YIN YANG PREDATOR PREY ( 1)
RUNNING HEAD: Yin/yang, predator/prey
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Yin/Yang, Predator/Prey: The Dyadic Nature of Human Social Instinct
Jennifer Dimino
Southern New Hampshire University
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Preface
Out of the early morning mist that creeps in chilled tendrils from the thick, leafy canopy, a shadowy
figure emerges and makes its way down the trunk of a massive baobab. It is a small primate,
perhaps no more than 70 pounds, and its body is covered by a layer of dark hair, but it moves with
a surprising agility that bespeaks its arboreal preferences. The figure arrives at the savannah floor
and reaches with long-toed feet for the solid ground before releasing the baobab and hauling itself
to an upright standing position. Now moving as a biped, the figure sniffs the wind and turns its
attentions to a nearby thicket of raisin bush, beckoning with lush fruit. Two steps towards the
thicket and the ape suddenly freezes, and scans the area with large, forward-facing eyes for a
mere instant before launching itself back onto all fours and careening in a zigzag pattern back
towards the baobab with a lioness hot in pursuit. The lioness leaps right as the ape dives left, and
with but seconds to spare the ape scrambles back up the trunk of the baobab, shrieking a warning
to the others in his troop watching nervously from overhead. The raisin bushes can wait.
*****
There are five of them, the upright-standing apes with the large eyes, and they gather silently in
the shadows at the edge of the grass plain to survey the herd. They are dwarfed in stature by the
prong-horned ungulates they stalk, but they seem unfazed, and they grip in their hands an
assortment of stone tools fastened to wooden spears. The largest of the five makes a series of
hand gestures to the others, who instantly fan out to the right and left flanks of the ungulate herd,
staying low to the ground so as not to be seen. Once in position, one of the apes hidden in the tall
grass issues a bird-call whistle, and the leader charges out of the shadows directly towards the
herd of antelope, brandishing a spear. The antelope panic, and whirl on hooved feet to find the
easiest escape route, but all they see to either side are more of the armed primates. Lacking
options, the antelope surge forward, pursued by the spear-wielders, and, consumed by their blind
terror, fail to realize that they are being steered towards a towering cliff over which there will be no
return.
When the dust settles, the apes shoulder their spears and descend the cliff face with the skill of
inveterate tree-climbers to claim their prize: four adult antelope and two juveniles, whose meat will
sustain the entire troop and whose hides will provide warmth for the females and children whose
survival depends on these pack hunters.
*****
Two very different scenarios, describing two animals seemingly worlds apart. One is an
arboreal forager who is on the menu of many larger carnivores, who displays the caution,
hesitation, and flight-instinct of a true prey animal. The other is a different creature
altogether: a hunter who travels in groups, and wields not only stone tools but an intellect
that enables him to imagine, improvise, and model. This intellect has removed him from
the list of ‘typical’ prey animals and placed him amongst lions and wolves, for he is a
predator capable of organizing systematic and strategic ambushes to acquire necessary
resources.
Different creatures, to be sure. But they share a significant trait: they are both our
ancestors. Both have led to us, Homo sapiens sapiens, and we carry to this day the
echoes of their unique behavioral instincts. We are prey and predator both.
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Introduction
There is a scene in the film Star Wars: Episode V wherein the ambitious young
warrior, Luke Sywalker, is chafing at Master Yoda’s refusal to accelerate his training,
and asserts that he is ready to become a full-fledged Jedi. Yoda lifts an eyebrow and says
“Ready? What know you of ‘ready’? ...This one a long time have I watched; all his life
he has looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where. he. was.
What he was doing.” (1980). Cloaked by the humor of a sassy, pint-sized alien Jedi
master with a tenuous grip on English syntax, a deeper message lies hidden within this
quote: do not lose sight of the present by dwelling in imaginings of the future. Be
present at all times, be aware of your here and now, for it is the circumstances of the here
and now and the choices you make in response to these circumstances, that will
ultimately dictate how your future unfolds. While perhaps a tad ‘sci-fi-esque,’ I can think
of no better explanation than this quote by Master Yoda for why the large-scale,
scientifically-driven, mass self-reflection practice that is social psychology is of such
profound value to human civilization.
Over the course of our existence, we humans have built up a global social
paradigm of vast proportions, inspired by an intellect that allows for both supremely
detailed categorization, complex abstract and logical modeling, and the cognitive
rearrangement of observed data from the natural world into hitherto unknown shapes and
forms (i.e. imagination and modeling). The result has been an ever-growing civilization
and constantly evolving array of cultures, tied by experience, modeling, and the outside
world to those that inhabit different regions and environments. The human social
construct of today is staggeringly complex, and with no true limit set as to how diverse
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and complex it may yet become, it is placing an increased demand on its participants to
do something that comes naturally to almost all intelligent organisms: categorize.
Cognitive categorization of the outside world is an adaptive response employed
by almost all animals to address the pressures of a dynamic and unpredictable world.
Even creatures considered low on the taxonomic totem pole perform this function: sea
slugs categorize (and thus differentiate between) nighttime vs. daytime, bees differentiate
between seasons, and fruit flies encased in their pupae differentiate, by way of
endogenous circadian pacemakers, between dawn, day, and dusk (the latter being ideal
for eclosion). The process of maintaining a functional awareness of differences between
stimuli encountered in the environment guides animals’ physical movements, feeding
patterns, reproductive cycles, and – for those that wield the appropriate mental capacity –
choices.
Most people today would be relatively unfazed by an incorrect choice, as most of
the choices they make on a daily basis don’t involve life-or-death potential consequences.
So you picked the wrong item on the menu? Send it back, order another. So you gave a
wrong answer in your math test; no biggie, as long as you learn from your mistake and
put forth the requisite effort to learn the arithmetic for next time. Outside of human
“civilization,” however, and for all other organisms on the planet with whom we share
distant kinship, wrong choices based on poor categorization can be deadly. Orangutans
can differentiate between over 70 varieties of edible plant in their native habitat, a skill
that young orangutans take years to master. This extended training period is necessary; a
mouthful of the right plant can be delicious and nutritious, while a mouthful of the wrong
plant could be fatal. Categorization can extend to social interactions as well, and the
consequences of incorrect choices based on poor categorization equally severe. A
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subordinate male hyena who fails to distinguish between a low-ranking female hyena and
the alpha ‘queen’ could quickly find himself exiled from the clan forever…or dead. In
this particular example, the male hyena either ignored his instinct to categorize, ignored
his accumulated knowledge of hyena social protocol, or failed to maintain a proactive
awareness of where he was…what he was doing. Such a failure to engage in self- and
external-awareness can be dire, and – again – while the choices and categorization habits
of modern humans typically are not so high-stakes, we are bound by the rules of
population dynamics, natural selection, and social dynamics as much as any other
creature. We, too, have and innate urge to categorize, and it is from this impulse that the
science of social psychology emerges.
As social creatures, humans bear as much of a responsibility as dolphins in a pod
or geese in a flock to maintain an awareness of the world around us and those peers
around whom and with whom we live. By categorizing, we can differentiate between
self/other, safe/dangerous, good/evil, and innumerable other dichotomies and scales of
being that we are presented with by a social existence. Through the practice of
categorization and awareness, we can bring ourselves into a state of equilibrium with our
social surroundings, and achieve a balance beneficial for the individual and society at
large. Social psychology, the study of the ways and processes by which people’s
thoughts, actions, and mannerisms are affected by the presence of other people, is such a
practice, and as a science it provides us with a systematized method for exploring the
multiplicities of human social behavior. It encourages us to recognize that we are, in a
sense, cogs in a much larger wheel, and that the empirical evaluation of human social
behaviors on a large scale can provide us all with direction and equilibrium. If
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knowledge is power, then it behooves us to embrace social psychology, and reflect upon
where we are…what we are doing.
The study of the social nature of human existence has been an ongoing endeavor
for decades (or centuries, depending on your definitions of social psychology and
science), and has resulted in the formulation of numerous theories and perspectives that
aim to both interpret and categorize patterns of human social behavior. Classical theories
include the sociocultural perspective (founded on the premise that an individual’s
beliefs, personality, and inclinations are learned by watching and interacting with other
people within a social context), the social learning theory (which posits that the vast
majority of human behavior is acquired through observation and modeling, and that the
socialization process of young children involves the internalization cultural attitudes and
values acquired from parental figures), the social cognitive theory (which places
emphasis on the cognitive processes of the individual with a social setting), and
evolutionary theory (which evaluates why and how certain human social behaviors are
sustained/selected for within an evolutionary context) (Bandura, 1977; Grusec, 1992;
Nier, 2013). More recent theories, emergent only within the last several decades, include
the rational choice theory (the basic tenet of which is that rational choice is a construct
that is a predictable model of human behavior), ethnomethodology (based on the
assumption that individuals can glean insight and learn about social behavioral norms by
intentionally disrupting the behavioral status quo of a group/culture), and feminist theory
(which refutes that notion that the human psyche is ‘above’ considerations of gender
differences, and asserts that gender is indeed a vital component of culture-determination
that inspires and guides human behavior) (Green, 2002; Lee, 1996). These theories,
regardless of their classification as “current” or “classical,” all provide us with a
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theoretical framework that serves to identify predictors of behavioral outcomes, identify
variables that might interact in certain contexts to mediate and/or moderate behavior,
explain recurrent patterns and trends in human interaction that can be used to extrapolate
future societal trends, and classify/define certain behavioral phenomena such that they
may be measured, assessed, and quantified.
While the benefits afforded us by the large-scale scientific study of human social
behavior are significant, they are also incomplete, thanks to an incongruity embedded
within the lingo of social psychology itself. Basic social psychology aims to explain
human behavior on a macrocosmic scale, yet bases its definitions on behavioral patterns
of the individual; it aspires to generalize social phenomena while espousing views that
point to individual uniqueness developed within a vastly dynamic social and
environmental context. Most importantly, the theories of social psychology acknowledge
that human social development is a process that does not occur in a vacuum, and that the
infinite variables which shape the human psyche result in each person within a society
formulating a subjective reality within which ‘general’ suppositions (such as social
theories) may or may not entirely apply. Social constructs, much like beauty, may be
thought to exist ‘in the eye of the beholder’ as well as at a macroscopic level, and much
like the ancient eastern concept of yin and yang, social psychology is incomplete without
both general theories and personal theories.
The practice of self-perception/self-reflection, while of a relatively new ‘mint’ in
the social psychology world (the self-perception theory of psychologist Daryl Bem
posits that one’s attitudes can be inferred from the careful observation and evaluation of
one’s own behavior), is one that has been espoused and celebrated in human culture for
thousands of years (Bem, 1967). Much of eastern philosophy – including tenets of
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Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Hindu Tantra – centers around the practice of focused
introspection as being key to personal enlightenment and growth. Sanskrit works dating
back as far as 5,000 years BCE include references to meditative practice…which is, by
and large, synonymous with self-reflection, in that the process of conscious observation
of one’s thoughts and feelings can lead to a revelatory awareness that brings about a
higher good (History of Meditation, n.d.).
If one were to travel back in time and gather a few of the greatest postImpressionist painters -say, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, and Pinchon – and
stand them all in the same room in front of identical easels with identical palettes and
identical paints, and ask them all to paint a picture of the same vase full of flowers, one
would end up with five very different (and likely very beautiful) paintings. Despite
having the same tools as the others and having all been taught to create art in the same
‘language,’ each man would conceptualize and interpret the reality of the vase of flowers
in a unique way. Would the distinctly individualistic results be valuable? Of course, and
beyond any aesthetic considerations, the different paintings would inspire commentary
and reflection in all those who might look upon them. Personal theories of social
psychology are no different, in that – while derived from the same theoretical background
and expressed in the same scientific language – they reflect not only the common tools
and methodologies of science but the conceptualizations of the tool wielder. Each person
construes of his or own social reality in a slightly different way, and, using the common
tools of scientific, psychological inquiry, can generate a concept of social reality that both
grounds him/her in the bigger picture and distinguishes him/her as a unique individual.
Without an ongoing and progressive practice of self-reflection, and the
conscientious evolution of one’s own personal theory of social psychology, I believe it
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would be easy for even the keenest of psychological minds to lose perspective. A
‘complete’ grasp of social theory requires both a macrocosmic and microcosmic
perspective, an ability to root one’s interpretations of global social constructs in her own
subjective reality and – at the same time – acknowledge and observe how her personal
theory aligns with universal human behavioral patterns. Balance promotes centeredness,
and centeredness brings resilience…a vital quality for all those who seek to help others
through the practice of psychology and the pursuit of psychological research. A clinician
without center and who lacks a balanced perspective will never be able to achieve
objectivity in assessing clients and proposing intervention strategies; a researcher who
cannot extrapolate results achieved in the lab to macrocosmic, global phenomena will
struggle with finding and/or proving the external validity of his work. Universal social
theory is the yang to personal social theory’s yin, and only together do they create a
useful and functional harmony.
Established social theories: an analysis
My 10-week-long foray into the world of social psychology has been both
illuminating and challenging: illuminating because I am a person who loves to learn the
who’s/what’s/when’s/where’s/why’s/how’s of natural phenomena, and human behavior
provides much food for such thought; challenging because the process of learning about
social theories has forced me to think in a multidimensional manner –something I believe
most of us are not accustomed to doing (at least not frequently) in our daily lives. The
ease with which I have drawn parallels between the study of social psychology and the
practice of mediation/self-reflection does not equate to ease in application. Meditation,
looking within oneself/one’s society to discern causality underlying behavioral patterns,
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daring to question where and why one has acquired one’s own beliefs, and taking the
time to assess one’s body of knowledge from a dispassionate standpoint…is hard. Like
so many other creatures, humans crave stability and routine, even when it comes to those
intangible factors that guide their lives. Calling into question all that one knows is a
demanding process; however, as I have discussed, the results of such self-evaluation can
be invaluable.
Of the classical and contemporary social psychological theories we have explored
as a class over the past term, four stand out to me as being particularly resonant with my
beliefs and/or system of cognitive interpretation: the sociocultural perspective, the
social learning perspective, the rational choice theory, and the evolutionary
perspective.
To explore the main tenets of each theory, and to illuminate to the reader their
distinctions with regards to how they assess patterns of human social interaction, it is
often useful to select a common social behavior and then compare how each theory
would interpret it. Even something as commonplace as sharing – the act of altruistically
distributing one’s possessions/resources amongst others without thought to or
consideration of personal gain/recompense – becomes a complex, multidimensional
phenomenon in light of the various social psychology perspectives:
The SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE would maintain that sharing is a
behavior acquired through observation and social interaction within a predefined cultural context. A young child whose parents proactively teach
the behavior of sharing, support this behavior in others through positive
reinforcement, and who model this behavior themselves in the context of
the everyday will be highly likely to assimilate sharing into his behavioral
repertoire. Cultures with strongly embraced norms for sharing, too, will
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encourage individuals within those cultures to adopt and uphold the same
ideals, i.e. that sharing is a positive act.
The SOCIAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE, which centers upon three
main behavioral determinants (aggression, dependency, and
identification), would focus on the act of learning a behavior as being a
process of socialization through the internalization of cultural ideals,
values, and norms. Authority figures such as parents and teachers are seen
as key players in the learning process, as they are both models for ‘correct’
behavior and wielders of power who can enact consequences – positive or
negative – for a young learner’s achievement or ignorance of correct
behavior.
The SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE places great emphasis upon
the symbolic meaning of social actions as being instrumental in the
learning process. According to this perspective, learning occurs within a
dynamic context wherein action, environment, and cognition interact to
produce/entrain behavioral modification and sustain social learning. A
toddler observing two grownups sharing, and witnessing the positive
outcomes of the adults’ behavior, will cognitively link positive symbolic
meaning to the act of sharing. He will also develop, through his
observations, the expectation of positive outcomes for his own
engagement in sharing behavior in the future. If a child is brought up in
an environment wherein sharing is performed frequently, environmental
pressures will encourage the attachment of positive meanings to sharing
within the child’s mind. The child’s observations, together with the
cognitive associations he has formed and external
environmental/contextual influences, will serve to produce [his own]
sharing behavior.
The RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY, I believe, targets human behavioral
instincts that are older, deeper, and more primal than those incorporated
by other social perspectives, and stems from one basic fact: every action
we make involves a choice based on an analysis of risk vs. reward. Every
behavior we perform is the consequence of a contemplative assessment
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that is shared by every sentient organism on the planet, wherein the
potential costs of a future action are weighed against the possible benefits.
This assessment may take place at a subconscious level, but it is one that
has helped propel the evolution of today’s species and has aided humans
run the gauntlet of daily survival in an often unpredictable world.
Long ago, before the conveniences of technology and
infrastructure made cost/benefit analysis fade into the background of basic
human considerations, the stakes for human behavioral ‘gambles’ were
high: a group of Homo neanderthalensis setting out on a week-long
hunting expedition represented both high cost (the investment of time,
energy, and safety) and high risk (the possibility of failure, illness, injury,
or death)…but the potential benefits were equally high (taking down large
game and bringing large quantities of vital sustenance back to the clan).
While modern people typically do not face such high-stakes
choices in their everyday lives, the motivation for personal gain and fear
of personal loss still significantly affect human choice analysis and
behavioral preference. Insofar as the example of sharing goes, a child
considering whether or not the engage in this behavior would be hindered
by contemplation of cost (I have two cookies; if I share one with my
friend, I’ll have less for myself…and I like cookies) and motivated by gain
(sharing will make my friend happy, which will make me happy; it also is
the right thing to do, because my parents have taught me sharing is good).
What the child will ultimately elect to do depends on which way the scale
tips in his mind.
The EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE of social psychology would
maintain that sharing is a behavioral phenotype selected for by nature that
benefits the individual, group, and species at large. While solitary species
typically do not engage in sharing behaviors (with the exception of
feeding/nursing young), social species do share, and adhere to very
distinct behavioral rules.
For animals that live communally, it is in the best interest of all
individuals to make the community as strong and vital as possible. A
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troop of gorillas stands a much better chance at holding territory if all the
troop members are strong and healthy. Thus, it makes adaptive sense for
the sharing of resources to be selected for as a behavior, which is why we
can observe wolves sharing kills with the pack, mustang mares sharing
‘babysitting’ duties amongst each other, and human children sharing their
juice boxes with other people. Sharing benefits the species at large, and is
therefore ingrained into the species’ culture as an adaptive behavior.
(Dimino, 2015)
All of these theories resonate with me on a personal level, and have provided me
with the conceptual foundation from which I have constructed my own personal theory of
social psychology. In contemplation of why it is that these perspectives resonate with me
wherein as some others (symbolic interactionism, for one) do not, I feel that the best
answer I am capable of coming up with is the one that seems most banal: they feel real to
me. I can see the sociocultural theory at work in human social interactions all around me,
and the current body of knowledge that I have amassed as yet supports, by virtue of
evidence, the tenets of the social learning perspective. I can see the young men and
women on my swim team making choices based on careful (and sometimes less careful…
they are, after all, teenagers) considerations of the potential risks and rewards of possible
future actions, supporting both the applicability and accuracy of the rational choice
theory. Based on everything I’ve been taught about human evolution, anthropology,
biology, and psychology, and everything about the aforementioned subjects that I have
witnessed for myself in real life, these four theories make too much sense, and fit into my
perceptions of the universal human paradigm too perfectly for me to ignore. They do not
feel like a ‘stretch,’ or seem to be but an over-zealous attempt by overly-abstract thinkers
to identify lofty, profound meaning where there is none. My English lit classes back in
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college used to drive me crazy, in that the professors (and even the field itself) seemed
not to care about the actual words written by the great authors of our time but rather
sought to wheedle out hidden layers of meaning that I often believed didn’t exist. To be
sure, Shakespeare’s works are profound, and The Bard certainly used metaphorical and
allegorical writing to convey complex ideas and meanings to the reader/audience; my
professors, however, could never accept the possibility that when Shakespeare wrote of a
tree in his poems, he was actually, really writing about…a tree.
Unlike some of the contemporary social psychology theories, the application of
which occasionally feels to me like trying to get water from a stone, the sociocultural
perspective, the social learning perspective, the rational choice theory, and the
evolutionary perspective feel grounded in truth to me. Empirical scientific research
emphatically supports them (particularly the results of psychological and anthropological
studies), and – perhaps most significant with regards to my present endeavor – they lend
themselves well to expansion, and the formulation of new theories based on their
underlying principles.
A New Direction: My Personal Theory of Social Psychology
I have explored the evolution of Homo sapiens from anthropological,
psychological, neurophysiological, and behavioral perspectives, with the intention of
formulating a novel social psychological theory based on man’s uniquely dyadic
behavioral inheritance. Homo sapiens is one of but a very few animals on the planet who
can claim to have ever occupied not just one but two distinctive ecological niches over
the course of its evolution: that of prey, and that of predator. As we have been both at
different stages in our development, it stands to reason that trends in human social
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behavior arise from behavioral programming once designed to facilitate predator
avoidance…and, later, to enable and enhance predation. I believe humans both possess
and exhibit vestiges of deeply-encoded survival patterns of social behavior, and that
universal ‘rules’ that apply to all predators and prey in the animal kingdom – as well as
the interactions that arise between them – can be used to predict and explain some of
modern man’s more complex social inclinations. Our prey- and predator-derived
emotional inheritances combine to make us what we are today, and – like the entities of
yin and yang – continuously shift, merge, offset, and combine in intricate ways to create a
fluid whole… This ‘whole’ is the sum of modern human behavior.
A conceptual and evolutionary background: From man the prey to man the predator
While primate evolution continues to present the scientific community with
mysteries and inspire hotly contested debates, there is no disagreement that the very
oldest of man’s ancient ancestors were arboreal primates. As tree-dwellers, early protohominids subsisted primarily on vegetation, with the occasional inclusion of invertebrates
- namely insects - to supplement their diets. They were also prey animals that ranked
relatively low on the food chain, and as such had to develop precautionary and avoidance
behaviors to evade such hunters as snakes, large felines, and wolves. Knowing what we
know now about general prey behavior, there is little question that early hominids were
cautious, tentative, and careful creatures; of Homo sapiens’ two instinctive inheritances,
that of PREY is far older, and significantly more deeply ingrained.
Early ancestral primates were supremely adapted for life in the trees, possessing
the long-fingered hands and gripping feet of great apes today, and forward-facing eyes
with excellent depth-perception that could accurately gauge distances between tree trunks
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and limbs (Hunt, 2014). Forest canopies were rich with vital resources and, like monkeys
and apes of today, early hominids enjoyed a variety of plants and fruits, nuts and boring
insects as food. So what was it, precisely, that tempted our tree-dwelling ancestors down
onto solid ground, and sparked not only the hominids’ physical transformation into
bipedal, upright walkers but also their behavioral transformation from prey-foragers to
pack predators? To answer this question, it is necessary to explore whether or not
predatory instincts evolved before or concurrently with the development of hominid
bipedalism. If the former is true, and hunting behaviors preceded ancient humans’
transition to the ground, it is possible that emergent predation behavior itself may have
contributed to the evolution of the first fully land-dwelling hominid societies (Dimino,
2015).
While we have only stone artifacts and fossilized remains by which to investigate
ancient hominid social behavior, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists do have
an wonderful resource by which they are able to extrapolate what early hominid life was
like 5-7 million years ago (hereafter: mya): extant nonhuman primates (Fahy et al., 2013).
The species currently being ascribed the label of “oldest true hominid” is Orrorin
tugenensis, a small primate adapted equally to life on the ground and in the treetops that
closely resembled modern chimpanzees (Macroevolution.net). As modern chimps and
humans share not only a common ancestor but also over 98% of their DNA, it behooves
the social psychologist wising to unlock the secrets of early hominid behavior to analyze
chimpanzee behavior. If traces of predatory behavior were found to exist within the
repertoires of modern chimpanzees, it would strongly suggest that predation behaviors
also existed in ancient hominid societies (Dimino, 2015).
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“Man the hunter,” one of the most persistent and pervasive theories regarding
the evolution of hominid bipedalism, is and has always been closely linked with tool use
for hunting and defense (Tuttle, 2014). There are some scientists, however, who have
challenged this idea, noting that stone tools clearly designed for predation have only ever
been discovered in association with later hominids (such as Homo erectus and Homo
neanderthalensis), and therefore it is unlikely that earlier hominid species did not hunt.
The rebuttal to the lessened primacy of the ‘man the hunter’ theory has come in the form
of empirical reports of meat-eating and active hunting amongst modern chimpanzees.
Chimpanzees (Pan paniscus and Pan troglodytes) – along with baboons,
capuchins, and bonobos – occupy a highly exclusive niche of nonhuman primates who
systematically hunt large vertebrates and consume meat (Tuttle, 2014). The specific
patterns of their predation behavior vary from population to population; nevertheless,
recent studies and behavioral surveys of African chimps have provided conclusive
evidence of a prevalent tendency to predate sizable vertebrates amongst these social apes.
While the exact dietary contribution of animal flesh to the chimpanzee diet is not entirely
understood (hunting may be a symbolic, ritualistic behavior with a non-dietary goal, or it
may represent directed effort towards resolving gaps in their nutrition), the results of such
studies have provided the scientific community with extensive observational data that
details male chimpanzee hunting behavior and subsequent meat-sharing protocol
(Dimino, 2015).
A 20-year-long study by Fahy, Richards, Riedel, Hublin, & Boesch (2013)
examined the phenomenon of meat-eating amongst a population of adult chimps in Tai
National Park (Côte d‘Ivoire) by analyzing the chimps’ bone and hair for isotopic
evidence of non-chimp animal proteins (meat eating in some male chimps is significant
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enough to produce a detectable isotope signal in hair keratin and bone collagen) (2013).
Their results were astonishing: isotope values from the Tai chimps’ tissue samples
confirmed prior behavioral observations of frequent hunting/meat eating amongst male
chimps (who employ hunting methods that range from scavenging to opportunism to
organized stalking/chasing), suggesting that a) meat is actually a key nutritional staple for
the chimps and b) meat consumption and associated predation behavior may have helped
sustain the evolution of the large human brain (Fahy et al., 2013). Yes, modern chimps
rely heavily on the fruits of foraging behavior – plants, fruits, and insects – but many
extant populations also hunt in organized groups for the express purpose of predating
other animals such as monkeys and wild boar. Similar differences in food
acquisition/consumption behavior may have persisted throughout hominid evolution,
perhaps stretching back in time even earlier than widely believed (Fahy et al., 2014).
Reconstructing the social behavior of our ancient ancestors could provide us with clues as
to how the interaction between nutritional demands and social systems promoted hominid
social evolution.
Evolutionary change is generally thought of as the movement of a species from
one adaptive point to another; in practice, the availability of viable evolutionary pathways
is constrained when movement to an adjacent point involves a drop in fitness for those
individuals (Foley & Lee, 1989). Loss of fitness can be sparked by alterations in
behavior, habitat, competition, and/or resources, and this principle bears heavily on early
hominid evolutionary progress. The earliest hominids, the remains of whom have been
discovered from Tabarun, Logatham, Laetoli, and Hadar, all were strongly associated by
locale and extant remains to grassland/bushland environments (Foley & Lee, 1989).
Such wide-open spaces tend to promote large social groupings amongst prey animals as a
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counter-tactic to the increased threat of predation and a response to widely spread
resources. Large territories also present problems for those who dwell therein, in that the
widely spread resources of the open savannah requires increased mobility. Furthermore,
maintaining successful foraging strategies becomes difficult in the context of habitats
with significantly different seasons (Foley & Lee, 1989). For early hominids, such as
Australopithecus afarensis, such a confluence of environmental and logistical factors
would presumably encourage a shift towards meat-eating and hunting as a strategy (not
to mention the acceleration of more efficient bipedal locomotor traits). According to
Foley & Lee (1989), there is general agreement in the scientific community that by
1.6mya - contemporaneous with the appearance of Homo erectus - hominids were
processing meat at a higher level than is known for any extant nonhuman primate species.
Foley and Lee also note that while the causes of meat-eating are ecological, the
consequences are social; in such a context, increased cooperation amongst individuals to
hunt larger game would be advantageous…hence, the rise of “man the [group] hunter”
and modern Homo sapiens’ predatory instincts.
The Essence of Yin: Behavioral Characteristics of Prey Animals
The Distance Hypothesis: Fight or Flight
Prey-specific behavioral patterns are marked by arousal states secondary to brain
and reflex reactions that change systematically with regards to the presence or absence of
external stimuli. Decades of research with nonhuman animals has demonstrated that
cognitive and physical responses to aversive stimuli –such as the threat of an incoming
predator - fluctuate in response to the [perceived] proximity of those stimuli; retaining
significantly potent prey instincts, humans viewing aversive or unpleasant stimuli are
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likewise engaged by these cues both mentally and physically (Low et al., 2008). From an
evolutionary perspective, the psychology and related physiological states of human
emotion and be defined as action dispositions – states of increased vigilance and
physical mobilization associated with survival goals (Frijda, 1987; Lang et al., 1997, Low
et al., 2008).
One of the most well-known behavioral patterns associated with threat response is
that of “fight or flight,” the two last-ditch options for any prey animals faced with
imminent predation: a cape buffalo staring down the barrel of a lioness ambush may
either choose to run, and blend in with the herd in hopes of escape…or it may choose to
stand its ground, and test its strength and horned weaponry against the feline onslaught.
“Fight” and “flight” are but the observable results of an autonomic process within the
target animal’s cognitive machinery that is thought to be mediated by the distance
hypothesis.
The distance hypothesis states that any changes within an organism’s mind and
body resulting from the perception of a threat share a linear relationship with the physical
distance separating the target organism from the threat and/or the perceived temporal
imminence of the threat itself. When a prey animal such as a hare first gets wind of a
hawk circling overhead, a cascade of cognitive and physiological alterations is triggered
within the hare’s body: limbic circuits in the hare’s brain initiate a ‘defense mode’ that
precipitates motor inhibition (freezing), attentional focus (zeroing in on the threat), and
bradycardia (Low et al., 2008). The closer the hawk, the more intense these responses
and associated levels of physical mobilization become. These patterns are vital to
understanding the effects of prey instinct in human emotional processing anticipatory to
either aversive or rewarding outcomes (Low et al., 2008).
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A 2008 study by A. Low, P.J. Lang, C. Smith, and M.M. Bradley, in which
psychophysiological arousal secondary to threat vs. reward stimuli was explored in
humans by way of a computer simulation, showed that human responses to both pleasant
and ‘dangerous’ stimuli align closely with those of nonhuman animal models. The
results of their experiment, wherein human volunteers were asked to play a computer
game in which they had to identify and react to a ‘threat’ (an image of a dangerous fish)
based on the perceived proximity of the threat, demonstrated that human emotion is
highly context-dependent and adaptive. Data gathered from various physical and
cognitive measures (including heart rate, skin conductivity, and brain event-relatedpotential) of the participants revealed that “[the] looming picture sequences prompted
systematic modulation of somatic, autonomic, and brain responses [in the participants]
varied reliably with the apparent distance from the goal” (p. 870). Put simply, Low et al.,
demonstrated that human prey instincts and prey-driven responses mirror those of any
other prey animal when confronted with a threat, and that the closer the threat seems, the
more we react on the psychological and physical levels.
So where and when can we observe such prey-driven response mechanisms in
modern human behavior? The answer is everywhere, all the time. Anytime we are faced
with situations involving excessive levels of uncertainty, or in which we are confronted
with a concept, image, or object we fear, or in which we feel we are deprived of the
ability to control event outcomes, our prey instincts are activated. Such situations
hearken back to the times when a typical threat could end our lives (vs. inconvenience
them, which is generally the case today), and while we usually do not face life or death
scenarios on a regular basis, our instinctive behavioral programming doesn’t always
realize this.
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Consider the following scenario:
A jogging enthusiast wanting to spice up her typical routine elects to try a new
route that takes her to a part of town she’s never been to before, and notices that,
despite the fact she is taking every safety precaution – a reflective vest, running in
daylight hours, keeping a cell-phone with her – she’s nervous as she sets off for
her run. Her heart is beating faster than usual, her palms are sweaty, and she finds
herself glancing to the side more frequently than usual. She tells herself she’s
being silly, but subconsciously she is feeling the effects of a behavioral response
that once may have saved the life of her ancient ancestors.
Many animals follow predictable patterns of movement and activity throughout
their daily lives; a wolf pack follows the same migration route, gray whales follow the
same currents back and forth to their feeding grounds, and bees maintain a military-level
of precision in the timing of their feeding, foraging, and hive maintenance schedules.
Why? The bees know that a certain flight trajectory will end in a productive flower patch,
and the wolves know their regular migration route always intersects with that of the elk
they stalk. The gray whales know that their trusted ocean corridors keep them a safe
distance away from marauding pods of orca. There is safety in routine. Deviating from
a ‘safe’ routine represents considerable risk, and in the world of natural selection, risks
can be costly. A whale who decides to set out on a different path may find bountiful new
feeding grounds…or run head-first into orca territory. The jogger’s nervousness may
seem, to her, to be baseless, but the prey instinct to physically mobilize and become
nervous in the face of uncertainty has saved countless lives over the course of animal
evolution.
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Quorum Sensing: Majority Rules
Consider the following scenario:
It is a blisteringly hot and humid summer day, and a group of 7 teenage boys
decides to beat the heat (and assuage their boredom) with a swim at a nearby
quarry. The quarry, long since abandoned, features a beautiful swimming hold set
amongst towering granite cliffs, and offers respite from the oppressive heat.
Upon arrival, one of the boys – Jeff - announces that he wants to cliff-dive into
the swimming hole from a ridge about three stories up, in blatant disregard for the
posted signs that warn “Danger: shallow water” and “NO cliff-diving.” Sam, one
of the group, recalls a news story from a few years back, in which an out-oftowner died from a botched dive off of the very same ridge Jeff wishes to use…
and he announces his refusal to participate. Jeff waves a hand impatiently, calls
Sam a wuss, and insists he’s going to cliff-dive anyway. After Jeff, another boy
voices his support for the cliff-dive plan…and another…and then another. As
soon as 5 of the boys announce their intent to cliff-dive with Jeff, Sam’s doubts
begin to fade, and he finds himself wanting to cliff-dive, too.
How can a young man with such a logical and rational assessment of the dangers
inherent in the cliff-dive be suddenly swayed so completely in the presence of peer
consensus? Why is it that a girl, by herself, can be a model of good etiquette and moral
behavior, but morphs into a chain-smoking, drug-experimenting, foul-mouthed rebel in
the presence of ‘the wrong crowd’? What is it in our emotional and cognitive makeup
that permits our good judgements to be overruled or even eliminated completely by the
will of the majority? Most people would cite peer-pressure as being the predictive
variable in these cases, but peer pressure in and of itself is inadequate as an explanation.
Why is peer pressure so potent a determinant of human behavior? The real answer is
quorum sensing, an ancient behavioral ‘program’ that still influences the choices of
humans today.
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Quorum sensing, an adaptive strategy employed in many biological systems and
across taxa to increase decision accuracy, centers upon the following critical fact: the
probability that an individual will adopt a particular behavior is a nonlinear function of
the number of other animals in the group who also adopt this behavior (Kurvers et al.,
2013). In other words, once enough members of the group have initiated a behavior, an
individual will reach a ‘tipping point’ beyond which he/she, too, will adopt the same
behavior. This tipping point is known as the quorum threshold (QT).
As we know, social living affords organisms many benefits, not the least of which
is safety (in numbers) and access to shared social information (by stationing a number of
‘sentinels’ across their territory to watch for predators and signal danger, prairie dogs
living in colonies enjoy relative security). Using social information, individual members
of a group can increase their decision accuracy and enhance the speed of their decisionmaking (Kurvers et al., 2013). Many decisions made by social-living organisms –
including humans - are based on quorum responses, a key aspect of which is the QT
itself. Survival success dictates that individual organisms in a dynamic environment
should (a) be able to flexibly adjust their quorum thresholds and (b) that individuals
should adjust their QT to the unique circumstances and contexts of any situation
requiring a decision about whether or not to act. Without such plasticity, quorum sensing
would be a poor survival tactic, and likely would have faded long ago as a behavioral
phenotype.
In a 2013 article, researchers Kurvers et al. demonstrated that the quality of
social information is a key factor that affects the ‘success’ of the any subsequent
decisions made by individuals per quorum response (Wolf et al., 2013; Kurvers et al.,
2013). Most people know that their observations are never 100% accurate 100% of the
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time, and this holds true for any animal. In many contexts, decision-accuracy is checked
by the ever present trade-off between true positives (ex. the lion is really there, guys,
RUN!) and false positives (I signaled ‘flee!’…but it was just a shadow. Whoops.): an
increase in true positives can only occur at the cost of increased false positives (and vice
versa) (Kurvers et al., 2013). However, this trade-off can be overcome by obeying what
the authors call the “Two-step quorum decision rule”, which goes as follows:
Step #1: the instant you decide to take action based on your personal information,
SPREAD THE WORD
Step #2: take action when at least _x_ % of your fellow group members decide to
take action (i.e. once the QT has been reached)
(Kurvers et al., 2013)
Quorum sensing effectively explains why many people are reluctant to take
significant and/or potentially risky actions by themselves, and why individuals in group
settings are often convinced to do or say things that may in fact run counter to their true
beliefs. Without adequate ‘backup’ from a requisite percentage of one’s peer population,
a single person may exhibit reluctance to act in a certain way, for the simple reason that it
is inadvisable to do so from an adaptive standpoint. Communal-living species –
especially communal living prey species- tend to behave as one and display (at least
outwardly) signs of a collective consciousness. Evolution has reinforced the potency of
the ‘majority rule’ phenomenon through thousands of years of natural selection, and
vestiges of this programming are at work, alive, and well in modern human social
interactions.
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Predicting the Unpredictable: Protean Behavior in Prey Populations
One of the most interesting aspects of predator-avoidance behavior in prey animal
models can be observed not only in terrestrial environments but in marine as well. Bait
fish that occupy the lower rungs of the food-chain ladder, such as anchovies, sardine, and
herring tend to congregate in massive numbers and school in shoals. In the absence of a
threat, the shoals maintain a uniform pattern of movement, with each individual fish
swimming at a set distance from others / at the same speed / in the same trajectory.
Uniformity and conformity rul
1
Yin/Yang, Predator/Prey: The Dyadic Nature of Human Social Instinct
Jennifer Dimino
Southern New Hampshire University
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Preface
Out of the early morning mist that creeps in chilled tendrils from the thick, leafy canopy, a shadowy
figure emerges and makes its way down the trunk of a massive baobab. It is a small primate,
perhaps no more than 70 pounds, and its body is covered by a layer of dark hair, but it moves with
a surprising agility that bespeaks its arboreal preferences. The figure arrives at the savannah floor
and reaches with long-toed feet for the solid ground before releasing the baobab and hauling itself
to an upright standing position. Now moving as a biped, the figure sniffs the wind and turns its
attentions to a nearby thicket of raisin bush, beckoning with lush fruit. Two steps towards the
thicket and the ape suddenly freezes, and scans the area with large, forward-facing eyes for a
mere instant before launching itself back onto all fours and careening in a zigzag pattern back
towards the baobab with a lioness hot in pursuit. The lioness leaps right as the ape dives left, and
with but seconds to spare the ape scrambles back up the trunk of the baobab, shrieking a warning
to the others in his troop watching nervously from overhead. The raisin bushes can wait.
*****
There are five of them, the upright-standing apes with the large eyes, and they gather silently in
the shadows at the edge of the grass plain to survey the herd. They are dwarfed in stature by the
prong-horned ungulates they stalk, but they seem unfazed, and they grip in their hands an
assortment of stone tools fastened to wooden spears. The largest of the five makes a series of
hand gestures to the others, who instantly fan out to the right and left flanks of the ungulate herd,
staying low to the ground so as not to be seen. Once in position, one of the apes hidden in the tall
grass issues a bird-call whistle, and the leader charges out of the shadows directly towards the
herd of antelope, brandishing a spear. The antelope panic, and whirl on hooved feet to find the
easiest escape route, but all they see to either side are more of the armed primates. Lacking
options, the antelope surge forward, pursued by the spear-wielders, and, consumed by their blind
terror, fail to realize that they are being steered towards a towering cliff over which there will be no
return.
When the dust settles, the apes shoulder their spears and descend the cliff face with the skill of
inveterate tree-climbers to claim their prize: four adult antelope and two juveniles, whose meat will
sustain the entire troop and whose hides will provide warmth for the females and children whose
survival depends on these pack hunters.
*****
Two very different scenarios, describing two animals seemingly worlds apart. One is an
arboreal forager who is on the menu of many larger carnivores, who displays the caution,
hesitation, and flight-instinct of a true prey animal. The other is a different creature
altogether: a hunter who travels in groups, and wields not only stone tools but an intellect
that enables him to imagine, improvise, and model. This intellect has removed him from
the list of ‘typical’ prey animals and placed him amongst lions and wolves, for he is a
predator capable of organizing systematic and strategic ambushes to acquire necessary
resources.
Different creatures, to be sure. But they share a significant trait: they are both our
ancestors. Both have led to us, Homo sapiens sapiens, and we carry to this day the
echoes of their unique behavioral instincts. We are prey and predator both.
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Introduction
There is a scene in the film Star Wars: Episode V wherein the ambitious young
warrior, Luke Sywalker, is chafing at Master Yoda’s refusal to accelerate his training,
and asserts that he is ready to become a full-fledged Jedi. Yoda lifts an eyebrow and says
“Ready? What know you of ‘ready’? ...This one a long time have I watched; all his life
he has looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where. he. was.
What he was doing.” (1980). Cloaked by the humor of a sassy, pint-sized alien Jedi
master with a tenuous grip on English syntax, a deeper message lies hidden within this
quote: do not lose sight of the present by dwelling in imaginings of the future. Be
present at all times, be aware of your here and now, for it is the circumstances of the here
and now and the choices you make in response to these circumstances, that will
ultimately dictate how your future unfolds. While perhaps a tad ‘sci-fi-esque,’ I can think
of no better explanation than this quote by Master Yoda for why the large-scale,
scientifically-driven, mass self-reflection practice that is social psychology is of such
profound value to human civilization.
Over the course of our existence, we humans have built up a global social
paradigm of vast proportions, inspired by an intellect that allows for both supremely
detailed categorization, complex abstract and logical modeling, and the cognitive
rearrangement of observed data from the natural world into hitherto unknown shapes and
forms (i.e. imagination and modeling). The result has been an ever-growing civilization
and constantly evolving array of cultures, tied by experience, modeling, and the outside
world to those that inhabit different regions and environments. The human social
construct of today is staggeringly complex, and with no true limit set as to how diverse
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4
and complex it may yet become, it is placing an increased demand on its participants to
do something that comes naturally to almost all intelligent organisms: categorize.
Cognitive categorization of the outside world is an adaptive response employed
by almost all animals to address the pressures of a dynamic and unpredictable world.
Even creatures considered low on the taxonomic totem pole perform this function: sea
slugs categorize (and thus differentiate between) nighttime vs. daytime, bees differentiate
between seasons, and fruit flies encased in their pupae differentiate, by way of
endogenous circadian pacemakers, between dawn, day, and dusk (the latter being ideal
for eclosion). The process of maintaining a functional awareness of differences between
stimuli encountered in the environment guides animals’ physical movements, feeding
patterns, reproductive cycles, and – for those that wield the appropriate mental capacity –
choices.
Most people today would be relatively unfazed by an incorrect choice, as most of
the choices they make on a daily basis don’t involve life-or-death potential consequences.
So you picked the wrong item on the menu? Send it back, order another. So you gave a
wrong answer in your math test; no biggie, as long as you learn from your mistake and
put forth the requisite effort to learn the arithmetic for next time. Outside of human
“civilization,” however, and for all other organisms on the planet with whom we share
distant kinship, wrong choices based on poor categorization can be deadly. Orangutans
can differentiate between over 70 varieties of edible plant in their native habitat, a skill
that young orangutans take years to master. This extended training period is necessary; a
mouthful of the right plant can be delicious and nutritious, while a mouthful of the wrong
plant could be fatal. Categorization can extend to social interactions as well, and the
consequences of incorrect choices based on poor categorization equally severe. A
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5
subordinate male hyena who fails to distinguish between a low-ranking female hyena and
the alpha ‘queen’ could quickly find himself exiled from the clan forever…or dead. In
this particular example, the male hyena either ignored his instinct to categorize, ignored
his accumulated knowledge of hyena social protocol, or failed to maintain a proactive
awareness of where he was…what he was doing. Such a failure to engage in self- and
external-awareness can be dire, and – again – while the choices and categorization habits
of modern humans typically are not so high-stakes, we are bound by the rules of
population dynamics, natural selection, and social dynamics as much as any other
creature. We, too, have and innate urge to categorize, and it is from this impulse that the
science of social psychology emerges.
As social creatures, humans bear as much of a responsibility as dolphins in a pod
or geese in a flock to maintain an awareness of the world around us and those peers
around whom and with whom we live. By categorizing, we can differentiate between
self/other, safe/dangerous, good/evil, and innumerable other dichotomies and scales of
being that we are presented with by a social existence. Through the practice of
categorization and awareness, we can bring ourselves into a state of equilibrium with our
social surroundings, and achieve a balance beneficial for the individual and society at
large. Social psychology, the study of the ways and processes by which people’s
thoughts, actions, and mannerisms are affected by the presence of other people, is such a
practice, and as a science it provides us with a systematized method for exploring the
multiplicities of human social behavior. It encourages us to recognize that we are, in a
sense, cogs in a much larger wheel, and that the empirical evaluation of human social
behaviors on a large scale can provide us all with direction and equilibrium. If
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knowledge is power, then it behooves us to embrace social psychology, and reflect upon
where we are…what we are doing.
The study of the social nature of human existence has been an ongoing endeavor
for decades (or centuries, depending on your definitions of social psychology and
science), and has resulted in the formulation of numerous theories and perspectives that
aim to both interpret and categorize patterns of human social behavior. Classical theories
include the sociocultural perspective (founded on the premise that an individual’s
beliefs, personality, and inclinations are learned by watching and interacting with other
people within a social context), the social learning theory (which posits that the vast
majority of human behavior is acquired through observation and modeling, and that the
socialization process of young children involves the internalization cultural attitudes and
values acquired from parental figures), the social cognitive theory (which places
emphasis on the cognitive processes of the individual with a social setting), and
evolutionary theory (which evaluates why and how certain human social behaviors are
sustained/selected for within an evolutionary context) (Bandura, 1977; Grusec, 1992;
Nier, 2013). More recent theories, emergent only within the last several decades, include
the rational choice theory (the basic tenet of which is that rational choice is a construct
that is a predictable model of human behavior), ethnomethodology (based on the
assumption that individuals can glean insight and learn about social behavioral norms by
intentionally disrupting the behavioral status quo of a group/culture), and feminist theory
(which refutes that notion that the human psyche is ‘above’ considerations of gender
differences, and asserts that gender is indeed a vital component of culture-determination
that inspires and guides human behavior) (Green, 2002; Lee, 1996). These theories,
regardless of their classification as “current” or “classical,” all provide us with a
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7
theoretical framework that serves to identify predictors of behavioral outcomes, identify
variables that might interact in certain contexts to mediate and/or moderate behavior,
explain recurrent patterns and trends in human interaction that can be used to extrapolate
future societal trends, and classify/define certain behavioral phenomena such that they
may be measured, assessed, and quantified.
While the benefits afforded us by the large-scale scientific study of human social
behavior are significant, they are also incomplete, thanks to an incongruity embedded
within the lingo of social psychology itself. Basic social psychology aims to explain
human behavior on a macrocosmic scale, yet bases its definitions on behavioral patterns
of the individual; it aspires to generalize social phenomena while espousing views that
point to individual uniqueness developed within a vastly dynamic social and
environmental context. Most importantly, the theories of social psychology acknowledge
that human social development is a process that does not occur in a vacuum, and that the
infinite variables which shape the human psyche result in each person within a society
formulating a subjective reality within which ‘general’ suppositions (such as social
theories) may or may not entirely apply. Social constructs, much like beauty, may be
thought to exist ‘in the eye of the beholder’ as well as at a macroscopic level, and much
like the ancient eastern concept of yin and yang, social psychology is incomplete without
both general theories and personal theories.
The practice of self-perception/self-reflection, while of a relatively new ‘mint’ in
the social psychology world (the self-perception theory of psychologist Daryl Bem
posits that one’s attitudes can be inferred from the careful observation and evaluation of
one’s own behavior), is one that has been espoused and celebrated in human culture for
thousands of years (Bem, 1967). Much of eastern philosophy – including tenets of
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8
Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Hindu Tantra – centers around the practice of focused
introspection as being key to personal enlightenment and growth. Sanskrit works dating
back as far as 5,000 years BCE include references to meditative practice…which is, by
and large, synonymous with self-reflection, in that the process of conscious observation
of one’s thoughts and feelings can lead to a revelatory awareness that brings about a
higher good (History of Meditation, n.d.).
If one were to travel back in time and gather a few of the greatest postImpressionist painters -say, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, and Pinchon – and
stand them all in the same room in front of identical easels with identical palettes and
identical paints, and ask them all to paint a picture of the same vase full of flowers, one
would end up with five very different (and likely very beautiful) paintings. Despite
having the same tools as the others and having all been taught to create art in the same
‘language,’ each man would conceptualize and interpret the reality of the vase of flowers
in a unique way. Would the distinctly individualistic results be valuable? Of course, and
beyond any aesthetic considerations, the different paintings would inspire commentary
and reflection in all those who might look upon them. Personal theories of social
psychology are no different, in that – while derived from the same theoretical background
and expressed in the same scientific language – they reflect not only the common tools
and methodologies of science but the conceptualizations of the tool wielder. Each person
construes of his or own social reality in a slightly different way, and, using the common
tools of scientific, psychological inquiry, can generate a concept of social reality that both
grounds him/her in the bigger picture and distinguishes him/her as a unique individual.
Without an ongoing and progressive practice of self-reflection, and the
conscientious evolution of one’s own personal theory of social psychology, I believe it
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would be easy for even the keenest of psychological minds to lose perspective. A
‘complete’ grasp of social theory requires both a macrocosmic and microcosmic
perspective, an ability to root one’s interpretations of global social constructs in her own
subjective reality and – at the same time – acknowledge and observe how her personal
theory aligns with universal human behavioral patterns. Balance promotes centeredness,
and centeredness brings resilience…a vital quality for all those who seek to help others
through the practice of psychology and the pursuit of psychological research. A clinician
without center and who lacks a balanced perspective will never be able to achieve
objectivity in assessing clients and proposing intervention strategies; a researcher who
cannot extrapolate results achieved in the lab to macrocosmic, global phenomena will
struggle with finding and/or proving the external validity of his work. Universal social
theory is the yang to personal social theory’s yin, and only together do they create a
useful and functional harmony.
Established social theories: an analysis
My 10-week-long foray into the world of social psychology has been both
illuminating and challenging: illuminating because I am a person who loves to learn the
who’s/what’s/when’s/where’s/why’s/how’s of natural phenomena, and human behavior
provides much food for such thought; challenging because the process of learning about
social theories has forced me to think in a multidimensional manner –something I believe
most of us are not accustomed to doing (at least not frequently) in our daily lives. The
ease with which I have drawn parallels between the study of social psychology and the
practice of mediation/self-reflection does not equate to ease in application. Meditation,
looking within oneself/one’s society to discern causality underlying behavioral patterns,
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10
daring to question where and why one has acquired one’s own beliefs, and taking the
time to assess one’s body of knowledge from a dispassionate standpoint…is hard. Like
so many other creatures, humans crave stability and routine, even when it comes to those
intangible factors that guide their lives. Calling into question all that one knows is a
demanding process; however, as I have discussed, the results of such self-evaluation can
be invaluable.
Of the classical and contemporary social psychological theories we have explored
as a class over the past term, four stand out to me as being particularly resonant with my
beliefs and/or system of cognitive interpretation: the sociocultural perspective, the
social learning perspective, the rational choice theory, and the evolutionary
perspective.
To explore the main tenets of each theory, and to illuminate to the reader their
distinctions with regards to how they assess patterns of human social interaction, it is
often useful to select a common social behavior and then compare how each theory
would interpret it. Even something as commonplace as sharing – the act of altruistically
distributing one’s possessions/resources amongst others without thought to or
consideration of personal gain/recompense – becomes a complex, multidimensional
phenomenon in light of the various social psychology perspectives:
The SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE would maintain that sharing is a
behavior acquired through observation and social interaction within a predefined cultural context. A young child whose parents proactively teach
the behavior of sharing, support this behavior in others through positive
reinforcement, and who model this behavior themselves in the context of
the everyday will be highly likely to assimilate sharing into his behavioral
repertoire. Cultures with strongly embraced norms for sharing, too, will
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encourage individuals within those cultures to adopt and uphold the same
ideals, i.e. that sharing is a positive act.
The SOCIAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE, which centers upon three
main behavioral determinants (aggression, dependency, and
identification), would focus on the act of learning a behavior as being a
process of socialization through the internalization of cultural ideals,
values, and norms. Authority figures such as parents and teachers are seen
as key players in the learning process, as they are both models for ‘correct’
behavior and wielders of power who can enact consequences – positive or
negative – for a young learner’s achievement or ignorance of correct
behavior.
The SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE places great emphasis upon
the symbolic meaning of social actions as being instrumental in the
learning process. According to this perspective, learning occurs within a
dynamic context wherein action, environment, and cognition interact to
produce/entrain behavioral modification and sustain social learning. A
toddler observing two grownups sharing, and witnessing the positive
outcomes of the adults’ behavior, will cognitively link positive symbolic
meaning to the act of sharing. He will also develop, through his
observations, the expectation of positive outcomes for his own
engagement in sharing behavior in the future. If a child is brought up in
an environment wherein sharing is performed frequently, environmental
pressures will encourage the attachment of positive meanings to sharing
within the child’s mind. The child’s observations, together with the
cognitive associations he has formed and external
environmental/contextual influences, will serve to produce [his own]
sharing behavior.
The RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY, I believe, targets human behavioral
instincts that are older, deeper, and more primal than those incorporated
by other social perspectives, and stems from one basic fact: every action
we make involves a choice based on an analysis of risk vs. reward. Every
behavior we perform is the consequence of a contemplative assessment
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12
that is shared by every sentient organism on the planet, wherein the
potential costs of a future action are weighed against the possible benefits.
This assessment may take place at a subconscious level, but it is one that
has helped propel the evolution of today’s species and has aided humans
run the gauntlet of daily survival in an often unpredictable world.
Long ago, before the conveniences of technology and
infrastructure made cost/benefit analysis fade into the background of basic
human considerations, the stakes for human behavioral ‘gambles’ were
high: a group of Homo neanderthalensis setting out on a week-long
hunting expedition represented both high cost (the investment of time,
energy, and safety) and high risk (the possibility of failure, illness, injury,
or death)…but the potential benefits were equally high (taking down large
game and bringing large quantities of vital sustenance back to the clan).
While modern people typically do not face such high-stakes
choices in their everyday lives, the motivation for personal gain and fear
of personal loss still significantly affect human choice analysis and
behavioral preference. Insofar as the example of sharing goes, a child
considering whether or not the engage in this behavior would be hindered
by contemplation of cost (I have two cookies; if I share one with my
friend, I’ll have less for myself…and I like cookies) and motivated by gain
(sharing will make my friend happy, which will make me happy; it also is
the right thing to do, because my parents have taught me sharing is good).
What the child will ultimately elect to do depends on which way the scale
tips in his mind.
The EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE of social psychology would
maintain that sharing is a behavioral phenotype selected for by nature that
benefits the individual, group, and species at large. While solitary species
typically do not engage in sharing behaviors (with the exception of
feeding/nursing young), social species do share, and adhere to very
distinct behavioral rules.
For animals that live communally, it is in the best interest of all
individuals to make the community as strong and vital as possible. A
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13
troop of gorillas stands a much better chance at holding territory if all the
troop members are strong and healthy. Thus, it makes adaptive sense for
the sharing of resources to be selected for as a behavior, which is why we
can observe wolves sharing kills with the pack, mustang mares sharing
‘babysitting’ duties amongst each other, and human children sharing their
juice boxes with other people. Sharing benefits the species at large, and is
therefore ingrained into the species’ culture as an adaptive behavior.
(Dimino, 2015)
All of these theories resonate with me on a personal level, and have provided me
with the conceptual foundation from which I have constructed my own personal theory of
social psychology. In contemplation of why it is that these perspectives resonate with me
wherein as some others (symbolic interactionism, for one) do not, I feel that the best
answer I am capable of coming up with is the one that seems most banal: they feel real to
me. I can see the sociocultural theory at work in human social interactions all around me,
and the current body of knowledge that I have amassed as yet supports, by virtue of
evidence, the tenets of the social learning perspective. I can see the young men and
women on my swim team making choices based on careful (and sometimes less careful…
they are, after all, teenagers) considerations of the potential risks and rewards of possible
future actions, supporting both the applicability and accuracy of the rational choice
theory. Based on everything I’ve been taught about human evolution, anthropology,
biology, and psychology, and everything about the aforementioned subjects that I have
witnessed for myself in real life, these four theories make too much sense, and fit into my
perceptions of the universal human paradigm too perfectly for me to ignore. They do not
feel like a ‘stretch,’ or seem to be but an over-zealous attempt by overly-abstract thinkers
to identify lofty, profound meaning where there is none. My English lit classes back in
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14
college used to drive me crazy, in that the professors (and even the field itself) seemed
not to care about the actual words written by the great authors of our time but rather
sought to wheedle out hidden layers of meaning that I often believed didn’t exist. To be
sure, Shakespeare’s works are profound, and The Bard certainly used metaphorical and
allegorical writing to convey complex ideas and meanings to the reader/audience; my
professors, however, could never accept the possibility that when Shakespeare wrote of a
tree in his poems, he was actually, really writing about…a tree.
Unlike some of the contemporary social psychology theories, the application of
which occasionally feels to me like trying to get water from a stone, the sociocultural
perspective, the social learning perspective, the rational choice theory, and the
evolutionary perspective feel grounded in truth to me. Empirical scientific research
emphatically supports them (particularly the results of psychological and anthropological
studies), and – perhaps most significant with regards to my present endeavor – they lend
themselves well to expansion, and the formulation of new theories based on their
underlying principles.
A New Direction: My Personal Theory of Social Psychology
I have explored the evolution of Homo sapiens from anthropological,
psychological, neurophysiological, and behavioral perspectives, with the intention of
formulating a novel social psychological theory based on man’s uniquely dyadic
behavioral inheritance. Homo sapiens is one of but a very few animals on the planet who
can claim to have ever occupied not just one but two distinctive ecological niches over
the course of its evolution: that of prey, and that of predator. As we have been both at
different stages in our development, it stands to reason that trends in human social
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15
behavior arise from behavioral programming once designed to facilitate predator
avoidance…and, later, to enable and enhance predation. I believe humans both possess
and exhibit vestiges of deeply-encoded survival patterns of social behavior, and that
universal ‘rules’ that apply to all predators and prey in the animal kingdom – as well as
the interactions that arise between them – can be used to predict and explain some of
modern man’s more complex social inclinations. Our prey- and predator-derived
emotional inheritances combine to make us what we are today, and – like the entities of
yin and yang – continuously shift, merge, offset, and combine in intricate ways to create a
fluid whole… This ‘whole’ is the sum of modern human behavior.
A conceptual and evolutionary background: From man the prey to man the predator
While primate evolution continues to present the scientific community with
mysteries and inspire hotly contested debates, there is no disagreement that the very
oldest of man’s ancient ancestors were arboreal primates. As tree-dwellers, early protohominids subsisted primarily on vegetation, with the occasional inclusion of invertebrates
- namely insects - to supplement their diets. They were also prey animals that ranked
relatively low on the food chain, and as such had to develop precautionary and avoidance
behaviors to evade such hunters as snakes, large felines, and wolves. Knowing what we
know now about general prey behavior, there is little question that early hominids were
cautious, tentative, and careful creatures; of Homo sapiens’ two instinctive inheritances,
that of PREY is far older, and significantly more deeply ingrained.
Early ancestral primates were supremely adapted for life in the trees, possessing
the long-fingered hands and gripping feet of great apes today, and forward-facing eyes
with excellent depth-perception that could accurately gauge distances between tree trunks
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16
and limbs (Hunt, 2014). Forest canopies were rich with vital resources and, like monkeys
and apes of today, early hominids enjoyed a variety of plants and fruits, nuts and boring
insects as food. So what was it, precisely, that tempted our tree-dwelling ancestors down
onto solid ground, and sparked not only the hominids’ physical transformation into
bipedal, upright walkers but also their behavioral transformation from prey-foragers to
pack predators? To answer this question, it is necessary to explore whether or not
predatory instincts evolved before or concurrently with the development of hominid
bipedalism. If the former is true, and hunting behaviors preceded ancient humans’
transition to the ground, it is possible that emergent predation behavior itself may have
contributed to the evolution of the first fully land-dwelling hominid societies (Dimino,
2015).
While we have only stone artifacts and fossilized remains by which to investigate
ancient hominid social behavior, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists do have
an wonderful resource by which they are able to extrapolate what early hominid life was
like 5-7 million years ago (hereafter: mya): extant nonhuman primates (Fahy et al., 2013).
The species currently being ascribed the label of “oldest true hominid” is Orrorin
tugenensis, a small primate adapted equally to life on the ground and in the treetops that
closely resembled modern chimpanzees (Macroevolution.net). As modern chimps and
humans share not only a common ancestor but also over 98% of their DNA, it behooves
the social psychologist wising to unlock the secrets of early hominid behavior to analyze
chimpanzee behavior. If traces of predatory behavior were found to exist within the
repertoires of modern chimpanzees, it would strongly suggest that predation behaviors
also existed in ancient hominid societies (Dimino, 2015).
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“Man the hunter,” one of the most persistent and pervasive theories regarding
the evolution of hominid bipedalism, is and has always been closely linked with tool use
for hunting and defense (Tuttle, 2014). There are some scientists, however, who have
challenged this idea, noting that stone tools clearly designed for predation have only ever
been discovered in association with later hominids (such as Homo erectus and Homo
neanderthalensis), and therefore it is unlikely that earlier hominid species did not hunt.
The rebuttal to the lessened primacy of the ‘man the hunter’ theory has come in the form
of empirical reports of meat-eating and active hunting amongst modern chimpanzees.
Chimpanzees (Pan paniscus and Pan troglodytes) – along with baboons,
capuchins, and bonobos – occupy a highly exclusive niche of nonhuman primates who
systematically hunt large vertebrates and consume meat (Tuttle, 2014). The specific
patterns of their predation behavior vary from population to population; nevertheless,
recent studies and behavioral surveys of African chimps have provided conclusive
evidence of a prevalent tendency to predate sizable vertebrates amongst these social apes.
While the exact dietary contribution of animal flesh to the chimpanzee diet is not entirely
understood (hunting may be a symbolic, ritualistic behavior with a non-dietary goal, or it
may represent directed effort towards resolving gaps in their nutrition), the results of such
studies have provided the scientific community with extensive observational data that
details male chimpanzee hunting behavior and subsequent meat-sharing protocol
(Dimino, 2015).
A 20-year-long study by Fahy, Richards, Riedel, Hublin, & Boesch (2013)
examined the phenomenon of meat-eating amongst a population of adult chimps in Tai
National Park (Côte d‘Ivoire) by analyzing the chimps’ bone and hair for isotopic
evidence of non-chimp animal proteins (meat eating in some male chimps is significant
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18
enough to produce a detectable isotope signal in hair keratin and bone collagen) (2013).
Their results were astonishing: isotope values from the Tai chimps’ tissue samples
confirmed prior behavioral observations of frequent hunting/meat eating amongst male
chimps (who employ hunting methods that range from scavenging to opportunism to
organized stalking/chasing), suggesting that a) meat is actually a key nutritional staple for
the chimps and b) meat consumption and associated predation behavior may have helped
sustain the evolution of the large human brain (Fahy et al., 2013). Yes, modern chimps
rely heavily on the fruits of foraging behavior – plants, fruits, and insects – but many
extant populations also hunt in organized groups for the express purpose of predating
other animals such as monkeys and wild boar. Similar differences in food
acquisition/consumption behavior may have persisted throughout hominid evolution,
perhaps stretching back in time even earlier than widely believed (Fahy et al., 2014).
Reconstructing the social behavior of our ancient ancestors could provide us with clues as
to how the interaction between nutritional demands and social systems promoted hominid
social evolution.
Evolutionary change is generally thought of as the movement of a species from
one adaptive point to another; in practice, the availability of viable evolutionary pathways
is constrained when movement to an adjacent point involves a drop in fitness for those
individuals (Foley & Lee, 1989). Loss of fitness can be sparked by alterations in
behavior, habitat, competition, and/or resources, and this principle bears heavily on early
hominid evolutionary progress. The earliest hominids, the remains of whom have been
discovered from Tabarun, Logatham, Laetoli, and Hadar, all were strongly associated by
locale and extant remains to grassland/bushland environments (Foley & Lee, 1989).
Such wide-open spaces tend to promote large social groupings amongst prey animals as a
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19
counter-tactic to the increased threat of predation and a response to widely spread
resources. Large territories also present problems for those who dwell therein, in that the
widely spread resources of the open savannah requires increased mobility. Furthermore,
maintaining successful foraging strategies becomes difficult in the context of habitats
with significantly different seasons (Foley & Lee, 1989). For early hominids, such as
Australopithecus afarensis, such a confluence of environmental and logistical factors
would presumably encourage a shift towards meat-eating and hunting as a strategy (not
to mention the acceleration of more efficient bipedal locomotor traits). According to
Foley & Lee (1989), there is general agreement in the scientific community that by
1.6mya - contemporaneous with the appearance of Homo erectus - hominids were
processing meat at a higher level than is known for any extant nonhuman primate species.
Foley and Lee also note that while the causes of meat-eating are ecological, the
consequences are social; in such a context, increased cooperation amongst individuals to
hunt larger game would be advantageous…hence, the rise of “man the [group] hunter”
and modern Homo sapiens’ predatory instincts.
The Essence of Yin: Behavioral Characteristics of Prey Animals
The Distance Hypothesis: Fight or Flight
Prey-specific behavioral patterns are marked by arousal states secondary to brain
and reflex reactions that change systematically with regards to the presence or absence of
external stimuli. Decades of research with nonhuman animals has demonstrated that
cognitive and physical responses to aversive stimuli –such as the threat of an incoming
predator - fluctuate in response to the [perceived] proximity of those stimuli; retaining
significantly potent prey instincts, humans viewing aversive or unpleasant stimuli are
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likewise engaged by these cues both mentally and physically (Low et al., 2008). From an
evolutionary perspective, the psychology and related physiological states of human
emotion and be defined as action dispositions – states of increased vigilance and
physical mobilization associated with survival goals (Frijda, 1987; Lang et al., 1997, Low
et al., 2008).
One of the most well-known behavioral patterns associated with threat response is
that of “fight or flight,” the two last-ditch options for any prey animals faced with
imminent predation: a cape buffalo staring down the barrel of a lioness ambush may
either choose to run, and blend in with the herd in hopes of escape…or it may choose to
stand its ground, and test its strength and horned weaponry against the feline onslaught.
“Fight” and “flight” are but the observable results of an autonomic process within the
target animal’s cognitive machinery that is thought to be mediated by the distance
hypothesis.
The distance hypothesis states that any changes within an organism’s mind and
body resulting from the perception of a threat share a linear relationship with the physical
distance separating the target organism from the threat and/or the perceived temporal
imminence of the threat itself. When a prey animal such as a hare first gets wind of a
hawk circling overhead, a cascade of cognitive and physiological alterations is triggered
within the hare’s body: limbic circuits in the hare’s brain initiate a ‘defense mode’ that
precipitates motor inhibition (freezing), attentional focus (zeroing in on the threat), and
bradycardia (Low et al., 2008). The closer the hawk, the more intense these responses
and associated levels of physical mobilization become. These patterns are vital to
understanding the effects of prey instinct in human emotional processing anticipatory to
either aversive or rewarding outcomes (Low et al., 2008).
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A 2008 study by A. Low, P.J. Lang, C. Smith, and M.M. Bradley, in which
psychophysiological arousal secondary to threat vs. reward stimuli was explored in
humans by way of a computer simulation, showed that human responses to both pleasant
and ‘dangerous’ stimuli align closely with those of nonhuman animal models. The
results of their experiment, wherein human volunteers were asked to play a computer
game in which they had to identify and react to a ‘threat’ (an image of a dangerous fish)
based on the perceived proximity of the threat, demonstrated that human emotion is
highly context-dependent and adaptive. Data gathered from various physical and
cognitive measures (including heart rate, skin conductivity, and brain event-relatedpotential) of the participants revealed that “[the] looming picture sequences prompted
systematic modulation of somatic, autonomic, and brain responses [in the participants]
varied reliably with the apparent distance from the goal” (p. 870). Put simply, Low et al.,
demonstrated that human prey instincts and prey-driven responses mirror those of any
other prey animal when confronted with a threat, and that the closer the threat seems, the
more we react on the psychological and physical levels.
So where and when can we observe such prey-driven response mechanisms in
modern human behavior? The answer is everywhere, all the time. Anytime we are faced
with situations involving excessive levels of uncertainty, or in which we are confronted
with a concept, image, or object we fear, or in which we feel we are deprived of the
ability to control event outcomes, our prey instincts are activated. Such situations
hearken back to the times when a typical threat could end our lives (vs. inconvenience
them, which is generally the case today), and while we usually do not face life or death
scenarios on a regular basis, our instinctive behavioral programming doesn’t always
realize this.
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Consider the following scenario:
A jogging enthusiast wanting to spice up her typical routine elects to try a new
route that takes her to a part of town she’s never been to before, and notices that,
despite the fact she is taking every safety precaution – a reflective vest, running in
daylight hours, keeping a cell-phone with her – she’s nervous as she sets off for
her run. Her heart is beating faster than usual, her palms are sweaty, and she finds
herself glancing to the side more frequently than usual. She tells herself she’s
being silly, but subconsciously she is feeling the effects of a behavioral response
that once may have saved the life of her ancient ancestors.
Many animals follow predictable patterns of movement and activity throughout
their daily lives; a wolf pack follows the same migration route, gray whales follow the
same currents back and forth to their feeding grounds, and bees maintain a military-level
of precision in the timing of their feeding, foraging, and hive maintenance schedules.
Why? The bees know that a certain flight trajectory will end in a productive flower patch,
and the wolves know their regular migration route always intersects with that of the elk
they stalk. The gray whales know that their trusted ocean corridors keep them a safe
distance away from marauding pods of orca. There is safety in routine. Deviating from
a ‘safe’ routine represents considerable risk, and in the world of natural selection, risks
can be costly. A whale who decides to set out on a different path may find bountiful new
feeding grounds…or run head-first into orca territory. The jogger’s nervousness may
seem, to her, to be baseless, but the prey instinct to physically mobilize and become
nervous in the face of uncertainty has saved countless lives over the course of animal
evolution.
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Quorum Sensing: Majority Rules
Consider the following scenario:
It is a blisteringly hot and humid summer day, and a group of 7 teenage boys
decides to beat the heat (and assuage their boredom) with a swim at a nearby
quarry. The quarry, long since abandoned, features a beautiful swimming hold set
amongst towering granite cliffs, and offers respite from the oppressive heat.
Upon arrival, one of the boys – Jeff - announces that he wants to cliff-dive into
the swimming hole from a ridge about three stories up, in blatant disregard for the
posted signs that warn “Danger: shallow water” and “NO cliff-diving.” Sam, one
of the group, recalls a news story from a few years back, in which an out-oftowner died from a botched dive off of the very same ridge Jeff wishes to use…
and he announces his refusal to participate. Jeff waves a hand impatiently, calls
Sam a wuss, and insists he’s going to cliff-dive anyway. After Jeff, another boy
voices his support for the cliff-dive plan…and another…and then another. As
soon as 5 of the boys announce their intent to cliff-dive with Jeff, Sam’s doubts
begin to fade, and he finds himself wanting to cliff-dive, too.
How can a young man with such a logical and rational assessment of the dangers
inherent in the cliff-dive be suddenly swayed so completely in the presence of peer
consensus? Why is it that a girl, by herself, can be a model of good etiquette and moral
behavior, but morphs into a chain-smoking, drug-experimenting, foul-mouthed rebel in
the presence of ‘the wrong crowd’? What is it in our emotional and cognitive makeup
that permits our good judgements to be overruled or even eliminated completely by the
will of the majority? Most people would cite peer-pressure as being the predictive
variable in these cases, but peer pressure in and of itself is inadequate as an explanation.
Why is peer pressure so potent a determinant of human behavior? The real answer is
quorum sensing, an ancient behavioral ‘program’ that still influences the choices of
humans today.
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Quorum sensing, an adaptive strategy employed in many biological systems and
across taxa to increase decision accuracy, centers upon the following critical fact: the
probability that an individual will adopt a particular behavior is a nonlinear function of
the number of other animals in the group who also adopt this behavior (Kurvers et al.,
2013). In other words, once enough members of the group have initiated a behavior, an
individual will reach a ‘tipping point’ beyond which he/she, too, will adopt the same
behavior. This tipping point is known as the quorum threshold (QT).
As we know, social living affords organisms many benefits, not the least of which
is safety (in numbers) and access to shared social information (by stationing a number of
‘sentinels’ across their territory to watch for predators and signal danger, prairie dogs
living in colonies enjoy relative security). Using social information, individual members
of a group can increase their decision accuracy and enhance the speed of their decisionmaking (Kurvers et al., 2013). Many decisions made by social-living organisms –
including humans - are based on quorum responses, a key aspect of which is the QT
itself. Survival success dictates that individual organisms in a dynamic environment
should (a) be able to flexibly adjust their quorum thresholds and (b) that individuals
should adjust their QT to the unique circumstances and contexts of any situation
requiring a decision about whether or not to act. Without such plasticity, quorum sensing
would be a poor survival tactic, and likely would have faded long ago as a behavioral
phenotype.
In a 2013 article, researchers Kurvers et al. demonstrated that the quality of
social information is a key factor that affects the ‘success’ of the any subsequent
decisions made by individuals per quorum response (Wolf et al., 2013; Kurvers et al.,
2013). Most people know that their observations are never 100% accurate 100% of the
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time, and this holds true for any animal. In many contexts, decision-accuracy is checked
by the ever present trade-off between true positives (ex. the lion is really there, guys,
RUN!) and false positives (I signaled ‘flee!’…but it was just a shadow. Whoops.): an
increase in true positives can only occur at the cost of increased false positives (and vice
versa) (Kurvers et al., 2013). However, this trade-off can be overcome by obeying what
the authors call the “Two-step quorum decision rule”, which goes as follows:
Step #1: the instant you decide to take action based on your personal information,
SPREAD THE WORD
Step #2: take action when at least _x_ % of your fellow group members decide to
take action (i.e. once the QT has been reached)
(Kurvers et al., 2013)
Quorum sensing effectively explains why many people are reluctant to take
significant and/or potentially risky actions by themselves, and why individuals in group
settings are often convinced to do or say things that may in fact run counter to their true
beliefs. Without adequate ‘backup’ from a requisite percentage of one’s peer population,
a single person may exhibit reluctance to act in a certain way, for the simple reason that it
is inadvisable to do so from an adaptive standpoint. Communal-living species –
especially communal living prey species- tend to behave as one and display (at least
outwardly) signs of a collective consciousness. Evolution has reinforced the potency of
the ‘majority rule’ phenomenon through thousands of years of natural selection, and
vestiges of this programming are at work, alive, and well in modern human social
interactions.
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Predicting the Unpredictable: Protean Behavior in Prey Populations
One of the most interesting aspects of predator-avoidance behavior in prey animal
models can be observed not only in terrestrial environments but in marine as well. Bait
fish that occupy the lower rungs of the food-chain ladder, such as anchovies, sardine, and
herring tend to congregate in massive numbers and school in shoals. In the absence of a
threat, the shoals maintain a uniform pattern of movement, with each individual fish
swimming at a set distance from others / at the same speed / in the same trajectory.
Uniformity and conformity rul