Evolutionary roots of altruism, moral outrage

[Dover]

Evolutionary roots of altruism, moral outrage
29 Nov 2004

If you've ever been tempted to drop a friend who tended to freeload, then you have experienced a key to one of the biggest mysteries facing social scientists, suggests a study by UCLA anthropologists.

"If the help and support of a community significantly affects the well-being of its members, then the threat of withdrawing that support can keep people in line and maintain social order," said Karthik Panchanathan, a UCLA graduate student whose study appears in Nature. "Our study offers an explanation of why people tend to contribute to the public good, like keeping the streets clean. Those who play by the rules and contribute to the public good will be included and outcompete freeloaders."

This finding -- at least in part -- may help explain the evolutionary roots of altruism and human anger in the face of uncooperative behavior, both of which have long puzzled economists and evolutionary biologists, he said.

"If you put two dogs together, and one dog does something inappropriate, the other dog doesn't care, so long as it doesn't get hurt," Panchanathan said. "It certainly wouldn't react with moralistic outrage. Likewise, it wouldn't experience elation if it saw one dog help out another dog. But humans are very different; we're the only animals that display these traits."

The study, which uses evolutionary game theory to model human behavior in small social groups, is the first to show that cooperation in the context of the public good can be sustained when freeloaders are punished through social exclusion, said co-author Robert Boyd, a UCLA professor of anthropology and fellow associate in UCLA's Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture...cont'd

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=16975

[Skinner]

1. Fascinating article.

Looks like their "Cooperators" group is at the greatest evolutionary disadvantage, and may even depend on the "Shunners" to tip the evolutionary equation enough so they can stick around. The "Shunners" and the "Defectors" are the ones who gain the most. I guess that may offer a clue into why conservatism persists over time.

Anyone here read "Nonzero" by Robert Wright? He argues that the long-term trend in human cultural evolution is toward greater interdependence, cooperation, tolerance, and understanding -- toward what game theorists would call more "non-zero-sum" relationships. He makes a very interesting case. It's been a few years since I read it, but if I remember correctly, the crux of his argument is that in the competition between societies, the cooperative ones win out long term over the non-cooperative ones. But the key there was the competition between societies. The article you posted suggests an evolutionary mechanism that might facilitate greater cooperation within a closed society (provided that there are enough shunners around).

Evolutionary psychology is an extremely interesting topic, which totally blew my mind when I first encountered it. It's extremely controversial, perhaps even too hot for discussion on a liberal board like this. But I must admit that being exposed to it was like an ephiphany, and I devoured a bunch of books on the topic, first "The Moral Animal" by Robert Wright, then "The Naked Ape" by Desmond Morris, then "The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond, and many others. I would love to have more discussions like this here, but I really think that many people would find the topic to be thoroughly offensive.

[Dover]

2. These forums must be a rich environment for this sort of study..lol!

They are all represented here. A little like observing an ant farm.


I also find this subject fascinating though I have not pursued it in depth as you seem to have. I agree it would make for a fascinating discussion...and I'm not convinced the topic is too hot to handle...though there may be more 'shunners' of such subjects here on DU than I'm aware of. My concern would be that it's too complex to discuss in more than little pieces! I find these subjects only lead to more and more questions. Maybe we need to get a room....lol! A DU Group room that is...just for the subject of Psychology and Human/Societal Behavior.

What are the 'gains' for Shunners and/or Defectors? And might the definition of 'gain' be different for a 'cooperator' as regards it's effectiveness as incentive?
And do the 'cooperators' also feel disapproval toward the 'defectors' even though only the 'shunners' act on it?

I would like to see further studies on the psychological makeup of the 'defectors' to discover more about their motivations.
I have always assumed that no matter how uncooperative 'defector' types may be or feel, at their core they both need to be accepted by the group and need to feel a part of something bigger than them...to be cooperative and feel that they have made a contribution to society (is this a 'liberal' mindset? New age?) Isn't that motivation stronger than personal gain?

Further, I assumed that 'defector' behavior must signify some sort of psychosis. It didn't occur to me that these might all be evolutionary biological/psychological inheritance so much as social/cultural. For instance: Eastern cultures seem to view themselves more as a group while Western cultures emphasize the individual. Is that social/cultural or is that evolutionary inheritance?

From the article I'm still trying to reconcile these three separate statements:


* By not helping defectors when they ask for help, shunners were able to save time and resources, thus improving their score.

* "After all, punishing someone else will take time and energy away from activities that are more directly important to me and I may get hurt."

* By withdrawing my support from a freeloader, I benefit because every time I do something nice for someone, it costs me something," Panchanathan said. "By withdrawing that support, I'm spared the energy, time or whatever costs are entailed. I retain my contribution, but the deadbeat is punished."


On the one hand they seem to be saying that Shunners SAVE time/resources by not helping defectors. Then they say that punishing someone (a shunner's job) WILL take away time and energy?

And what is this about 'saving time/energy/resources'...how does that fit in as incentive?

[Dover]

3. The evolutionary tale of the ant and the grasshopper as told by

the 'shunner'? Weren't they the ones that also wrote morality plays?

First the original version from Aesop (the shunner?):

In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?"
"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."

"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil.

When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing, every day, corn from the stores they had collected in the summer.

Then the Grasshopper knew:
It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.

(OR....Cooperate or DIE)

In the version I remember from childhood the ant just sort of good naturedly takes in the starving grasshopper, content that he's learned his lesson.

__________________________________

Political Version 1:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Then a representative of the NAAGB (The National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with "green bias", and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings "It's Not Easy Being Green." Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers, or as Bill refers to it, the "Temperatures of the 80's." Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-greenism Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he's in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of "fairness" has dawned in America.

______________


Political Version 2: The "Real" New Version

Despite constant attacks from the grasshoppers, the "leader" ants Clinton and now Kerry continue to work hard to make the house strong. Ant Clinton eliminates a staggering deficit left by grasshoppers Reagan and Bush Sr. and then builds a surplus of funds and a booming economy for all to enjoy, including grasshoppers. Many of the grasshoppers are jealous and relentless in their attacks on the ants.

Ant Kerry volunteers for active duty in Viet Nam, while grasshopper Dubya spends most of his time hopping around and partying and then disappears for months instead of reporting for duty. Grasshopper Dubya, the flying Floridian cockroaches, and the Supreme salamanders steal the 2000 election away from ant Gore and all the ants wanting the house to remain strong. Countless ants weep because they were not allowed to vote or their votes were "somehow lost."

The grasshopper, now the head of the house, declares himself to be a “war insect.” He quickly squanders the surplus budget and puts the house into an even worse deficit than that left by his father grasshopper. The ants in the house are so sad because they have less money, fewer jobs, higher taxes, little or no healthcare, dirty air, and many have lost their relatives in an unjust war.

When asked how history will view him, grasshopper Dubya simply replies, “What does it matter, we will all be dead.”

Difference between old and new versions: In old version, the grasshopper dies. In new version, we all die.

Moral of the story: Vote Democratic to make the house strong again!

Another of my many readers, Jim Keller, found this rebuttal hard to take, not so much because of its political views as its stretching of poetic license beyond the breaking point. So he stepped above the "Liberal vs. Conservative" fray to question the aptness of the insect analogy. Here's Jim Keller's take on the old fable.

From this site: http://mcraeclan.com/Graeme/Language/UpdatedAntAndGrasshopper.htm

[DireStrike]

4. Is this true?

"If you put two dogs together, and one dog does something inappropriate, the other dog doesn't care, so long as it doesn't get hurt," Panchanathan said. "It certainly wouldn't react with moralistic outrage. Likewise, it wouldn't experience elation if it saw one dog help out another dog. But humans are very different; we're the only animals that display these traits."

Is it? What about pack animals and tribal apes? Dolphins? Wolves? Chimpanzees? How about herds? Colony insects?

I wonder what his criteria were for establishing whether the traits were being displayed.

I too am very fascinated by this subject. I haven't read much on it, but now that I know there are things to read I sure will! I'd love to write a scifi book focusing on human interaction with alien species based on this sort of thing.