Part 4 Consilience Conference 2012: A lowly graduate student's notes

These posts will not be in any discernible order; nor will they resemble the order of presentations during the conference. They will merely reflect what I found profoundly interesting and what presentations sparked future research endeavors. These thoughts will be poorly cited and eventually as time permits, I will fill in citations as I move along.

With that being said, if it seems as though I think my thoughts are original or of my own, when in fact someone already went there...it's not plagiarism. Its my daily life. Someone. Already. Did. It. In that case, comment with a citation or two.

Patricia Churchland

What are social instincts?

What genes take us from a reptilian brain to a mammalian brain?

Attachment and trust are our moral value center.

Social Problem Solving:
Our brains regulate, repress, calculate, plan, track reputations...
This problem solving is located in the PFC. There are deep connections to the deep (reptilian/Darwinian) brain.

"Deep value" is to ensure one's own survival; this is akin to the processing that occurs in the reptilian brain. "Mammalian value" is to ensure not only one's own survival, but the survival of others (especially offspring.)

In mammals, especially humans, a trade-off exists: a mother has to deliver a baby through a bony pelvis, so the brain needs to be relatively small at birth to accomplish this. This creates a large newborn dependence on its mother (sometimes even through graduate school....) in order to have brain mature to adult size. This immature brain of warm-blooded loco-motors must be able to adapt to a multitude of environments. So the benefits of having newborn dependence outweighs the costs.

Oxytocin promotes bonding, cooperation, mutual grooming, sex, and related reproductive behaviors. It also lowers cortisol and provides a calming effect. There is a decrease in defensive postures, increased level of trust, and autonomic arousal decreases. Dopamine also plays a key role in learning, if there is a block of dopamine, organisms fail to learn. 

This is when the magic happened:



Lack of parental investment --> underdeveloped PFC -->  low K lifestyle (FAST) --> low investment in offspring --> underdeveloped PFC --> low K lifestyle (FAST)

This cycle is perpetuated since individuals with an underdeveloped PFC do not feel the rewards that come from investing in their offspring: they find no pleasure in helping; consequently, they do not feel the pain when their offspring are in distress. They can't learn to parent. Their reward systems are not hardwired to invest in their offspring.

Do low K women have low endogenous oxytocin and/or dopamine, especially following childbirth?

There are many more unanswered questions, I will definitely be coming back to this post and updating. 

Current Research in Psychological Science: Part 2

"Psychometric Properties of the HEXACO Personality Inventory"
Kibeom Lee and Micheal C. Ashton 

The authors believe honesty and humility are the basis of individual differences in altruistic behavior, specifically reciprocal altruism. High levels of honesty/humility are expected to cooperate even when they could defect on someone who is not likely to retaliate; they wouldn’t take advantage of another individual. Likewise high levels of Agreeableness would cooperate, even with someone who is not going to reciprocate. This is very interesting that the authors propose an evolutionary framework for the individual differences for adaptive problems. It seems as though the emotionality framework drives our kin altruism and inclusive fitness behaviors.

This could be empirically tested in a very simple way. Participants could play the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, a staple of studying altruistic and inclusive fitness behaviors. The participants’ personality could be measured using the HEXACO and then could play a few rounds of the game. Different conditions could be explored to determine the strength of the HEXACO’s ability to predict, likewise, to determine if situational variables influence these traits. The participant could play any number of rounds of the game and that could influence whether they adopt a certain strategy, such as tit-for-tat. The participant could also play with various individuals; participants of the same sex, same race, same age, or different sex, age, or race. Would a person with high honesty/humility identify with a wider range of individuals as “kin” and thus extend altruism?

Evolutionary biology presupposes individuals that identify (select) as their kin should share genetic material and identification of kin hinges upon indicators of genetic material. However, reciprocal altruism is based upon identifying individuals, who might not necessarily be kin, but likely to reciprocate in the future; the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” understanding between two people drives reciprocal altruism. Individuals must rely on social cues that are indicative of individuals that are more likely to reciprocate. It would be interesting if honesty/humility individuals were actually just poor at determining if individuals would reciprocate or not; likewise, poor at recognizing individuals that would manipulate them. This might explain why they are more likely to cooperate with individuals that are not likely to reciprocate and even less likely to take advantage of individuals that would not reciprocate. Empirically testing this would be much more difficult. It has already been shown individuals that are more attractive are more likely to be recipients of reciprocal altruism, if there are other indicators that could be found that others rely on, those could be used to test the honesty/humility individuals’ judgments.

Current Research in Psychologial Science: Part 1

 

The Dark Triad: Facilitating a Short-Term Mating Strategy in Men

PETER K. JONASON, NORMAN P. LI, GREGORY D. WEBSTER and DAVID P. SCHMITT

Abstract

This survey (N=224) found that characteristics collectively known as the Dark Triad (i.e. narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism) were correlated with various dimensions of short-term mating but not long-term mating. The link between the Dark Triad and shortterm mating was stronger for men than for women. The Dark Triad partially mediated the sex difference in short-term mating behaviour. Findings are consistent with a view that the Dark Triad facilitates an exploitative, short-term mating strategy in men. Possible implications, including that Dark Triad traits represent a bundle of individual differences that promote a reproductively adaptive strategy are discussed. Findings are discussed in the broad context of how an evolutionary approach to personality psychology can enhance our understanding of individual differences.

These men are successful at having multiple sexual partners and then profit from not having to stay and raise the offspring. But again, why would women want to consciously mate with these individuals, fully knowing they don’t possess any traits that a good father has. These women might be using these characteristics to ensure the men they sleep with outside of their monogamous relationship won’t stay around; they guarantee to have their cake and eat it too. These Dark Triad individuals might be great candidates for extra pair copulation; however, empirically, this must be tested. Individuals with Dark Triad traits should be tested on their mate quality, especially qualities females seek in extra pair partners or short-term partners. They might be found to have high testosterone, high sperm quality, highly attractive, etc. The authors illustrate that Dark Triad men prefer quantity rather than quality in their mates; this also is found cross-culturally. No research has yet examined why women prefer these men when engaging in short-term mating, or what qualities they are assessing outside of their personality characteristics.

            Interestingly, is the question of why this strategy, if short-term mating is all men want to do, why it hasn’t been mastered by all males? This can be explained from traditional game theory. Dark Triad males can be seen as hawks; only at their strongest when doves surround them. Since these Dark Triad individuals are rare and only successful when they are rare, females might not have evolved mechanisms for detection. Other questions come to mind though, are there genetic components to the Dark Triad? Are these components heritable?

            Moving back to the short-term mating orientation, are these men successful; that is, do they successfully impregnate these women they mate with? If they are having many offspring then obviously this strategy is vilified. But in the age of contraception, they might not be as “successful” in evolutionary terms as they would have been back on the savannah.

            Hopefully future research can answer these questions. Are these Dark Triad men, the perfect extra pair/short term mate? Do they have characteristics such as high testosterone or quality immune systems, which outweighs their (probable) heritable personalities? Are these men having more offspring than non-Dark Triad individuals? What are women assessing when they mate with these Dark Triad men? Are these women merely subjects of forced copulation? Does the use of birth control moderate these women’s preferences for Dark Triad males? A very interesting area of study, but much empirical work is needed.

Part 3 Consilience Conference 2012: A lowly graduate student's notes

These posts will not be in any discernible order; nor will they resemble the order of presentations during the conference. They will merely reflect what I found profoundly interesting and what presentations sparked future research endeavors. These thoughts will be poorly cited and eventually as time permits, I will fill in citations as I move along.

With that being said, if it seems as though I think my thoughts are original or of my own, when in fact someone already went there...it's not plagiarism. Its my daily life. Someone. Already. Did. It. In that case, comment with a citation or two.