BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture - ECPv6.16.5.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://bec.ucla.edu X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20110313T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20111106T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20120311T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20121104T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20130310T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20131103T090000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120507T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120507T000000 DTSTAMP:20201013T004815Z CREATED:20200922T215211Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004815Z UID:4201-1336348800-1336348800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Colin Holbrook - Why Thoughts of Death or Isolation Magnify Group Prejudice DESCRIPTION:Colin Holbrook: UCLAHumans are inclined to cherish their communities and derogate groups regarded as alien\, particularly during times of threat. The capacity for threatening circumstances to exacerbate group prejudice holds both social relevance and theoretical interest\, and has been widely discussed within psychology and evolutionary anthropology. Perhaps the most intensively studied experimental measure of group bias following threat has been worldview defense. Worldview defense is a psychological effect wherein subtle reminders of death\, coalitional challenges (e.g.\, isolation) or other poignant threats magnify preferences for affirmations and against criticisms of cultural in-groups. Proponents of terror management theory and coalitional psychology postulate alternative interpretations of worldview defense as the output of adaptations evolved to (i) allay the fear of death or (ii) foster social support during times of trial. In contrast to both of these proposals\, I will present evidence that worldview defense tokens a relatively domain-general capacity for unconscious vigilance. Unconscious vigilance is hypothesized as a state of accentuated reactivity to emotional targets (which need not relate to cultural worldviews) evoked upon detection of subtle alarm cues (which need not pertain to death or coalitional challenges). Consonant with the unconscious vigilance account of worldview defense\, cross-cultural research conducted in Tibet\, Northern Ireland\, and the United States confirms that both death and isolation cues exaggerate ratings of affective targets unrelated to group attitudes\, and\, conversely\, that threat manipulations unrelated to death or isolation evoke worldview defense. In addition to evidence for an unconscious vigilance pathway to worldview defense\, I will introduce new results demonstrating that conscious feelings of positive affect induced by reward cues can also heighten group prejudice. These overall results will be discussed as they inform evolutionary interpretations of worldview defense. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/colin-holbrook-why-thoughts-of-death-or-isolation-magnify-group-prejudice/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120514T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120514T000000 DTSTAMP:20201013T004815Z CREATED:20200922T215212Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004815Z UID:4202-1336953600-1336953600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Sergey Gavrilets - On the evolutionary origins of the egalitarian syndrome DESCRIPTION:Sergey Gavrilets: University of TennesseeHumans exhibit strong egalitarian syndrome\, i.e. the complex of cognitive perspectives\, ethical principles\, social norms\, and individual and collective attitudes promoting equality. The universality of egalitarianism in hunter-gatherers suggests that it is an ancient\, evolved human pattern. The evolutionary emergence of this syndrome is one of the most intriguing unsolved puzzles related to the origins of modern humans. Using simple mathematical models I will explore possible routes for two important aspects of egalitarian behavior: the transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding and coalitionary control of bullies. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/sergey-gavrilets-on-the-evolutionary-origins-of-the-egalitarian-syndrome/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120517T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120517T000000 DTSTAMP:20201013T004815Z CREATED:20200922T215243Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004815Z UID:4205-1337212800-1337212800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Robert Frank - Rivalry and Cooperation: A Darwinian Perspective DESCRIPTION:Robert Frank: CornellNote: this talk will begin at 3:30pm. \nEconomists since Adam Smith have insisted that competition produces the greatest good for the greatest number. But as Charles Darwin emphasized\, individual and group interests do not always coincide. And when they clash\, individual interests tend to trump\, often resulting in wasteful arms races. The Darwinian perspective suggests that many forms of market failure that in the past have been attributed to monopoly or limited rationality are instead more plausibly the result of individual-group conflict. The Darwinian perspective also suggests\, however\, that many other presumed forms of market failure–such as the breakdown of cooperation when cheating cannot be detected- may be less serious than most economists believe. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/robert-frank-rivalry-and-cooperation-a-darwinian-perspective/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120521T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120521T000000 DTSTAMP:20201013T004814Z CREATED:20200922T215212Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004814Z UID:4203-1337558400-1337558400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Clark Barrett - Confronting the puzzle of evolutionary novelty DESCRIPTION:Clark Barrett: UCLAThe capacity of organisms to deal with evolutionary novelty has been regarded by some as a puzzle. If adaptations have been shaped by natural selection operating in the past\, then how can they possibly respond adaptively to objects\, events\, and situations that clearly did not exist until recently? This has been regarded as particularly problematic for adaptationist accounts of human behavior because we are clearly surrounded by many evolutionary novelties\, from football to Facebook\, that do not cause our brains to seize up in a failure to compute. Traditionally\, the answer has been that humans are equipped with more or better general-purpose cognitive capacities than are other animals\, though mounting comparative evidence suggests that it is not primarily in the most general mechanisms of cognition that humans and other primates differ. Arguably\, progress on the novelty puzzle has been impeded by the lack of adequate theory regarding how adaptations\, and in particular psychological adaptations\, might be expected to respond to evolutionary novelty. In this talk I describe elements of what such a theory might look like\, drawing on prior work in biology\, evolutionary psychology\, culture-gene coevolution theory\, and Bayesian models of cognition\, and illustrating the ideas with examples from recent research. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/clark-barrett-confronting-the-puzzle-of-evolutionary-novelty/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120528T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120528T000000 DTSTAMP:20201013T004814Z CREATED:20200922T215242Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004814Z UID:4204-1338163200-1338163200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Adrian Jaeggi - Food sharing in human and non-human primates DESCRIPTION:Adrian Jaeggi: UCSBFood sharing is a vibrant field of study that has provided important insights into the evolution of cooperation\, life history\, and social learning. Common functional explanations for sharing include nutritional and informational benefits to offspring\, tolerated scrounging\, kin selection\, reciprocal altruism\, and costly signaling. I review the most important findings regarding food sharing in primatology and human behavioral ecology and sketch out the phylogenetic history of these functions. I draw attention to aspects of primate and human food sharing that are sometimes underappreciated but carry important implications for understanding evolved life history and the psychology of pro-sociality: Shared foods comprise a negligible part of the diet in most primates\, contrasting with the obligatory provisioning of multiple dependent offspring by several caretakers in callitrichids and humans. Slow growth\, delayed juvenility and heavy provisioning lead to extended periods of net consumption in human families and a resulting dependence on between-family sharing. Food transfers both within and between families are therefore an integral part of human life history which has likely been facilitated by the extended kin networks of humans compared to that of a chimpanzee-like ancestor. The negotiation of sharing norms in relation to different production regimes\, and the strategic use of sharing as a costly signal are key components of human exchange relations. On the other hand\, sharing among adult primates is best understood as an occasional manifestation of long-term social relationships within which services like grooming\, selective mating\, and coalitionary support are exchanged more routinely. These functional differences may explain why sharing among primates is predominantly passive\, whereas humans seem to have evolved a more active sharing psychology.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/papers/jaeggi-food-sharing.pptx URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/adrian-jaeggi-food-sharing-in-human-and-non-human-primates/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR