Ch. 9 Cooperation and Morality

form-function fit

a correspondence between the adaptive function of a self-conscious emotion and its information-processing structure.

Describe the event in which chimps got together to help each other with shows evidence of cooperation in nonhumans

- Yeroen, a chimp in Netherlands, reigned as the dominant male - Luit, a younger chimp, began challenging him - Initially females sided with Yeroen, but soon all sided with Luit - Yeroen then had 0 access to mates - Yeroen teamed up with an upcoming chimp named Nikkie - They challenged Luit and won resulting in Nikkie being the dominant male and Yeroen going from having access to 0 mates to 25% - They both benefited from teaming up

What are one of the most important adaptive problems for reciprocal altruist?

- ensuring that the benefit will be returned in the future - The problem of cheating

In a study of caged bats,What were Wilkinson's findings in regards to his study on bats?

- found that Bats regurgitate and give blood to others bats in their colony - only do this for friends; other bats that have done the same in the past - only bats that are sighted to be together 60% of the time gave blood to one another - Wilkinson found that bats regurgitate blood to give to their friend when the friend was 13 hours away from death more rather than when the friend was 2-3 days away from death

How could a reputation of being known as a punisher of noncooperators could benefit the you?

- if others are less likely to cheat known altruistic punishers (perhaps due to fear of being punished themselves) - if altruistic punishers are more often sought out for cooperative relationships because they are perceived as being more trustworthy than those who fail to punish noncooperators

According to Tooby and Cosmides, these 5 factors should determine your friend choice:

- number of slots already filled - evaluate who emits positive externalities - select friends who are good at reading your mind - select friends who consider you to be irreplaceable - select friends who want the same things you want

· How might a person act to increase the odds of becoming irreplaceable?

- promote a reputation that highlights one's unique or exceptional attributes - be motivated to recognize personal attributes that others value but that they have difficulty getting from other people - cultivate specialized skills that increase irreplaceability - preferentially seek out people or groups that value what you have to offer and what others in the group tend to lack—groups in which one's assets will be most appreciated - avoid social groups in which one's unique attributes are not valued or in which one's unique attributes are easily provided by others - drive off rivals who offer benefits that you alone formerly provided people seem to be especially sensitive to "newcomers" who may duplicate your skill set, interfere with your existing alliances, or threaten to impose costs on your well-functioning group

What specific problems did people have to solve to evolve mechanisms that motivate forming social contracts and avoiding the ever-present threat of cheaters?

- the ability to recognize many different individual humans - the ability to remember the history of interactions with different individuals - the ability to communicate one's values to others - the ability to model the values of others - the ability to represent costs and benefits, independent of the particular items exchanged

What were the findings of Descrive Bereczkei, Birkas, & Kerekes study on cost signaling theory? - requested participants to volunteer to give assistance to one of seven different charities - In one condition, participants indicated their willingness anonymously. - In the other, they declared their willingness in front of a group of others. - Although the volunteer time for the charities was identical (roughly four hours), the nature of the work varied in perceived costliness —from taking blood pressure (least costly) to providing assistance to mentally handicapped children (most costly).

- when volunteering anonymously, most chose the least taxing charity work; when volunteering publically, many more chose the costly charity work - those who chose the most-costly altruistic investment in the public condition experienced a boost in their social reputation and popularity.

What are the 3 features of Tit for Tat that Axelrod (1984) identified that represented the keys to its success?

1. Never be the first to defect—always start out by cooperating, and continue to cooperate as long as the other player does also 2. retaliate only after the other has defected 3. be forgiving—if a previously defecting player starts to cooperate, then reciprocate the cooperation and get on a mutually beneficial cycle

What are the 3 fitness benefits from costly signaling?

1. being preferentially chosen by others for cooperative relationships 2. increased levels of cooperation within those relationships 3. higher status and reputation within the group

In a Prisoner's Dilemma game, what do the following represent/imply? 1. Smiling= 2. Facial expressions of content=

1. continuous cooperation 2. noncooperation

Two competing explanations have been proposed to explain punitive sentiment (altruistic punishment) are :

1. cultural group selection- a process by which certain culturally transmitted ideas, beliefs, or values spread because of the competitive advantages they provide to the social groups holding them 2. an alternative explanation is that altruistic punishers receive reputational benefits from punishing

Coalitions, however, face serious problems that can undermine their emergence, what are these 2 serious problems?

1. defection 2. free-riding

In sum, what are the four powerful theories that have been developed to explain the evolutionary puzzle of altruism?

1. inclusive fitness 2. reciprocal altruism 3. indirect reciprocity 4. costly signaling

Current evidence points to two distinct adaptations that facilitate the evolution of cooperation: 1. 2.

1. the detection of cheaters (those who take benefits without paying costs) 2. the detection of altruists

Other strategies for increasing group cooperation is fostering the value of fairness- equal benefit to cooperation ratio are:

1. this provides an incentive to contribute to the group 2. also helps avoid being exploited by free-riders

In principle, the punitive sentiment could have two distinct functions:

1. to increase the chance that a reluctant member of the group will contribute 2. to damage the free-rider's fitness relative to those who participate fully in the cooperative coalition

When Robert and Hamilton invited Economists, Mathematicians, and Scientists to submit strategies for the Prisoner's Dilemma game, how many strategies were submitted in total?

14 strategies were submitted

This winning strategy is called ___ ___ ____

Tit for tat

evolutionarily stable strategy

a strategy that, once it predominates in a population, cannot be invaded or displaced by any other strategy

What does an altruistic design feature aid and to who?

aids the reproduction of other individuals, even though it causes the altruist who has this feature to suffer a fitness cost

Cooperative Coalitions

alliances of more than two individuals for the purpose of collective action to achieve a particular goal

Shame

an emotional state experienced when a failure to measure up to standards of morality or when social values are violated

· Evolution should favor psychological mechanisms that cause people to desert you precisely when you most need help. How can selection get us out of this predicament?

become irreplaceable or indispensable to others

The human mind has evolved psychological mechanisms to detect __________ A study found that people remember the faces of low-income cheaters better than faces of ___________

cheaters, cooperators

competitive altruism

competing to be seen by others as great contributors to the group (Roberts, 1998) and competing for reputations as being highly generous to others in the group

What could the Indirect Reciprocity Theory help explain?

could explain why we help strangers and are generous when others are watching

Universal Moral Grammar

evolutionary psychological theory that morality emerges with little effort and that there are properties of morality that all brains share

· Defection often becomes the __________ __________ strategy

evolutionary stable

Punitive sentiment

desire to harm slackers in the group

Most disturbing behaviors/individuals_____________ (does equal; does not equal) most harmful behaviors/individuals

does not equal

Tooby and Cosmides theory of the evolution of friendship

each person has a limited amount of time, energy, and effort. Just as you cannot be in two places at one time, the decision to befriend one person is simultaneously a decision not to befriend another

Once a cheater-detection adaptation has evolved in humans, selection will favor coevolved adaptations to avoid being detected as cheaters. Cheater detection adaptations, in turn, lead to increasingly subtle forms of cheating. According to evolutionary psychologist William Michael Brown, humans have evolved another adaptation to solve this problem: the ability to detect the __________ ___ ____________ ______

genuineness of altruistic acts

reciprocal altruism

helping others with the expectation that they will probably return the favor in the future

Prosopagnosia

inability to recognize faces

Cost signaling theory

individuals display acts of altruism—giving substantial gifts, donating to charity, throwing lavish dinners—to signal that they are excellent potential allies; only those in excellent condition can afford to display costly acts of altruism

Why is empathy bad?

it blinds you from long term consequences of your actions ex: caring more about dog stuck in a well rather than global warming

Universal Grammar

linguistic theory that language emerges with little effort and that there are properties that all natural languages share

Morality emerges from a universal ______ grammar, replete with shared principles and culturally switchable parameters

moral

Self-serving Morality

moral judgments are tactics we use to constrain what others do

Recent evidence suggests that these self-conscious emotions are neurocognitive adaptations crafted by _______ selection. Specifically, self-conscious emotions solve adaptive problems of social ___________ by promoting the achievement of valued actions and characteristics to increase others' valuations of the individual (pride); limiting information-triggered devaluation (shame); and remedying events where one put insufficient weight on the welfare of a valuable other (guilt). This adaptationist perspective predicts a form-function fit: a correspondence between the adaptive function of a self-conscious emotion and its information-processing structure.

natural, valuation

How is shame different from embarrassment?

one can feel shame for an act known only to oneself

Those who engage in reciprocal altruism tend to ___ _____________ those selfish people and that altruistic trait gets passed down

out reproduce

The problem of cheating

pretending you'll return the benefit to someone and return it later to them

Guilt is a painful feeling of ________ and responsibility for one's actions - motivates reconciliation & _______ behavior; inhibits illegal, immoral, and interpersonally harmful behavior

regret, prosocial

In what hemisphere do people who can't recognize faces have damage in?

right hemisphere

According to Cosmides and Tooby, humans have not evolved to respond to abstract logical problems; they have evolved, however, to respond to problems structured as _____ _________ when they are presented in terms of costs and benefits

social exchanges

empathy

the ability to share someone else's feelings; the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference

Indirect Reciprocity Theory

the benefit to the altruist does not come directly from the person who receives the initial altruistic act, as occurs with reciprocal altruism, but rather from other people who either witnessed or heard about the person behaving generously

When playing the Prisoner's Dilemma, Robert Axelrod and W. D. Hamilton showed that the key to cooperation occurs when .........

the game is repeated a number of times but each player does not know when the game will end, as often happens in real life.

"banker's paradox"

those who need money most desperately are precisely the same people who are the poorest credit risks; those who need money less are far better credit risks

Attitudes about Abortion, Prostitution, Contraception, Drugs - political orientation -religiosity other factors What model/view is beng described?

traditional view

gains in trade

when each party receives more in return than it costs to deliver the benefit

What kind of strategy did the winner of the Prisoner's Dilemma have and what did they call it?

winner of the game had the simplest strategy and called it Tit for Tat