SOCIOBIOLOGY

What is (human) Sociobiology?

Study of different things that drive the evolution of social behavior.
A humans we have adapted to living in a social environment
In the same way that a physical trait can adapt over time, social traits can adapt as well.
Example: adaptive evolved physical trait, thick fur for animals living in colder regions
Example: adaptive evolved social behavior, mothers protective of offspring, altruism, aggression (behavior can evolve)
-mothers are protective of their offspring so they can increase the fitness of the mother, altruism can increase everyone’s fitness, killing of lion cubs by a newly dominant male to increase the male’s fitness, and aggression (ensuring self survival to increase your own fitness)

Dmitri Belyaev’s Fox Breeding Experiment:

Wanted to isolate the gene that make dogs so easy to train, but lacked the technology to sequence dog genome.
-Started a fox breeding program (similar to dogs, similar social structure) → selectively bred foxes that showed low fear of and high friendliness towards humans. By 4th gen, some even showed physical changes of domestication phenotype such as bigger floppier ears and white spots on their coats.
-This suggests that these behavioral and physical traits may be correlated.
-Behavior can evolve in the same way that physical traits can, and these behaviors have proven to be successful over evolutionary time
-Dogs have evolved different traits (social and physical) over time (due to human interference, with sometimes not so great consequences). Similarly, human behavior and physical traits have changed over time through environmental forces

History of Sociobiology:

Charles Darwin was the first person to think about human behavior evolving
Basic facial expressions are human universals (meaning that different cultures can recognize each others emotions)
Facial expressions may be functional (bitter/bad smells, disgust leads to avoidance of harmful material, and facial expressions communicate danger/safety)
-If emotions are biologically evolved in humans, we should expect that they are universal to humans across cultures.facial expressions are not from culture but instead are likely to be innate and biologically universal.
Facial expressions of disgust may work to remove a harmful item from the individual’s mouth, but they also communicate disgust to other humans nearby.
Facial expressions may have evolved to benefit the expresser by modifying their perception, but because they are highly visible, they can also communicate emotional state to others (Surprise widens eyes, increases perception of surroundings)
E.O Wilson (sociobiology: the new synthesis 1975): argued that we should analyze social behaviors through evolutionary lens- animals behave in ways that maximize reproductive fitness. People did not like the idea that humans could be studied in this very experimental way, similar to animals.

Evolutionary Psychology: new paradigm for psychological science (David Buss)

Focuses on psychological processes- attempts to identify evolved, underlying psychological mechanisms that influence behavior.
Humans have emotional, motivational, and cognitive adaptations that generally increased fitness in the past

Important to consider:

Some evolved behaviors may currently be maladaptive. Environments change!
Ex: motivation for high sugar/high fat foods may have helped our ancestors finding high quality foods and survive (causes health issues when food is abundant)
Because some behavior is “natural”, in the sense that it evolved and has a genetic basis, does not say anything about whether it is “morally right”

Nature interacts with Nurture:

Social and cultural factors change human behavior but biological factors also play a significant role.
Humans have the capacity (likely an evolved one) to regulate behavior in socially acceptable ways (Phineas Gage socially inappropriate behavior after frontal lobe damage supports the idea)
“Nurture” (environment) can flexibly regulate gene expression.

Basic Tenants of human sociobiology research:

(anatomically and behaviorally)
The cinderella effect: evolution favors ensuring survival and reproduction of genetically related offspring (inclusive fitness: evolutionary success comes not just from your own reproduction but also the reproduction of relatives who share your genes and that's what the cinderella effect is based on)

The phenomenon of favoritism for genetically related children and higher incidence of mistreatment by stepparents than by biological parents.

The human mind uses heuristics (strategies) to increase the likelihood of solving problems our ancestors routinely faced. (basic assumptions, used to develop hypotheses for experiments)

Cheater detection (Watson task): a puzzle posed in an asocial context is difficult to solve. When the same puzzle is worded in a social manner ( that is evolutionary relevant), the puzzle is a lot easier.

(you are given 4 cards, each has a # on it, if a card is red on one side, it has a 3 on the other side)

Humans can solve problems better when that problem is framed in a social context

Watson summary: tasks were logically identical, but one seemed easier to complete than the other

(•Men prefer younger women (fertility, more offspring) and women prefer older men (more resources, ensure offspring survival)

(consistent across different cultures– suggests a common evolved human trait

- facial symmetry is attractive (more symmetric faces are more attractive)

Controversies and criticisms:

Evolutionary psychology and sociobiology try to explain why behaviors evolved, not justify them. Many traits that were once adaptive (like distrust of outsiders or using weapons for hunting) are not right or useful today.
The naturalistic fallacy is the mistake of assuming “natural = good.”
Natural does not mean moral.
Claims about biological bases of behavior are controversial because they’ve sometimes been misused

Biological determination- we are influenced by society, not just by genes. the idea that most human characteristics, physical and mental, are determined at conception by hereditary factors passed from parent to offspring
“Just so” stories (unverifiable narrative explanation)- we should not use stories when we don't have sufficient evidence

just-so story is an untestable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or animals. Another criticism is that people think that these stories are made up on the spot or they think that these scientists use ‘adaptive storytelling’ to explain why some traits or behaviors were adapted in humans