What (if anything) was anger engineered by natural selection to accomplish?

Do you ever wonder why some people, maybe even you, get all riled up over some seemingly miniscule reason? Or why others won’t become angry over anything less than being purposefully kicked in the face? Is a person’s anger threshold developed and passed on geneteically or is each person their own independent subject? As like all topics within evolutionary psychology, different ideas and experiments have been theorized over the origin of anger within our species. The article published by Aaron Sell, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides from the Center for Evolutionary Psychology explores a recent model of the recalibrational theory of anger. This is a hypothesis “that the regulatory program governing anger evolved in the service of bargaining, to resolve conflicts of interest in favor of the angry individual.” The article formulates predictions, experiments and conclusions of what initiates anger in an individual.

The analysis continuously refers to a ratio used, known as a welfare tradeoff ratio (WTR), that defines how much weight should be placed on the welfare on one’s self (i) compared to an individual (j). An anger system is formulated using “two different families of internal variables to regulate behavior: formidability indexes, designed to track the ability of self and others to inflict costs; and conferral indexes, designed to track the ability of self and others to confer benefits.”

It is acknowledged throughout the article that there are countless factors which contribute to a person’s ability to inflict costs or grant benefits. For ease and basis of proof to the hypothesis tests were done to analyze two governing factors, strength and attractiveness, in both males and females.

The overall results were quite interesting and further divided into subcategories including; Proneness to anger, history of fighting, utility of personal aggression, utility of political aggression, entitlement, success in conflict, and rumination. As predicted from the original theory, the results showed the strength in men and the attractiveness increased the individuals WTR and proneness to anger.

The results for these factors can be traced back to the beginning of time and may be explained as follows: If a man knows he is physically stronger than his counterpart than he believes that he is entitled to a higher WTR ratio. The stronger man knows he can inflict physical cost on another. For this reason the stronger man uses anger "to bully another into recalculating a WTR in [his] favor," knowing that many times his visible strength can help him get what he wants in one way or another. This same idea applies to the attractiveness in women. In our somewhat sex driven society, the more attractive women assume they have more to offer, ability to confer benefits and use this to their power. The analysis claims that the more attractive women think they are entitled to better treatment and a higher WTR ratio for the benefits they provide. If they believe something is not fair, as defined by the individuals WTR ratio, then they will use anger to show this until the conflict is resolved in the woman’s favor. (This could explain why all movies and T.V. shows always depict the ‘attractive cheerleaders’ to be big b****es and always using some form of anger to get what they want.)




At first glance, the bases of the recalibrational theory of anger appears to make sense. As mentioned earlier, this could provide some insight to the stereotypes of attractive girls being mean and nasty when they don’t get their way or why the strong ‘meatheads’ around campus are the ones who always seem to get in fights and result to anger using physical threats when they don’t get what they want. This does not assume that the stronger men and more attractive women are angry more consistently than others though. The theory assumes that they expect better treatment then the average person and if they do not receive that then they will become angry to get what they want. For example, many times I have witnessed an attractive girl get better treatment than someone else so she remains calm and satisfied. But the idea states that that same girl will get angry a lot easier if something does not go her way. The less attractive girl would not expect that beneficial treatment so will not become angry if it does not happen.

The nice thing about the two factors chosen, strength and attractiveness, can be traced back throughout all of history with positive evidence. The idea is that the individuals with a higher WTR sustained relationships with each other which helped develop and evolve the WTR ratios in future generations and can help describe the vast characteristics and personalities throughout our society. The problem though is as society has progressed, more and more factors of inflicting costs and inferring benefits have developed. As mentioned in the article, “resources, skills, social influence, wealth, status – should also modulate anger.” With this said, it is difficult determine what factors are weighted more in determining an equation for an individual’s WTR ratio and expected proneness to anger.

One of the most interesting results and conclusions from this article was how the factors positively correlated with the Utility of Political Aggression. The positive correlation from the results infers that the stronger or more attractive individuals were more willing to use “military force in international affairs and against internal transgressors." This does not quite hold true to the theory considering the strength of an individual will have zero effect on the success of a milityary stride. But the correlation could provide insigh on how some aspects of anger has evolved throughout our generations. "The recolibrational theory of anger’s analysis of ancestral payoffs predicts this finding, but not rational choice models operating on modern payoffs.” Many years ago, before all the technological advancements, the strength of a single human did play a major role in war. The stronger leaders of ‘tribes’ could take and do what they wanted. So does this mean all countries should elect weak, unattractive leaders in order to obtain world peace?!?

I agree with the overall idea of this theory that the origin of anger is when someone believes something to be unfair or less than what they expect. This is a very interesting theory and should be considered when analyzing another person’s psychological characteristics and motives, but it is not fair or appropriate to predetermine someone’s expectations or actions from a mathematical equation or calibration. I believe that is the great thing about humans and the difference between us and robots. The way people are raised and their experiences throughout life have as much impact as anything on why people act the way they do. I, like many, have some very big and strong friends who are some of the nicest people I know and do not anger nearly as easy as others. The same goes for many attractive women. Also, there could be an argument for the inverse of these factors described. For example, some may say that a much less attractive woman or very weak man is always angry because they are treated poorly. With the above method they should not get angry as easily because they should have an expected lower WTR ratio, but instead they are constantly angry since they think they are not treated as equally as others.

The above writing demonstrates the complexity of predicting and analyzing human behavior. This is why evolutionary psychology is a constant struggle to study and analyze. So many results prove different theories and can be analyzed in numerous amounts of ways.

http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/angerselltoobycosmides09.pdf

Evolutionary Psychology needs the missing link.

Evolutionary psychology has long been debated as to whether it is true science or a set of theories and ideas that seem likely but lack support. Supporters of Evolutionary Psychology base their ideas upon our prehistoric past of which very little is known. It is difficult to arrive upon correct conclusions when the foundation of the theory is based upon conjectures rather than fact. In an article written by Jeremy Freese, Chair of the department of sociology at Northwestern University, explains that evolutionary psychologist often combine "psychological focus with vaulting ambition to make larger claims." A theory that is already on a frail foundation should not be used to make stretched conclusions. There is a substantial portion of scientists that wish to strike down evolutionary psychology, but they wish to strike it down for the wrong reasons. They are against EP because it goes against long standing traditional belief, but it should be struck down because it does not stand up to scientific testing. Many of the theories arising out of Evolutionary Psychology that can be tested do not give the results they predict. Two examples of this are the implications of birth order study, and the Trivers-Willard hypothesis. The birth order theory states that the oldest of the siblings will be the most conservative and ambitious of the siblings. The Trivers-Willard hypothesis states that affluent families favor the sons while an impoverished family will favor the daughters. Surveys conducted on both of these theories demonstrated that there is no correlation of proposed variables. Evolutionary Psychology cannot be considered scientific if models developed from it fail to predict outcomes.

Additionally, evolutionary psychologist commonly argue that "the modern environment has not existed long enough to have significantly impacted the mind's design." Thus, we are currently living with "prehistoric" minds that are aptly modeled with EP. This begs the question of where are we going? The development of technology is only accelerating which implies that our minds will only fall further and further behind. Will this eventually lead us to a point where our minds can no longer interact with the world around us? I doubt it. Evolutionary Psychology does not properly account for the other forces that mold and drive our minds.



Reference: "Evolutionary Psychology: new science or the same old storytelling?" by Jeremy Freese.

Gender and Sexuality

Men and women are different, and all fields of study have their own reasoning for the multitude of observable differences between the sexes. Sexuality, as it is linked to reproduction, lies at the heart of Evolutionary Psychology (EP) theorist's explanations for contemporary differences between men and women. According to one theorist, cognative and behavioral differences between men and women relate directly to their biological/physical differences. Sexual attraction is another gendered force which shaped (and continues to impact) human behavior and cognition. These differences generally refer to desires, motivations, and instincts, and not to abilities. Because of this focus on diffrences between genders, and on the importacne of reproduction as a motovation for behavior and cognition, EP has been criticized for being sexist and homophobic.

The following video features an interview with Professor Donald Symons, an anthropologist who is "best known as one of the founders of [EP]". In this interview, Symons discusses his observations of male promiscuity within the gay community of San Francisco in the 1970s, compared to his observations of lesbian- and hetro-sexuality at the same time, and how this relates to the truth value of perceptions of homosexuality.

*Please note that this video contains adult content and may be Not Safe for Work.



Symons concludes that previous psychological opinions of homosexuality - that it is a deviation from normal human sexual preference - are fundamentally incorrect. Using the examples of both homo- and hetro-sexual male promiscuity and pornography, Symons argues that all human males (regardless of sexual orientation) have common attitudes and behaviors towards sex. From this, he concludes that all females also share common sexual behaviors, and he supports this with his observations of lesbian long-term relationship and family building behaviors.

Essentially, he is attempting to debunk the idea that homosexual men are inherently more promiscuous and deviant in their sexual behavior than heterosexual men. He does this by arguing that all men are attracted to a certain type of sex (anonymous, frequent, non-committal, etc), but heterosexual men are not usually able to obtain this type of sex because women are not attracted to it. Additionally, he presents the example of homosexual male pornography and its fundamental similarities to heterosexual male pornography; the exploitative features of pornography for a male audience do not reveal any attitudes about a given gender of sexual partners, rather they reveal the shared nature of all male sexuality.

Perhaps most interestingly, Symons briefly addresses possible criticisms of this way of thinking about human sexuality. In response to the criticism that his argument is an underhanded way of justifying male "insensitivity and promiscuity", Symons points out that an evolutionary understanding of behavior does not necessarily legitimize or justify the behavior, it only explains how the behavior relates to development (which continues to shape psychology). And while he doesn't address the evolutionary source of homosexuality, he provides a strong counterargument to the idea that homosexual behavior is a deviation of normal human sexual behavior, by attributing the differences between homo- and hetro-sexual behavior to the differences between the genders.

(Of course, this idea does not address theories of gender which are non-binary, but that's a whole other criticism.)

So, maybe EP isn't homophobic, but is it sexist?

In an article for American Sexuality Magazine, Martha McCaughy argues that the "watered down" version of EP which is found in popular media allows American men to justify infidelity, promiscuity, and even sexual violence, on the basis of their instincts. Whether awareness of man = caveman causes a man to revel in his "loutishness" or become "self-conscious" and work against his supposed instincts, McCaughy argues that "the popular versions of man-as-caveman never question men's putatively natural shortcomings or innate aggressive heterosexuality".

Another feminist theorist, Sophia Elliot Connell, writes that the theory of EP, and not just its presentation within popular media, is degrading to women and is "the enemy". In her article Feminism and Evolutionary Psychology, Connell argues that it is impossible to ever fully separate ethics and science; she feels that by claiming that oppressive male behaviors are natural, EP theorists are claiming that they are right. Her critisims also address the Western-centric-ness of the majority of EP's evidence, and the lack of response to issues such as homosexuality and sex after menopause.

In an interview, David Buss, Professor at the University of Texas, responds to some common criticisms that EP is sexist. Buss states that the discovery of psychological sex differences is worrying to people, because of the history of psychological claims that the only differences between genders are socialized. He argues that EP has made a number of important discoveries about the differences between men and women - such as the fact that men biologically desire a great variety of sexual partners while women desire monogamy - that may make people uneasy, but are still important to accept "when there is strong scientific evidence". He reiterates the idea that EP has, so far, noted differences of preference, and not of intelligence, ability, or anything else which would relate to an individual's rights.

This is, of course, only a very brief discussion of the issues surrounding gender, sexuality, and EP. Wow, what a tiring and tricky issue!

So, what do you think: Does the belief in differences support inequality? How does/should EP address sexualities which are not motivated by reproduction? Is EP a straight boy's club?

Out With the Old...

If you've taken a psychology course, you probably learned about the blank-slate theory. It states that the human mind is like, you guessed it, a blank-slate. The way a person grows to behave, reason, react, is all based on what the brain picks up from external sources. In other words, our social and mental life is based completely on how we were raised. For example, I feel that it is wrong to steal because the society I was raised in conveyed that message to me growing up.

The blank-slate theory is just one part of the Standard Social Science Model, which is the traditional model for social and behavioral sciences. In their article, "Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology", John Tooby and Leda Cosmides say that evolutionary psychology is trying to do away with this model. A goal of EP is to disprove these "defective assumptions about the nature of human psychology," blank-slate included. So if this model is indeed flawed, what's taking so long? Why hasn't it been trashed yet? Well, that brings up the question of what is at stake.

If evolutionary psychology can disprove this old model, then a new one will need to be built in its place. If it is disproved, then "the social science project of the past century is not only wrong but radically misconceived." You can imagine that social and behavioral scientists who haven't jumped on the EP bandwagon, and instead have been following the Standard Social Science Model, aren't too pleased about the possibility of the foundation of all their work being trashed. Tooby and Cosmides claim that this is the reason for "reflexive opposition" against EP.

Makes sense. Imagine if some new radical physics movement emerges that says our theory of gravity is wrong, force does not equal mass multiplied by acceleration, and Einstein was a fraud. Do you think physicists are going to embrace it with open arms? Pffff, fat chance. They're going to deny it to their graves.

But if the main source of opposition against EP is because a bunch of scientists don't want to be proven wrong... well doesn't that seem... I don't know... invalid? Then again, is all opposition against EP fueled by this reason? Or is EP just using it to defend itself? To undermine the opposition? I'm sure EP has some skeletons in its closet.

"Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology"

Origin of Depression

Evolutionary psychology describes many ways how human's behavior today has evolved out of past survival techniques. More recently, psychologists have hypothesized that depression is actually a result of this evolution. Before digging into this issue however, I'll provide you with some knowledge on another survival behavior, the fight or flight response.

Evolutionary psychologists claim the fight or flight response is a behavior humans today have inherited from their ancestors. Imagine the scenario long ago where a caveman is confronted by a grizzly bear. The caveman would likely experience an adrenaline rush, causing shortness of breath, increased awareness, and quickened impulses to survive the encounter with the bear. People today have now inherited this survival response and apply it to different situations. Not having to worry about giant grizzly bears, people today might instead experience fight or flight during a public speech. During a speech, a person may feel a sense of "danger," similar to that of the caveman, and therefore get an adrenaline rush.

Now to look at the evolutionary psychologist's approach to depression. Their claim is that depression is a "survival tool" humans have developed, just like with the fight or flight response. However, as you can imagine this is extremely different. Depression is a serious illness and is difficult to view as a "survival tool."

One example of how depression could promote survival comes from McGuire, Raleigh, and Troisi's experiment. In their study, they examined vervet monkeys and how their serotonin levels vary between each other. Low serotonin levels are BELIEVED to be associated with depression. The study found that high-ranking monkeys (alpha males) have twice the level of serotonin as low-ranking males. More importantly, they observed that when alpha males lost their top position, their serotonin levels plummeted and their behavior changed drastically (appeared to exhibit depression).

But how does this promote the monkey's survival? One answer is psychiatrist John Price's "Rank Theory." Price sees depression as a way for people to avoid conflict and aggression. In the monkey's case, the fallen alpha male accepts his lower status and avoids aggression towards the new alpha male. This behavior then promotes the monkey's survival (he doesn't pick a fight with the alpha male). Overall, evolutionary psychologists see depression as an "evolved mechanism of distress telling us to hibernate, escape, or change something" (Nando Pelusi's article in Psychology Today).

But...
The evolutionary approach to depression (everything above) is still in its infancy. One major problem with it is a lack of research. There is not enough evolutionary psychologists researching mental illness and the field is slow to develop new therapies. Overall, a lot more work needs to be done.

This is just one of many ideas where depression comes from. One can also view it as strictly a medical illness (instead of the evolutionary view). This could involve biological, genetic, or environmental factors. Many scientists think depression comes from the brains imbalance of certain chemicals. Such chemicals include serotonin, yet there is no way to be 100% positive this is a cause. Although scientists predict these factors play a role in depression, they are not certain. Depression's cause is still largely a mystery. However, looking at depression from medicine's perspective has led to successful treatment.

So what is at stake with this debate? The purpose of finding the origin of depression is to better treat those with the illness. If depression is a "survival tool," then psychologists can create better procedures and therapy techniques based on the findings. Yet suppose the cause is biological; in this case scientists can work to produce better medication for treatment. Overall, the better understanding of depression we have, the better we can fight it.

So what are your opinions on the issue? Do you think it is possible depression began as a "survival tool?" Or do you disagree and believe it to be strictly a medical illness (having no evolutionary roots)?

Or do you maybe think it is a combination of both, or even neither (meaning something else)?

A recent piece in the New York Times addresses the issue of altruism, one of the most central issues which Evolutionary Psychology theorists seek to explain in terms of inherited traits.  If the 'goal' of living is to reproduce your genes, then why would anyone ever help someone else at a cost to themselves?  Every human should think and act along the lines of "every man for himself" in order to ensure that their genes (and not yours!) get passed on to further generations, right?  Isn't that what "survival of the fittest" means?!

Actually, not quite.  A common misconception regarding evolutionary theory is that it refers to individuals' genes, traits, motivations, etc, when in fact it refers to our entire species.  Imagine that every individual human cared only about their own wellbeing - not much of a stretch for some - and was willing to steal or kill for personal benefit; as a group, we'd likely kill ourselves off fairly quickly.  There's a reason that we say "there's safety in numbers"; but only if the threat isn't also coming from within the group.  And that's where altruism comes in.

The general Evolutionary Psychology consensus is that our development of altruistic tendencies (or, similarly, non-human animal tendencies such as adopting orphaned animals of other species and nursing the sick or injured ) occurred in conjunction with our development as a social species.  Essentially, altruistic behavior supports the group and increases its fitness, while the structure of the group protects the individual (from saber toothed tigers and stuff) and allows them to live long enough to reproduce.  It's symbiotic!

But, like everything in science, it's not quite that simple.  Debate is currently raging over kin selection, or the altruistic process of helping your relatives at a disadvantage to yourself.  A 1964 paper on evolution by British biologist Dr. William Hamilton explained this phenomenon not in a social fitness way, but through the idea of shared genetics.  Dr. Hamilton's paper's argued that because siblings share genes, an individual of any species may protect and care for their siblings' offspring, rather than having their own, because of the possibility that the offspring actually carries a significant portion of their genes.  Essentially, he is arguing that nieces and nephews are close enough, genetically, to daughters and sons to warrant the devotion of resources and attention, as an attempt to get one's own genes passed on.  In support of this argument, Dr. Hamilton considered some types of social insects (such as ants and wasps) and their infertile females, which actually share more genetics with their sisters than with their brothers.  In this case, it is may be more beneficial for the females to focus on their sisters' offspring than to worry about having their own; their genes will be passed along either way!

A group of rival scientists, however, are arguing that ideas of kin selection and other types of special conditions are needlessly complicating natural selection, which explains altruistic phenomenon equally well. They believe that the problem is one of perspective.  Instead of worrying about the motovations of the worker ants, "...we should put ourselves in the queen’s perspective. They offer a mathematical model suggesting how natural selection could produce offspring that stay at a queen’s nest. If she produces daughters that stay in the nest, she can spend more time laying eggs, rather than hunting for food to feed her young".  Of course, this new theory of altruism, which asks us to consider the motivations of the parent as manifest in the behavior of their offspring, has it's share of opponents.  According to one evolutionary biologist at Oxford University, this way of thinking is "just patently wrong", because it does not focus on genetic differences between genders and different numbers of offspring according to gender.

Either way, no matter which perspective the field eventually decides on, there will surely be some future scientist who comes along and decides to disprove it; that really is the scientific method.

What do you think?  Why do people adopt children?  Why do they risk their lives to help others?  Is it to make the 'group' stronger and more stable, or is there something else at play?  Which came first, the group or the altruistic member of the group?
  

Upon choosing "evolutionary psychology" as our topic of discussion, I'm fairly certain at least half of our group had no idea what it really meant. Wikipedia proves itself as the ultimate source of knowledge, claiming that evolutionary psychology "explains physiological traits as adaptations, that is, as the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection."

With this definition in mind, I went looking for radical opinions on the matter.

Paul Griffiths argues that "the contemporary environment is so different from that in which human beings evolved that their behavior probably bears no resemblance to the behavior that was important in evolution." The theory of evolutionary psychology didn't arise until the 1980s, obviously much later than humans had evolved into their current physical form. I think what Paul is trying to say is that we can't possibly comprehend what was deemed important to early humans. How the prehistoric environment affected physical evolution.

But, Paul, evolutionary psychology is about psychological evolution (hence the name). Moving on to someone else's opinion...

The Center for Evolutionary Psychology proves to be no help. Their website is just an absolute mess of links on top of links on top of links.

Finally I run across some useful information: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. As it turns out, evolutionary psychology is just another attempt to connect the brain and the mind. It attempts to understand why humans behave the way they do (logically, illogically, emotionally, spontaneously...) based on how they got to this point in evolution. What separates evolutionary psychology from cognitive psychology is "the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive, and reproduce."

So, now that we understand just what evolutionary psychology is, the next step is to form an opinion on the matter. What do you think? Is who we are today (mentally) a product of evolution? If so, should we be thanking our ancestors? Or hopping into our magical, time-traveling toasters to fix what they messed up millennia ago?