DOCSLIB.ORG

Do Symptoms of Illness Serve Signaling Functions? (Hint: Yes)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Do Symptoms of Illness Serve Signaling Functions? (Hint: Yes) Volume 91, No. 2 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY June 2016 DO SYMPTOMS OF ILLNESS SERVE SIGNALING FUNCTIONS? (HINT: YES) Leonid Tiokhin School of Human Evolution & Social Change and Center for Evolution & Medicine, Arizona State University Manually chage ligatures Tempe, Arizona 85287 USA e-mail: [email protected] fi and fl to keywords evolutionary medicine, disease, sickness behavior, symptom expression, social context, fi and fl evolution of communication, signaling theory abstract Symptoms of illness provide information about an organism’s underlying state. This notion has inspired a burgeoning body of research on organisms’ adaptations for detecting and changing behavior toward ill individuals. However, little attention has been paid to a likely outcome of these dynamics. Once an organism’s fitness is affected by others’ responses to symptoms of illness, natural selection can favor individuals who alter symptom expression to influence the behavior of others. That is, many symptoms may originate as cues, but will evolve into signals. In this paper, I develop the hypothesis that symptoms of illness serve signaling functions, and provide a comprehensive review of relevant evidence from diverse disciplines. I also develop novel empirical predictions generated by this hypothesis and discuss its implications for public health. Signaling provides an ultimate explanation for otherwise opaque aspects of symptom expression, such as why symptoms fluctuate in social contexts, and can exist without underlying pathology, and why individuals deliberately generate symptoms of illness. This analysis suggests that signaling theory is a major organizing framework for understanding symptom etiology. DOCTOR: I’ve looked at your X-rays . DOCTOR: No, not really. [a]nd I find that there’s absolutely nothing GEORGE: How so? wrong with you. DOCTOR: May I suggest the possibility that GEORGE: Hmm. Really? Nothing? you’re faking? DOCTOR: Nothing that would indicate in- (Seinfeld. 1993. “The Non-Fat Yogurt.” Sea- voluntary spasms. son 5, Episode 7). GEORGE: Well, it’s kind of a mystery, isn’t it? The Quarterly Review of Biology, June 2016, Vol. 91, No. 2 Copyright © 2016 by The University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved. 0033-5770/2016/9102-0003$15.00 177 This content downloaded from 149.169.209.100 on May 25, 2016 14:27:49 PM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 178 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY Volume 91 Introduction symptom expression has been shaped by LL living organisms experience dis- natural selection for communicative pur- Aease and injury (i.e., illness), and ex- poses. He argues that discernible symp- hibit phenotypic changes (i.e., symptoms) toms of human immune responses serve as a result. Symptoms are usually conceptual- dual functions of fighting infection and ized as inadvertently providing information signaling need for aid to conspecifics. about an organism’s underlying pathol ogy. Steinkopf argues that this explains the exis- For instance, coughing, sneezing, and nasal tence of the placebo effect: symptoms exist congestion are reliably associated with respi- to honestly communicate need for aid and ratory infection (Monto et al. 2000). Limp- once these needs are addressed (via social ing is reliably associated physical injury. This support or beliefs about the health benefits reliable association between symptoms and of inert medicine), symptom expression somatic pathology makes much of medicine subsides. He refers to this as the Signaling possible. This fact has also made it possible Theory of Symptoms or STS (Steinkopf for organisms to evolve adaptations that ad- 2015). Although STS is broadly similar to just individual behavior as a function of oth- this paper’s proposal, there are several no- ers’ symptoms. For example, many species table differences. Like previous work, STS avoid individuals exhibiting signs of infec- only focuses on a small subset of symptoms tion (Curtis 2014). Such findings have led (i.e., those associated with human immune to a growing area of research that seeks to responses) and signaling functions (i.e., elic- determine the structure of adaptations for iting aid). In contrast, this review argues that detecting and responding to the symptoms all discernible symptoms in all species are of others (Schaller 2011; Curtis 2014). candidates for signaling explanations, and Nonetheless, the assumption that symp- that their signaling functions will be more toms only inadvertently provide informa tion diverse than mere aid elicitation. STS argues to others may not be valid. Once organisms that symptoms are honest signals, and that use symptom-based information to adjust their the costs of immune function maintain this own behavior, selection should favor individ- honesty. However, this claim is contradicted uals who manipulate this information con- by both theoretical and empirical analyses tent to alter others’ behavior. This is the core of animal signaling: cost is neither neces- thesis of this paper: natural selection can fa- sary nor sufficient to maintain signal hon- vor the evolution of symptoms into signals. esty, “honest signaling” is only one of many Signaling hypotheses have previously been possible signaling equilibria, and signaling proposed to explain symptom form in many systems are rife with dishonesty (Searcy and fields, including biology (Loehle 1995; Ples- Nowicki 2005; Számadó 2011; Zollman et al. ker and Mayer 2008; Shakhar and Shakhar 2013). In con trast, this review argues that 2015), psychology (Price et al. 2004; Vigil and symptoms will vary in their cost to signalers Strenth 2014; Brown et al. 2015), anthropol- and signal value to receivers, the details of ogy (Nichter 1981; Fábrega 1999), and med- which will depend on species-specific selec- icine (Wenegrat 2001; Halligan et al. 2003a; tion pressures shaping signal form. The fol- Kozlowska 2007). Yet, these proposals have lowing section provides a brief overview of largely been developed independently, with- signaling theory, and forms the theoretical out grounding in modern evolutionary the- foundation for understanding the evolution ories of communication (but see Nock of symptoms into signals. 2008), and without realization that their underlying logic has the potential to trans- form current conceptualizations of symptom Signaling Theory and the etiology. Evolution of Cues into Signals One recent paper provides an excep- Signaling theory provides a framework tion (Steinkopf 2015; this work was devel- that explains information-transmission dy- oped entirely independently of the current namics between organisms. Information paper). Steinkopf proposes the idea that is anything that results in the reduction This content downloaded from 149.169.209.100 on May 25, 2016 14:27:49 PM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). June 2016 SYMPTOMS AS SIGNALS 179 of uncertainty regarding some state of the tors. The distinction between efficacy and world (Shannon and Weaver 1949). Organ- strategic costs is important, as it means that isms seek information because reducing signals can be costly solely because of the uncertainty allows them to increase fitness energy necessary to unambiguously trans- by improving decision-making. mit information. In addition to direct interactions with As long as signalers benefit from pro- the environment, organisms obtain valu- ducing signals and receivers benefit from able information (in the form of cues and responding, many different signaling sys- signals) from the phenotypes of others tems can be evolutionarily stable. Modern (Dall et al. 2005). Cues are aspects of or- signaling theory has yet to provide much ganisms that provide information to others guidance regarding the exact types of sig- without having evolved for the purpose nals that should be common in nature (but of information transmission. For exam- see Kane and Zollman 2015). Shared in- ple, ani mals produce CO2 as a byproduct of terests can lead to the evolution of honest, respiration, and mosquitos use CO2 emis- cost-free signals (Maynard Smith 1991), as sions to reduce their uncertainty about the can repeated interactions and third-party location of a biting target (Takken 1991). sanctions, even when interests conflict (Silk Signals are aspects of organisms (signalers) et al. 2000; Boyd and Mathew 2015). If that have specifically evolved to influence signals vary continuously as a function of the behavior of others (receivers) by trans- signaler’s state, and if the costs of lying out- mitting information (Lachmann et al. weigh the benefits, signals can have high in- 2001). For example, Thomson’s gazelles re- formation value at equilibrium, with costs spond to coursing predators by repeatedly ranging from negligible to high (Grafen leaping off the ground with all of their legs 1990; Lachmann et al. 2001). If only a lim- held stiff and straight (i.e., stotting), and ited number of signals are possible, signals do so as a function of predator type and can be essentially cost-free and remain par- distance (FitzGibbon and Fanshawe 1988). tially honest at equilibrium (Bergstrom and This leaping signals that the gazelle is dif- Lachmann 1998). Signals with low informa- ficult to catch, and therefore not worth tion value can also be evolutionarily stable pursuing. (Számadó 2000; Mitri et al. 2009). If as- Theoretical analyses of signal evolution sessing signal honesty is costly enough, the have largely focused on two signal proper- optimal strategy for receivers may be to ties: honesty and cost. Honesty is a signal’s believe signals without checking their ve- information value. That is, how much is the racity (Stamp Dawkins and Guilford 1991). receiver’s uncertainty about a true state of Signal detection theory predicts that asym- the world reduced by receiving the signal? metric costs of false positives and false neg- There are at least two kinds of signal costs: atives will select for receivers who minimize efficacy costs and strategic costs (Guilford the frequency of the costliest errors, which and Stamp Dawkins 1991; Maynard Smith can also lead to high levels of signal dishon- and Harper 2003).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Weirdest People in the World?
    BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2010) 33, 61–135 doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999152X The weirdest people in the world? Joseph Henrich Department of Psychology and Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada [email protected] http://www.psych.ubc.ca/henrich/home.html Steven J. Heine Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada [email protected] Ara Norenzayan Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada [email protected] Abstract: Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world’s top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Nature & Human Diversity Syllabus – Part II: Topics
    1/10/2017 Human Nature & Human Diversity Philosophy 253 (01:730:253) & Cognitive Science 253 (01:185:253) Spring Term 2018 Syllabus – Part II: Topics & Assignments Part II of the Syllabus is a WORK IN PROGRESS; it will be updated frequently during the term. Assigned readings and videos will change as we discover better material. (Suggestions are ALWAYS welcome!) Dates will inevitably be adjusted as we find that some topics need extra discussion and debate while others can be covered more quickly. Changes in Part II of the Syllabus will be announced in lecture, in the Announcements on Sakai, and via e-mail. Books to buy: 1. Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Pantheon Books, 2012. 2. Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating our Species, and Making Us Smarter. Princeton University Press. These book are available at the Rutgers Barnes & Noble bookstore. They can also be purchased on-line are often less expensive on-line. All other readings for the course will be available on the Sakai site for the course. Topics & Readings: January 18 Lecture topic: Introduction to the Course: A Very Brief Discussion of the Mechanics of the Course What Is Human Nature? An Overview of the Topics We’ll Be Exploring (Part 1) Reading (to be completed prior to the lecture): Course Syllabus, Parts I & II; Policies on Behavior in the Classroom; Grading Scale Videos i) To be viewed before the lecture: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial (available on Sakai in the Streaming Video folder) – from the beginning thru 1:00:25 ii) In lecture: The Science of Sex Appeal: Part 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: a Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment
    The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment Jonathan Haidt University of Virginia October 31, 2000 This is the manuscript that was published, with only minor copy-editing alterations, as: Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review. 108, 814-834 Copyright 2001, American Psychological Association To obtain a reprint of the final type-set article, please go through your library’s journal services, or contact the author directly Abstract Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. Four reasons are given for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post-hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it de-emphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals, emphasizing instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as anthropology and primatology. Author notes I thank Sara Algoe, Jon Baron, Fredrik Bjorklund, Talbot Brewer, Daniel Fessler, Alan Fiske, Nico Frijda, Chip Heath, Jeff Greenberg, Dacher Keltner, Angeline Lillard, George Loewenstein, Charles Mathewes, Ed Royzman, Paul Rozin, John Sabini, Jonathan Schooler, Stacey Sinclair, Barbara Spellman, Stephen Stich, Stephen Stose, Daniel Wegner, Daniel Willingham, and Timothy Wilson for helpful comments on earlier drafts.
    [Show full text]
  • Regulating Retirement Savings: an Evolutionary Psychology Approach
    Regulating retirement savings: An evolutionary psychology approach Regulering van pensioensparen: Een benadering vanuit de evolutionaire psychologie Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam op gezag van de rector magnificus Prof.dr. R.C.M.E. Engels en volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties De openbare verdediging zal plaatsvinden op donderdag 31 januari 2019 om 15.30 uur door Stephen Billion geboren te Floriana, Malta Promotiecommissie Promotor: Prof.dr. M.G. Faure LL.M. Overige leden: Prof.dr. P. Mascini Prof.dr. G. van Dijck Prof.dr. W.G. Ringe, m.jur. (oxon) Co-promotoren: Dr. A. Miller Dr. P.T.M. Desmet To Laura and to Juliette. Acknowledgements Writing this dissertation was like riding a roller-coaster. There was the exhilaration of climbing ever higher, the apprehension caused by sudden changes of speed and direction, all the while knowing that there would be the occasional plunge into the unknown. Fortunately for me, just as I was boarding this ride, I met an incredible woman, Laura Lyhs, with whom to share it. Thank you, Laura, for always being there – for listening to my thoughts and ideas, for giving me your well-reasoned comments and suggestions, and for bucking me up when I needed it. I’m not sure I would have finished this without you. A big thank you to the other very special woman in my life, my sister, Juliette, who has always been incredibly supportive in everything that I do. I started this ride at Ghent University, where my supervisors, Ben Depoorter and Hans De Wulf, gave me tremendous support.
    [Show full text]
  • Weirdest People in the World?
    BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2010), Page 1 of 75 doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999152X The weirdest people in the world? Joseph Henrich Department of Psychology and Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada [email protected] http://www.psych.ubc.ca/ henrich/home.html ! Steven J. Heine Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada [email protected] Ara Norenzayan Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada [email protected] Abstract: Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world’s top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation.
    [Show full text]
  • HBES Newsletter Fall 2018
    H UMAN B E H AVIOR & E VOLUTION S OCIETY Fall 2018 Newsletter In This Issue View From the President’s Window Code of Conduct Call for Nominations New HBES.com website 2018 Conference The 31st annual HBES meeting will be held in Boston May 29-June 1st, 2019. The Speakers conference will be located at the George Sherman Union at Boston University. Competition Winners Dormitory rooms will be available on the conference website ($88/nt; students: Early Career Award $44/nt), as will links to hotels (e.g., Hotel Commonwealth conference rate is $289/ Lifetime Achievement nt). If you plan on staying in a hotel we recommend booking early as there will be Survey Results a lot of competition (graduations, tourism, etc). Conference registration, centralized accommodations (dorms), and links to conference rate hotels will be managed Letter From the EHB Editors through the conference website at: meetatbu.com/hbes19. We anticipate that the call for abstracts and registration will open in January. Please contact us with any The Student Voice questions at [email protected] or tweet us @hbes2019. See you in Boston! Max Krasnow, Danielle Truxaw, Carolyn Hodges-Simeon, Organizers, HBES 2019 View Conference EHB Students From the President’s Window HBES 2018 | Amsterdam Message from the Editors The Student Voice | Nicole Barbaro In this issue, HBES The 2018 HBES Conference There are many changes Student representative president, Doug Kenirck, was held in Amsterdam taking place at Evolution and Nicole Barbaro takes a look and HBES past-president, July 4-7 at the University Human Behavior. The Editors at the breakdown of HBES Elizabeth Cashdan, update of Amsterdam.
    [Show full text]
  • UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Structures of Sentiment: Mapping the Affective Bases of Social Relationships in Yasawa, Fiji Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/79d936s0 Author Gervais, Matthew M Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Structures of Sentiment: Mapping the Affective Bases of Social Relationships in Yasawa, Fiji A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Matthew Michel Gervais 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Structures of Sentiment: Mapping the Affective Bases of Social Relationships in Yasawa, Fiji by Matthew Michel Gervais Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Daniel Fessler, Chair Enduring social relationships structured the emergence of human uniqueness and remain the cornerstone of human adaptation across societies. However, there is little systematic comparative data on the patterning of human relationships and the psychological mechanisms underlying their variation. The present research develops a theoretical framework for the functional organization of affect as it regulates social-relational behavior, and tests implications of this framework with quantitative data from 20 months of fieldwork in Yasawa, Fiji. Chapter 1 uses “contempt” as a case study to develop the ASE (Attitude-Scenario-Emotion) model of affect, in which attitudes, as enduring representations of the fitness affordances of other persons, adaptively moderate constellations of emotions as embodied reactions to relational events. I sketch five attitude dimensions that map onto distinct social affordances: love, like, respect, hate, and fear. ii Decomposing “contempt” in these terms, the core of this cultural model is not a basic or uniquely human emotion but an ancient attitude of no respect and its emotional consequences.
    [Show full text]
  • Innatemindproofssep06
    31018_FM_UNCORRECTED_PROOF.3d_vii_08-29-06 Contents List of Contributors ix 1 Introduction: Culture and the Innate Mind 3 Tom Simpson, Stephen Stich, Peter Carruthers, and Stephen Laurence PART I: LEARNING, CULTURE, AND EVOLUTION 2 Culture, Adaptation, and Innateness 23 Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson 3 About 17 (þ/À 2) Potential Principles about Links between the Innate Mind and Culture: Preadaptation, Predispositions, Preferences, Pathways, and Domains 39 Paul Rozin 4 Steps Toward an Evolutionary Psychology of a Culture- Dependent Species 61 Daniel Fessler 5 Human Groups as Adaptive Units: Toward a Permanent Consensus 78 David Sloan Wilson 6 The Baldwin Effect and Genetic Assimilation: Contrasting Explanatory Foci and Gene Concepts in Two Approaches to an Evolutionary Process 91 Paul Griffiths 7 The Baldwin Effect and Genetic Assimilation: Reply to Griffiths 102 David Papineau ____À1 ____0 ____þ1 31018_FM_UNCORRECTED_PROOF.3d_viii_08-29-06 viii Contents 8 Mental Number Lines 112 Marcus Giaquinto PART II: MODULARITY AND COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE 9 Modularity in Language and Theory of Mind: What is the Evidence? 133 Michael Siegal and Luca Surian 10 Culture and Modularity 149 Dan Sperber and Lawrence Hirschfeld 11 Shaping Social Environments with Simple Recognition Heuristics 165 Peter M. Todd and Annerieke Heuvelink 12 Simple Heuristics Meet Massive Modularity 181 Peter Carruthers 13 Modularity and Design Reincarnation 199 H Clark Barrett 14 Cognitive Load and Human Decision, or, Three Ways of Rolling the Rock Uphill 218 Kim Sterelny PART III: MORALITY, NORMS, AND RELIGION 15 How Good Is the Linguistic Analogy? 237 Susan Dwyer 16 Is Human Morality Innate? 257 Richard Joyce 17 A Framework for the Psychology of Norms 280 Chandra Sekhar Sripada and Stephen Stich 18 Religion’s Innate Origins and Evolutionary Background 302 Scott Atran References 319 Index 351 À1 ____ 0 ____ þ1 ____ 31018_FM_UNCORRECTED_PROOF.3d_ix_08-29-06 List of Contributors Scott Atran, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, and Department of Psychology, University of Michigan H.
    [Show full text]
  • Boise State University
    HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND EVOLUTION SOCIETY 29th Annual Meeting May 31 – June 3, 2017 Full Program Table of Contents Welcome to HBES 2017 .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................. 4 HBES Officers........................................................................................................................................................... 5 HBES Meetings ........................................................................................................................................................ 5 Registration ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 Boise River Café Hours ............................................................................................................................................ 5 Poster Set-Up .......................................................................................................................................................... 5 Oral Presentation Sessions ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Keynote Speaker ....................................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Twelve Lessons (Most of Which I Learned the Hard
    Twelve Lessons (Most of Which I Learned the Hard Way) for Evolutionary Psychologists Daniel M.T. Fessler Department of Anthropology and Center for Behavior, Evolution, & Culture University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553 U.S.A. [email protected] http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fessler/ Citation information: Fessler, D.M.T. (2011) Twelve lessons (most of which I learned the hard way) for evolutionary psychologists. In Thus Spake Evolutionary Psychologists, X.T. Wang and Y.-J. Su, eds., pp. 281- 293. Beijing: Peking University Press. My intention in this chapter is not to provide a summary of my past work, but rather to describe some of the lessons that I have learned thus far in the course of my career in evolutionary psychology. My hope is that scholars interested in evolutionary approaches to human behavior may benefit from the sometimes convoluted path that I have taken. Accordingly, allow me to begin by describing how I arrived at where I am now. As an undergraduate, most of the professors in the Anthropology Department at my university practiced psychological anthropology, a subfield of sociocultural anthropology that combines theories from various branches of psychology with the study of culture. I decided that I was going to be a psychological anthropologist, and I continued on at the same university, with the same professors, for my graduate degrees. Although I was confident that, to understand human behavior, it was necessary to investigate the interaction of mind and culture, I nevertheless became increasingly dissatisfied with psychological anthropology, which lacks an overarching theory from which to derive hypotheses, and which often eschews hypothesis testing in favor of description and interpretation.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Norms and Human Normative Psychology*
    Downloaded from https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052518000122 https://www.cambridge.org/core SOCIAL NORMS AND HUMAN NORMATIVE PSYCHOLOGY* By Daniel Kelly and Taylor Davis . Stanford Libraries Abstract: Our primary aim in this paper is to sketch a cognitive evolutionary approach for developing explanations of social change that is anchored in the psychological mech- anisms underlying normative cognition and the transmission of social norms. We throw the relevant features of this approach into relief by comparing it with the self-fulfilling social expectations account developed by Bicchieri and colleagues. After describing both accounts, we argue that the two approaches are largely compatible, but that the cognitive , on evolutionary approach is well suited to encompass much of the social expectations view, 05 Dec 2018 at 18:15:33 whose focus on a narrow range of norms comes at the expense of the breadth the cognitive evolutionary approach can provide. KEY WORDS: norms, normativity, moral psychology, cultural evolution, social change , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at I. Introduction While research on norms spans the humanities and human sciences, Christina Bicchieri’s social expectation account has recently risen to prom- inence in philosophy and serves as a touchstone and focal point for much discussion.1 As such it will serve as our jumping off point and stalking horse in this essay. In the following section we will motivate and explain the core ideas of her account, and note some points of interest. Our dis- cussion here will be brief, in part because Bicchieri’s view is well known, and in part because many of the other essays in this volume also discuss it.
    [Show full text]
  • Oxford Handbooks Online
    Supernatural Beliefs and the Evolution of Cooperation Oxford Handbooks Online Supernatural Beliefs and the Evolution of Cooperation Pierrick Bourrat and Hugo Viciana The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology and Religion Edited by Todd K. Shackelford and James R. Liddle Subject: Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology Online Publication Date: Jun DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199397747.013.23 2016 Abstract and Keywords Studies have found an association between the content of beliefs in the supernatural and increased cooperation in social groups. “High Moralizing Gods,” “fear of supernatural punishment,” and “supernatural monitoring” have been claimed to permit greater social cohesion through the specific epistemic engagement they produce in the minds of those who hold certain religious beliefs. However, the evolutionary pathways linking these religious features with cooperation remain unclear. Focusing on the example of belief in supernatural sanctioning, this chapter delineates different mechanisms by which beliefs in supernatural entities could, in principle, lead to greater cohesion and emphasizes the different predictions each evolutionary mechanism affords. It thus reassesses several studies that have been interpreted as supporting or as failing to support one or some of these cultural evolutionary processes. Finally, it proposes several avenues by which research addressing the link between cooperation and specific forms of belief in supernatural entities could be strengthened. Keywords: prosociality,
    [Show full text]