Using Our Understanding of Cooperation and Conflict Discussion

Required Videos :

https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_biol…

https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myt…

THE AX FIGHT

Warfare
✤
The roots of warfare in interindividual and small-scale
inter-group conflict
✤
Reproductive consequences of
warfare in small-scale societies
✤
Large-scale warfare
Shuar warrior with a tsantsa (shrunken
head), obtained from an enemy
The evolution of conflict
✤
Large-scale warfare is
evolutionarily novel
✤
But conflict is universal, and lethal
conflict is common
✤
In what contexts would engaging in
lethal conflict have been
reproductively beneficial?
✤
Does modern warfare confer
reproductive advantage to the
warriors?
✤
Have the proximate triggers for
lethal conflict become separate from
reproductive benefit?
High potential gains, high risk
✤
Risky, aggressive conflict typically
occurs in the context of
reproductive resources
✤
Potential cost (death) is enormous
✤
Potential reproductive rewards
must be high for risk to be
worthwhile
✤
Lethal fighting occurs in the
context of mating effort, not
parenting effort
✤
Lethal fighting is a primarily male
endeavor
Women are rarely
warriors
✤
Sex difference in size and
strength does not explain this
➡ Social complexity outweighs
impact of physical size
✤
Constraints of pregnancy and
lactation do not explain this
➡ If so, sterile or postmenopausal
women should fight
Resources and power have
different reproductive utility for
men and women
✤ Potential gains are not as high
for women
✤
A simple
illustration…
✤
Imagine a population of males
and females in which there is
some conflict over resources
✤
Average RS is 3 offspring (if you
do nothing)
✤
If an individual dies in conflict,
cost is 3 (Total RS = 0)
✤
A female who wins a conflict
might increase her RS by 2
offspring (Total RS = 5)
✤
A male who wins a conflict
might increase his RS by 7
offspring (Total RS = 10)
5
2
Benefit
3
Cost
Warfare in smallscale societies
✤
Anthropologists have looked at
reproductive outcomes of
warriors in many small-scale
societies
‣
Yanomamö (Venzuela & Brazil)
‣
Achuar (Ecuador & Peru)
‣
Waorani (Ecuador & Peru)
‣
Blackfoot (North America)
‣
Meru (Kenya)
Explicit relation to
reproductive resources
✤
Causes of warfare in smallscale societies revolve around a
few factors:
‣
✤
‣
Obtaining mates
Obtaining resources to get mates
‣
Obtaining status to get mates
Warfare is usually practiced as
opportunistic “raids” or
“ambushes”
Reproductive success of Unokai
(Yanomani warriors)
Unokai
non-Unokai
6.25
5.0
✤
Data from Yanomamö
suggest a clear
reproductive advantage
to warriors
✤
Chagnon, 1988
3.75
2.5
1.25
0.0
Wives
Children
Earlier reproductive success of Unokai
Unokai – W
Unokai – C
non-Unokai – W
non-Unokai – C
8.75
✤
✤
Unokai have more wives
and children overall
Also begin marriage and
reproduction earlier
7.0
5.25
3.5
1.75
0.0
20-24
25-30
31-40
41+
Too much of a good thing?
Among Waorani, less
“zealous” warriors have
greater success than
more zealous warriors
✤ Cultural differences
may help explain why
Waorani warriors do
not do so well
‣ No respite between
revenges
✤
‣
Beckerman, et al., 2009
Willingness to kill
women & children
Effect of social complexity on warfare
✤
In early warfare, status is
largely a product of warfare,
and success in dependent upon
one’s own fighting ability
✤
As technology becomes more
complex, individuals may gain
status by creating the tools of
warfare, rather than fighting
✤
Once their are status hierarchies
in place, lowest status
individuals will be in positions
of greatest risk
Greek Hoplites
✤
Hierarchical society, trained
warriors, organized combat
✤
All men from 18-60 were
vulnerable to draft
✤
But, rank had no difference in
fighting
✤
Men fought with others from
their tribe
✤
Gained direct resources in land
Renaissance war
✤
Early Renaissance saw
increased size of intertribal
conflicts
✤
Later-born sons had more to
gain by warfare as they stood
to inherit little
✤
Guns changed warfare
permanently
✤
Sieges became longer, wealthy
could “buy out” of fighting
Modern warfare
✤
Is there a reproductive benefit
to participating in modern
large-scale warfare?
‣ Not sure
✤
How, then, do we get men (and
women) to participate?
‣ Use proximate cues designed for
small-scale war
‣ Mimic small-scale and kin-based
societies
‣ Evoke threats to personal person
and property
Women in politics
✤
From coalitions to politics
✤
Why is female participation in
politics so rare? (or, why is
male participation in politics so
ubiquitous?)
✤
What has changed to allow
greater female participation in
politics?
“I know I have but the body of a weak
and feeble woman; but I have the heart
”
of a king, and of a king of England, too.
Queen Elizabeth I, addressing soldiers
assembled to repel the Spanish Armada, 1588
Tribal leader, Papua New Guinea
Globally, women
are rarely leaders
✤
In a representative sample of 93
traditional cultures (the Standard
Cross-Cultural Sample), Whyte
found:
‣ 70% of societies have only male
leaders
‣ 7% of societies have both sexes in
leadership roles
‣ Equal power is very rare
‣ In systems where both sexes have
leadership roles, men are more
numerous.
Whyte, M. K. (1978). Cross-cultural codes dealing with
the relative status of women. Ethnology, 17(2), 211-237.
Women’s political
power is limited
✤
Cross-culturally and
historically, even when women
hold institutionalized
leadership positions, their
power is limited
✤
Often women leaders have
jurisdiction only over women’s
activities, not over the whole
community
✤
Of the seven traditional societies
listed as having both male and
female leaders, three had only
anomalous incidents of female
leaders
Eleanor Roosevelt
2015 UN Climate Change Conference, Paris, France
World
Leaders in
2015-2016
Women make up
only 5.6% of all
heads of state
2016 G20 Summit, Hangzhou, China
3% women
116th
Congress of the
United States
of America
(2018)
(Some political bodies are more
representative than others)
55% women
From coalitions to politics
From your textbook:
✤
Low defines politics, at its core, as “social manipulation to secure and
maintain influential positions” (from de Waal)
✤
Politics, and political striving, should therefore be thought of in terms of
strategies used to control of resources and/or status
✤
As such, we should expect to see similar patterns in terms of political
activity as we have already seen in individual resource striving, such as
turtle hunting and spear fishing
✤
That is, we predict that there will be evidence of sex differences in
strategies, related to the different reproductive contexts of males and
females
This effect goes back to the concept of
reproductive variance
✤
This figure shows the range of
reproductive success among women and
men of an Ache community in Paraguay.
✤
Women have fairly low variance, with all
women having between 4 and 12
offspring, and the vast majority having in
the range of 6-10 children.
✤
Men have relatively high variance: some
men have zero offspring, and at least one
has more than 20 offspring.
✤
Most men have between 0-7 children,
with only a few men having substantially
more (a man can double his reproductive
success by marrying a second wife).
Data from Hill & Hurtado, 1996
Variance produces competition
✤
When there is high variance (high
stakes), individuals will compete to be
the “winner”
✤
In this case, men are competing for
access to reproductive resources (i.e.
women)
✤
Because women place a premium on
access to resources, traits that allow
men to acquire more resources should
be favored by natural selection
✤
competitiveness, self-enhancement,
harm-avoidance, showing off, etc.
+ = men more than women
0 = men and women the same
Sex differences have been
documented in many psychological
and attitudinal traits that are likely
related to resource-striving, such as…
➡Risk-taking, sensation-seeking, social
dominance, aggressiveness,
− = men less than women
Cross, C. P., Cyrenne, D. L. M., & Brown, G. R. (2013). Sex
differences in sensation-seeking: a meta-analysis. Scientific Reports, 3,
2486.
There may be two different things
going on…
Women feel just as capable of getting
promotions or high status positions, but do
not find such positions as desirable as do men
✤
Because of the gains to be had in
reproductive competition, men may
be motivated to seek dominance or
status, primarily from over other men
✤
Because of the gains to be had in
reproductive competition, men may
be motivated to control women,
particularly women’s mate choices
✤
Because of the potential
reproductive costs, women may be
less motivated to take risks, especially
to gain relatively small relative
benefits
Gino, F., Wilmuth, C. A., & Brooks, A. W. (2015). Compared to men, women view
professional advancement as equally attainable, but less desirable. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 112(40), 12354-12359.
What predicts greater female
participation in leadership?
✤
Marxists might predict that there would be more female
representation in those societies in which women have greater
control over production (that is, they maintain control of the goods
that they produce)
What predicts greater female
participation in leadership?
✤
Feminists might predict that there would be more female
representation in those societies in which women have autonomy
over marriage decisions (that is, without polygyny, arranged
marriage, or child marriage)
What predicts greater female
participation in leadership?
✤
Demographers might predict that there would be more female
representation in those societies in which there is a skewed sex
ratio, that is, when there are more women than men in the
population
What predicts greater female
participation in leadership?
✤
Behavioral ecologists might predict that there would be more female
representation in those societies in which women have direct
influence over the future reproductive success of their sons (that
is, they can increase their reproductive success by assisting the
offspring with higher reproductive variance).
✤
In fact, of all the characteristics examined in the
SCCS data, only female descent (systems in
which wealth and/or status can be inherited
from the mother) was related to the women’s
participation in leadership
Political involvement related back to
reproductive ecology
✤
Men stand to gain greater reproductive benefits from high-risk
strategies such as social striving, coalition building, and political
striving
✤
When women can influence their sons’ reproductive success, i.e.
through matrilineal descent, women also benefit through higher-risk
strategies such as coalition building and political striving
Modern politics
✤
Two major changes in the
modern world may be helping
to change women’s political
involvement
‣ With social complexity come more
fluid laws of descent (i.e. women
can hold property and can influence
their children’s social status)
‣ With social complexity, the
connection between political power
and reproductive success becomes
more indirect, allowing other
motivations (for example, helping
others) to become equally
important
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, elected president of Liberia 2006;
First elected woman head-of-state in Africa (USA, still none)
Beware the
NATURALISTIC FALLACY
✤
The fact that we can explain from a ecological perspective why
women have rarely been political leaders in the past, and are
dramatically underrepresented still, does not mean that…
‣ Men are inherently better leaders
‣ Women should not be leaders
‣ Women have no influence or voice when they do not hold formal
positions of leadership
✤
The fact that the patterns we observe in the world conform to
predictions based on an adaptationist perspective also does not mean
that discrimination, institutionalized barriers, and other forms of
oppression do not exist or do not matter. THEY DO.