Download Social Science…

Social Science…
Psychology 3906
Introduction
• Let’s look at social psychology and the
study of culture
• Big traditions in psychology
• Mostly ignoring evolution (though not
always)
Social Psych
• A good question is why be social in the
first place?
• Many species are not social
• Well it makes sense if there is predation
risk (the selfish herd phenomenon)
• Makes sense if food is patchily distributed
and patches are large
Costs and benefits
• Of course, the benefits of being social
must outweigh the costs.
• So say there is little predation, then there
is little reason to hang out with others
• Or if the patches you encounter are quite
small
• Our closest living relatives are social
EEA
• What was life like then?
• There would have been some predation
yes
• Food was patchy, but patches were
probably large
• Might have made good sense to be social
to prevent others of our species from
screwing us over
EEA
• We probably lived in small bands
• Perhaps 30 or fewer people per band
• Varying degrees of relatedness (which is
the key probably)
• When hunter gatherers of today are
looked it they tend to live like this, and
they tend to be more social with people
that are more related to them
Kinship
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Kinship and association
Kinship and cooperation
Kinship, aggression and homicide
Proximate mechanisms?
Reciprocal Altruism
• We are more likely to help if
– We will get help in return
– Cost is low
– Payoff is high
• Public helping, all other things being
equal, is more likely
• Though the singular hero effect is
important here too
Ingroup bias and racism
• As you probably know we favour our own
group, no matter what that group is, over
other groups
• We must understand this stuff, it may have
deadly consequences
• Bias becomes bigger when membership is
more obvious
• We look for ‘badges’
Race
• Today not very useful as a ‘badge’
• But people of course still seem to care
about the colour of another’s skin, the
language they speak etc
• When people are given a cue that is
reliable about group membership, it
changes
• Educational ideas here, universal people
Culture
• We started out with a discussion of culture
and the folly of using it as an explanation
• The social world does of course influence
us greatly
• Can we reconcile the SSSM and EP?
• YES
• EP is an explanation of how society
influences us
Culture
• EP does NOT deny cultural differences
• But it does not play them up
• It does not see them as the end of the
explanation
• Attractiveness and contrast effects
So what is the domain of EP?
• We can only go after stuff that affects
fitness
• Some stuff probably has no fitness effect
• However, some stuff is universal but
seems on the surface to have no fitness
effect
• Music
Are we pessimistic?
• If you believe in the naturalistic fallacy yes
• EP is an environmental theory!
• We can get new understanding of things
like education, homicide and racism
• This is an optimistic view!