week 9- problems of group living: cooperation

Question 1

since its more evolutionarily likely that genes that predispose one to cheat would be passed on, why would a predisposition to cooperate be passed on?

Answer 1

reciprocal altruism

Question 2

what is reciprocal altruism

Answer 2

where an individual benefits another, anticipating a return of that benefit in the future

Question 3

what are the 2 criteria that must be met for cooperation to evolve between unrelated individuals?

Answer 3

1. The benefits of cooperation must exceed what we can accomplish individually (known as win-win or gains in trade). In other words, the cost of the things we give up in a trade is lower than the benefit of the things we receive in return.
2. We must repeatedly decide whether or not to cooperate with each other (i.e., we have repeated interactions), and be able to detect and remember who cheats

Question 4

what are the 2 basic strategies of reciprocal altruism?

Answer 4

1. always try cooperating first
2. then reciprocate whatever the other person does

Question 5

what are the 3 reasons as to why tit for tat works so well?

Answer 5

1. its never the first to start cheating
2. it retaliates when cheated
3. it is forgiving of possible mistakes

Question 6

how do vampire bats exhibit tit for tat? (wilkinson, 1984)

Answer 6

Captured some bats as they left to feed, to prevent them from feeding, and so manipulate which individuals would need altruistic help (they can only go without blood for 3 days)
– The bats followed a tit-for-tat strategy, regurgitating blood selectively only to those who had done so for them in the past.
– By creating an artificial colony of individuals who were low in relatedness, Wilkinson was able to show that the system of reciprocal altruism still worked with
individuals low in relatedness

Question 7

what is the social contract theory? 3 points

Answer 7

In order for us to receive help and reciprocate at different times, the following must be evolved capacities:
1. The ability to recognize other individuals
2. the ability to detect when a social contract is being broken (to know who is cheating)
3. The ability to remember our history of reciprocal interactions with others (who is cooperative? who is a cheat?)

Question 8

what brain area recognizes thousands of faces (even if we go years without seeing them)

Answer 8

fusiform face area

Question 9

what type of reasoning does knowing when someone is cheating involve?

Answer 9

conditional (if-then reasoning)

Question 10

Studies show that we are especially good at remembering the faces of people who _________________

Answer 10

dont act fairly towards us

Question 11

explain three studies as to why we might have “cheater detection abilities” (the ability to predict who will act more or less fairly)

Answer 11

1. Fetchenhauer (2010) gave students money and said they were in charge of splitting it w another person, then a second set of students viewed the videos and were asked to guess how much the person decided to give the other person. guesses were very accurate
2. Reed (2012) asked participants to play a cooperation game. first, they had a 10 min acquaintance period, where at the end, the participants were asked to predict whether their partner would cooperate. predictions were accurate (predictions based off of facial expressions and promises to cooperate)
3. study showed that people are sensitive to seeing signs of contempt on the other persons face during the making of the promise

Question 12

what 3 main points did Shinada et al.’s (2004) study and de Quervain’s (2004) study on cheater punishments show?

Answer 12

1. MANY people were willing to pay a cost to punish someone who did not cooperate, even if the game was over (and so punishment could not make them cooperate later) (shinada)
2. In group non cooperators are especially punished (shinada)
3. Punishing cheaters activates the reward network of the brain (greater activation in the caudate nucleus) (de quervain)