect natural selection to have designed psychological adaptations in humans for the adaptive regulation of behavior in warfare (Johnson, Wrangham, and Rosen 2002; Gat 2006; Choi and Bowles 2007; McDonald, Navarrete, and Van Vugt 2012). However, not all warfare 1 is the same; thus, I hypothesize that offensive and defensive warfare have constituted distinct selection pressures, such that we can expect selection to have favored distinct psychological adaptations for behavior and motivation in each domain. I apply an adaptationist framework (Williams 1966; Mayr 1983; Cosmides and Tooby 1987; Confer et al. 2010) in combination with theory and evidence from social psychology and anthropology in order to examine the specific ways in which these psychological adaptations condition motivation and decision-making upon cues in the environment that indicate offensive or defensive warfare. One axis of differentiation between offensive and defensive forms of coalitional aggression, or warfare, is the reward of success. Archaeological and anthropological research on warfare suggests that the gains from offensive raids tend to be subject to privatization among the raiders, while the gains from defense against out-group incursions are mostly intangible public goods, such as survival and threat removal (Keeley 1996; LeBlanc and Register 2003). Given the evolutionarily recurrent structural asymmetry
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