Prosocial

Question 1

What are the 3 roots of prosocial?

Answer 1

Ostrom’s core design principles (CDPs)
Evolution and multilevel selection
Contextual behavioural science (CBS)

Question 2

What is MLS?

Answer 2

A unifying theoretical framework provided by evolutionary theory (multilevel selection)
Elinor Ostrom & David Sloan Wilson

Question 3

What is contextual behavioural science and an example?

Answer 3

Psychology of behaviour change with proven methods for helping individuals and groups move towards valued goals.
E.g., ACT: underpinned by RFT; transdiagnostic approach; experiential approach at its heart

Question 4

what are values and what effect does exploring/articulating them through RFT have?

Answer 4

Understanding things that are important to you as an individual and that you share with others.
Things that give yours and others’ lives meaning.
They can change over time.
A way of living, as opposed to an end in itself.
When we articulate them through RFT, we start to hurt.

Question 5

What represents our values?

Answer 5

Our behaviours; people can infer our values from our behaviours.

Question 6

what is a central feature of individual well-being (Aked et al., 2008)?

Answer 6

meaningful connection to social context.

Question 7

social connectedness is one of the six core features of what?

Answer 7

positive psychological wellbeing

Question 8

what is DNAV?

Answer 8

ACT for teenagers and young people; done in a slightly different way; incorporates positive psychology; children and teenagers know less about who they are and want to be as they have a shorter learning history

Question 9

how can you tell we are a social cooperative species?

Answer 9

Our eyes: more whites so we can identify where another is looking.
– A facial structure that has evolved to pay joint attention to things.
Our hearts: connection between social isolation and anxiety/depression; have evolved to yearn a meaningful connection and send of belonging.

Question 10

what is natural selection and who discovered it?

Answer 10

Darwin.
Involves 3 basic processes: variation, selection, and hereditary – individuals naturally vary in their traits and those that increase chance of survival/reproduction are more likely to be passed on

Question 11

who discovered units of selection and what are these called?

Answer 11

Mendel (1866) and his work on peas.
Units were called genes in 1905.

Question 12

what are the 4 distinct evolutionary inheritance streams?

Answer 12

Genetic, epigenetic, learning, cultural/symbolic.

Question 13

how does evolution take place regarding the 4 inheritance streams?

Answer 13

Within and across the four interacting streams to create a complex dynamic process

Question 14

what is genetic inheritance?

Answer 14

Genes are a heritable unit.
Mutations and changes in DNA (variation) that support survival and reproduction (selection) are more likely to be passed on to offspring (retention).
Individual organisms live and die and species evolve as they adapt to their local environments.

Question 15

what is epigenetic inheritance?

Answer 15

Hereditary system distinct from genetic evolution.
Genetic code alone isn’t enough to describe what happens.
Different cells use/express different parts of our genes depending which are turned on/off by epigenetic modifications.
Epigenetic modifications can be passed across generations – i.e., can be influenced by environmental factors which get passed on.
E.g., WW2 Dutch Hunger Winter.

Question 16

What is learning and behavioural inheritance?

Answer 16

Talking about what you learn across a lifetime.
Learning occurs when behavioural variants are selected (reinforced) by the consequences they produce and hence are more or less likely to occur again in the future in similar contexts.
Behaviours are selected and the operant evolves (just as organisms live and die and the species evolves).
Skinner said we are a stage of dynamic interplay between phylogenics and ontogenics.

Question 17

what are phylogenics?

Answer 17

genetics

Question 18

what are ontogenics?

Answer 18

history of our lives; learning what does and doesn’t work for us.

Question 19

what is the cultural/symbolic inheritance stream?

Answer 19

Cultural evolution.
One individual copies (replicates) the behaviour of another; when this includes offspring the behaviour becomes transgenerational.
Symbolic systems and language - allows the accumulation and rapid transmission of ever more knowledge (action).
Humans’ capacity to cooperate flexibly and in large numbers is based on our capacity to construct shared fictions.

Question 20

human’s capacity to cooperate flexibly and in large numbers is based on what?

Answer 20

our capacity to construct shared fictions

Question 21

what is cultural evolution?

Answer 21

the transmission of behaviours within and across generations.

Question 22

what is the extended evolutionary synthesis?

Answer 22

ESS.
Adaptive change across multiple inheritance streams and levels.
Behaviour of an organism can systematically shape the environment which in turn shapes it.

Question 23

How does the traditional view of heritability and the ESS view differ?

Answer 23

Traditional: heritable variation is largely the product of random genetic mutations which are unaffected by environmental conditions.
ESS: the behaviour of an organism can systematically shape the environment which in turn shapes it; evolutionary change is not fully random; humans can consciously and quickly direct evolution.

Question 24

what happens when behaviour changes lead to sustained environmental change?

Answer 24

It changes the selection pressure on our genes.

Question 25

what is a human example of "where behaviour leads, genes follow"?

Answer 25

Human migration northwards; led to changes in skin/eye colour and adaptation to lower temperatures.

Question 26

what is niche construction? Examples?

Answer 26

process by which an organism changes its environment, which in turn alters the species genetics. e.g., beavers; domesticating cattle changed the human genetic ability to digest milk.

Question 27

What is multilevel selection theory?

Answer 27

Natural selection occurs at many levels: cells in our bodies, individuals, groups. Groups increase cooperativeness/effectiveness and gain competitive advantage over others. Selection pressure creates between-group competition: groups of individuals that helped each other would outcompete groups of individuals that did not. Threat and fear can drive people together but often it creates an outgroup (othering the group we are in competition with). Between-group competition leads to a selection pressure for within-group cooperation. Finding the values we share to find ways that work for everyone is what prosocial is about.

Question 28

in MLS, between-group competition leads to what for within-group cooperation?

Answer 28

a selection pressure

Question 29

what did William Muir (1990) demonstrate?

Answer 29

The best group wins out over the best individuals combined. Wanted to increase egg laying in chickens; when most productive hens were selected and caged together, there were fewer eggs produced and more aggression. Whereas a parallel experiment at the cage (group) level showed that selection at the group level led to more cooperative and socially amicable hens, which greater egg production. After 5 generations, the first experiment laid 60% fewer eggs, the second 160% more.

Question 30

for the group to be successful, what should they do and why?

Answer 30

behaviours that are good for the individual are often bad for the group; so to be successful the individuals should promote cooperative and prosocial behaviours above self-interest.

Question 31

what is prosocial behaviour

Answer 31

Everyday cooperative behaviour that benefits other people or the wider group. Win-win interactions and altruistic behaviour (benefits other more than the person engaging in it). Create something that is greater than the some of its parts when certain circumstances and the CDPs are met.

Question 32

How do groups encourage and support prosociality? (6 things)

Answer 32

Encourage and support prosociality with language, values, stories, social rules, laws and rewards systems (broadly referred to as culture).

Question 33

How did we see prosocial behaviour emerge in the pandemic?

Answer 33

Initial self-interested behaviour (stock piling) replaced by prosocial messages and behaviour (volunteers).

Question 34

Who is Elinor Ostrom and what did she do?

Answer 34

Political scientist; won Nobel prize for economics for work on how individuals cooperate to manage common resources sustainably (1990). Examined groups around the word and found that humans (in the right conditions) were good at sharing resources, and sometimes creating mechanisms to share resources for thousands of years. Created the CDPs. Provided an alternative narrative to talking about either top-down regulation (told what to do) or markets (things left down to chance).

Question 35

What did Wilson find in groups using the CDPs?

Answer 35

Better working and wellbeing; was difficult for individuals to benefit themselves at the expense of each other, so only way to succeed was as a group.

Question 36

What are the 8 CDPs?

Answer 36

1. shared purpose and identity 2. equitable distribution of costs and benefits 3. fair and inclusive decison-making 4. monitoring behaviour 5. graduated responses to helpful and unhelpful behaviour 6. fast and fair conflict resolution 7. authority to self-govern 8. collaborative relations with other groups

Question 37

why is shared purpose and identity important?

Answer 37

Group functions best when members clearly understand its purpose. Members perceive purpose as being worthwhile. Pride and pleasure in belonging are increased. Behaviour is guided through shared norms and values.

Question 38

what are the 4 parts to the ACT matrix? (line, above, below, middle)

Answer 38

Line = organisms move away from unpleasant stimuli and towards things important to us. Above line = inner worlds; thoughts and feelings; head and our hearts. Below the line: outer actions; actions/behaviours others can see us doing; hands and our feet. Middle: noticing the two dimensions of your experience

Question 39

Who is the ACT matrix used with and why?

Answer 39

Done with groups to ensure they function well and are cooperative; often reveals that we are more similar than we are different.

Question 40

how do you rate the 8 CDPs?

Answer 40

With the spokes diagram

Question 41

what is the "tragedy of commons"?

Answer 41

tension between individual and group