Social Behavior and Cooperation Flashcards
(21 cards)
What is sociality?
Types of social interactions ranging from casual associations all the way to eusocial animals (an extreme example of animals living in a group and engaging in cooperative behavior).
How are social groups formed?
Social groups are formed when individuals are attracted by the presence of their conspecifics (Allee effect!).
Are social groups equal to group selection.
No! Social groups are the result of individual behavior/decisions based on optimizing their own fitness.
What are the benefits of joining a group?
1) Sociality leads to decreased predation risk.
- You can have multiple individuals keeping watch of predators.
- You’ll have the benefit of the dilution effect or the confusion effect.
2) Sociality can lead to increased foraging efficiency.
3) Protection from conspecifics
4) Thermal advantages
5) Locomotory advantages
6) Increased mate location efficiency
7) Division of labor
8) Communal care of offspring
What are the costs of joining a group?
1) Sociality can increase competition for resources and mates.
2) Sociality can increase the transmission of parasites/disease.
3) Conspicuousness to predators
4) Inbreeding
5) Cuckoldry/EPCs
6) Misdirected parental care
7) Infanticide/cannibalism
What kind of hormones may affect sociality in some species?
Pituitary hormones such as vasotocin and oxytocin
Behaviors that involve interactions between individuals can be categorized by the effects on…
…the actor’s and recipient’s fitness.
What is an actor? What is a recipient?
Actor = Doing the behavior
Recipient = other individual engaged in the interaction
True or False: Each behavior can either increase or decrease the actor’s fitness and potentially increase or decrease the recipient’s fitness.
True
What is selfishness in terms of the actor and recipient?
Benefits the actor & comes with a cost to the recipient
What is spite in terms of the actor and recipient?
Decreases the actor’s fitness and the recipient’s fitness.
- Unsurprisingly rare
What is altruism in terms of the actor and recipient?
Decreases the actor’s fitness but increases the recipient’s fitness.
- This is surprisingly common
What is mutualism/cooperation in terms of the actor and recipient?
Benefits both the actor and the recipient’s fitness.
- This is a good thing because it increases both individuals, but the problem is that it is subject to cheaters
What is the cooperator strategy?
Everyone spends some time watching while others feed.
What is the Defector (Cheater) Strategy?
Feed all the time and let others be vigilant
Being a ____________ is evolutionarily stable, while being a ______________ is not evolutionarily stable.
Defector, Cooperator
________________are vulnerable to cheaters.
Cooperators
What is tragedy of the commons?
Doing something right but ends up with getting something worse.
How can we overcome the Tragedy of the Commons?
Change the costs and benefits of cooperating vs defecting (cheating)!
- One way to do this is known as the Boomerang Effect.
- Another way is social enforcement of Cooperation
What is the boomerang effect?
Defector (cheater) pays a higher individual cost for cheating
- Cooperator: Occasionally feed your neighbor’s kids, too
- Defector: Only feed your own
What is “social enforcement of cooperation?”
Punishment for cheating (higher cost).
