BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture - ECPv6.15.20//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 BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20140309T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20141102T090000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130513T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130513T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215718Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005137Z UID:4232-1368403200-1368403200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Claire White - Evolutionizing Bereavement Research: Toward an Integrated Account of Human Grief DESCRIPTION:Claire White : California State University\, NorthridgeGrief is a universal reaction to the loss of a valued relationship partner. Two main evolutionary accounts of grief have been proposed. The first views grief as a by-product of an adaptive separation reaction that functions to aid unification in the temporary loss of a valued relationship partner. The second posits that grief is an adaptation that evolved to cope with the loss of a loved one by changing goals\, signaling to others to enhance social support and reassessing one’s current behaviors\, relationships and priorities. Despite the potential of evolutionary accounts to inform research\, they have not been integrated into mainstream bereavement literature. This state of affairs is in part because evolutionary theories of grief lack theoretical clarity\, empirical predictions and supporting evidence. The aim of this talk is to highlight these weaknesses and to begin to correct for them. The talk is divided into three parts. First\, I critically evaluate the two leading evolutionary theories of grief. Second\, I analyze the goodness-of-fit between the predictions generated from these two contrasting approaches and findings in bereavement research\, including data from a series of studies that I have conducted. Third\, and finally\, I propose a new evolutionary account of grief that integrates existing theories by disaggregating the core symptoms after the experience of bereavement into evolutionarily meaningful subtypes. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/claire-white-evolutionizing-bereavement-research-toward-an-integrated-account-of-human-grief/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130506T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130506T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215717Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005137Z UID:4231-1367798400-1367798400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Bailey House - The ontogeny of population differences in human cooperation DESCRIPTION:Bailey House: University of California\, Los AngelesOne explanation for the diversity in cooperative behavior across human social groups is that our prosociality is motivated in part by learned cultural beliefs that vary substantially across societies\, and which extend adaptations for cooperation between genetic kin and reciprocal partners. Reframing this idea as a developmental question about how culture shapes the emergence of cooperative behavior throughout human ontogeny\, in this talk I present a series of cross-cultural studies that take a first step towards understanding how population differences in cooperation emerge across human development. In these studies of prosocial behavior\, I explore the origins of population differences among children aged 3-14 years in a number of diverse societies. The results of this work suggest that human prosociality unfolds through a complex interaction between developmental stages\, population membership\, and the personal cost of helping. These results are consistent with models of human cooperation based on evolved cultural beliefs\, but they also point to critical questions that must be addressed in future work. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/bailey-house-the-ontogeny-of-population-differences-in-human-cooperation/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130429T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130429T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215717Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005138Z UID:4230-1367193600-1367193600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook - Is Postpartum Depression a Disease of Modern Civilization? DESCRIPTION:Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook: University of California\, Los AngelesPostpartum depression poses an evolutionary puzzle: it is extremely common\, yet significantly reduces the reproductive fitness of both mothers and children. Why has natural selection failed to remove this trait? I will consider the hypothesis that postpartum depression represents a “disease of modern civilization” – that is\, a byproduct of the dramatic cultural changes to motherhood that have occurred over the last century. This perspective predicts that postpartum depression will be more common in contexts where breastfeeding\, diet\, exercise\, sleep\, & alloparenting patterns diverge most dramatically from those of our Pleistocene ancestors. I will present cross-cultural\, epidemiological\, and experimental studies showing that postpartum depression is associated with early weaning\, insufficient vitamin D due to limited sun exposure\, diets deficient in essential fatty acids\, and isolation from kin support networks\, all of which diverge significantly from lifestyles typical throughout most of human evolution. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/jennifer-hahn-holbrook-is-postpartum-depression-a-disease-of-modern-civilization/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130424T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130424T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215340Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005138Z UID:4213-1366761600-1366761600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Paul Heggarty - What Role for Language in Uncovering the Human Past? DESCRIPTION:Paul Heggarty: 4:00 PM Cotsen Institute Room A222From the Tower of Babel to the tales of the Aboriginal Dreamtime\, we have long sought to account for our baffling multiplicity of tongues. Linguistic science itself was born out of this curiosity — and by now can look to our language diversity no longer as just an enigma to be solved\, but also as a rich seam of data on the human past.\nOr at least potentially so\, for it remains a challenge to work out exactly what the linguistic record really tells us. Certainly\, it cannot safely be read without the complementary perspectives of our other windows on the past. This talk surveys how linguistics might both enrich and learn from all its sister disciplines within the original ‘four field’ foundations of anthropology\, not least archaeology and population genetics. In their data-sets\, methods and analyses these disciplines all differ radically\, but they are only all the more complementary for it\, towards their common goal of uncovering what is\, after all\, the same\, single human past.\nEarly attempts were bedevilled by false analogies and simplistic associations between languages\, ‘cultures’ and ‘peoples’\, engendering a generalised distrust of speculations on grand cross-disciplinary synopses. So I return here to first principles\, to reconsider how it is that language can inform us of the past at all. Language is a ‘social animal’; it does not ‘just happen’ that language lineages spread\, interact\, diverge or converge\, as if in a social\, cultural and demographic vacuum. Rather\, those outcomes are but the linguistic reflexes of processes at work far more generally\, created by and acting upon the people and societies that speak those languages. These same processes leave their imprints in material culture and the bio-archaeological and genetic records too\, so it is here that the link between our disciplines lies.\nTo be convincing and coherent\, our respective scenarios need to match independently on three key levels: when\, where and why. On each\, I survey the main models and methods (both traditional and new) devised for setting our language lineages into their (pre)historical contexts. I assess proposed techniques for linguistic dating\, and for locating the ancestral homelands of great language families. And on causation\, I peel back the distorting impacts of the modern world to explore the past roles of technologies\, trade and cultural networks\, state organisation\, conquest\, subsistence regimes\, demography and environment. Any such real-world cause must also be commensurate in scale with whatever linguistic effect it is invoked to explain.\nIllustrations are taken from across the millennia and across the world\, from individual case-studies to the broadest patterns and contrasts in the global linguistic panorama: hotspots and ‘deserts’ of language diversity; powerful convergence areas; and vast\, deep-time language families such as Indo-European or Afro-Asiatic\, driven by some great expansive and divergent processes\, but which? I conclude with the most ambitious generalisations of all\, and the furore surrounding them: farming/language dispersals\, and the claims to reduce vast proportions of all human languages into great macro-families such as the putative ‘Amerind’ of the New World. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/paul-heggarty-what-role-for-language-in-uncovering-the-human-past/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130422T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130422T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215716Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005138Z UID:4229-1366588800-1366588800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Nancy Segal - Twins Raised Apart and other Unusual Pairings: Genetics\, Personality and Social Relatedness DESCRIPTION:Nancy Segal: California State University\, FullertonAn overview of the origins\, methods\, findings\, implications and controversies from the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart is provided. This study\, which took place between 1979 and 1999 at the University of Minnesota\, accumulated a wealth of behavioral\, physical and medical data on 137 reared apart twin pairs\, 81 monozygotic (MZA) and 56 dizygotic (DZA). The focus will be on the personality and twin relationship findings\, and their comparison with comparable data from an ongoing study of personality similarity and social relatedness between unrelated individuals who look alike\, but are genetically unrelated (U-LAs). The U-LAs allow unique assessment of issues and questions relevant to behavioral genetic and evolutionary-based analyses. It is concluded that (1) similar treatment of MZ twins results from their shared behavioral traits\, rather than their matched appearance as some critics have claimed\, and (2) physical resemblance does not predict close social relations between people in the absence of perceived behavioral similarities. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/nancy-segal-twins-raised-apart-and-other-unusual-pairings-genetics-personality-and-social-relatedness/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130415T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130415T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215704Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005138Z UID:4227-1365984000-1365984000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Rich Connor - Multi-level dolphin alliances in Shark Bay DESCRIPTION:Rich Connor: University of Massachusetts DartmouthFor over 25 years we have documented a multi-level alliance structure among male bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay\, Western Australia. Males cooperate in pairs and trios\, ‘1st-order alliances\,’ to form temporary consortships with individual females. First-order alliance partners are drawn from a male’s second-order alliance. Second-order alliances have 4-14 males and may be stable for over two decades\, but occasionally lose or take in new members. First-order alliances vary in stability but this variation is not strongly related to 2nd order alliance size. Members of 2nd order alliances engage with conflicts with other groups over females\, sometimes in the company of other 2nd order alliances they associate with\, suggesting a 3rd alliance level. The male alliances and individual females live in an open social network where both sexes maintain their mother’s natal range as part of their adult home range. The study area can be divided into a subdivided area characterized by shallow offshore flats bisected by deeper channels and an open habitat. Trios predominate in the open habitat while pairs are common in the subdivided habitat. Further\, the largest 2nd order alliances (>9) use the open habitat at least part of the year. The combination of 120 males with known alliance affiliations combined with recent technological advances presents an exciting future for studies on the development\, communication\, genetics and ecology of alliance formation. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/rich-connor-multi-level-dolphin-alliances-in-shark-bay/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130408T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130408T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215704Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004811Z UID:4226-1365379200-1365379200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Lucia Jacobs - Chemosensory cognition and the evolution of olfaction DESCRIPTION:Lucia Jacobs: University of Caliornia\, BerkeleyThe chemical senses of vertebrates present some of the most enduring mysteries of brain evolution. First\, it is not clear why are there two olfactory systems: the main system (MOS)\, detecting odorants on the olfactory epithelium and projecting to the olfactory bulb\, and the accessory system (AOS)\, detecting odorants in the vomeronasal organ and projecting to the accessory olfactory bulb. More perplexing\, taxonomic patterns of olfactory system presence and size cannot be explained by any current hypothesis\, whether behavioral or phylogenetic. Yet the two systems vary immensely in structure and complexity across vertebrates\, particularly in primates. Rather than assuming that the size of an olfactory system scales with the need to discriminate a class of odorants\, I propose a new hypothesis: that the MOS evolved as a navigation system\, to map the aqueous chemical world experienced by the early vertebrates. I further propose that this function retained its primacy in land vertebrates\, and that this spatio-temporal hypothesis of olfaction offers a new explanation for the patterns of neural architecture\, plasticity and allometry of olfactory systems in vertebrates. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/lucia-jacobs-chemosensory-cognition-and-the-evolution-of-olfaction/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130401T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130401T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215339Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004811Z UID:4212-1364774400-1364774400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Michelle Kline - Human adaptations for teaching: A new theoretical framework and empirical tests from Fiji DESCRIPTION:Michelle Kline: The University of California\, Los AngelesHumans are heavily reliant on cultural adaptation\, and have coevolved\nwith culture for millennia. Teaching enhances the fidelity of cultural\ntransmission and should be common in such a culture-dependent species.\n However\, existing data present a puzzle concerning the role of\nteaching in human evolution. While biologists have documented\nteaching in a number of non-human animal species\, extant ethnographic\nwork suggests that teaching is rare in non-Western human societies.\nBoth sets of findings are hotly debated. I argue that disputes about\nthe nature and prevalence of teaching across human societies can be\nresolved within an evolutionary framework that distinguishes among a\nrange of teaching behaviors with varying costs and benefits to\nteachers and learners. This framework predicts that some teaching\nbehaviors should be common across societies\, within particular\nrelationships\, and for the learning of particular kinds of skills.\nHere I present this new theoretical framework and confirm a number of\nits predictions using two data sets from fieldwork with\nfishing-horticultural villages on Yasawa Island\, Fiji. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/michelle-kline-human-adaptations-for-teaching-a-new-theoretical-framework-and-empirical-tests-from-fiji/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130306T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130306T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215723Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004812Z UID:4238-1362528000-1362528000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Montserrat Soler - Rituals\, Adaptions and Exaptations: Integrating Conflicting Perspectives on the Evolution of Religion DESCRIPTION:Montserrat Soler: University of California\, Santa BarbaraIn the last ten years\, there has been a surge of work dedicated to the study of religion from the point of view of evolutionary studies and cognitive science. These accounts of religion are divided into two main areas: one views religious concepts as by-products of other cognitive capacities\, while the other argues that belief and ritual are adaptations that promote intra-group cooperation. A novel way to integrate these approaches is to think of religion as a dynamic system where signalers (religious authorities) and receivers (religious followers) are engaged in a continual interaction of exploitative and cooperative strategies. Here\, I will present this idea in three sections. First\, I will describe how investigating the costs and benefits of religious authority and the receiver psychology of religious followers can help us understand why people believe and how those beliefs are transformed into directives for both cooperative and maladaptive behavior. Second\, I will present results from an agent-based simulation model that explores the success and failure of individual signaling strategies in different conditions. In the model\, different religious systems may function as risk-pooling enterprises in variable environments where leaders and followers alternate honest and dishonest signaling to compete for available resources. Finally\, data from an African diasporic religion will be presented to explore the relationship between religious leadership\, status and intra-group cooperation and to indicate directions for future research. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/montserrat-soler-rituals-adaptions-and-exaptations-integrating-conflicting-perspectives-on-the-evolution-of-religion/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130304T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130304T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215703Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004812Z UID:4225-1362355200-1362355200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Barry Hewlett - Teaching\, Trust\, and Social Learning in Aka Forager Infancy DESCRIPTION:Barry Hewlett: Washington State University\, VancouverCultural anthropologists Margaret Mead\, David Lancy\, and Barbara Rogoff indicate that teaching does not exist or is rare in small-scale cultures. By contrast\, recent research by cognitive neuroscientists Gyorgy Gergely and Gergely Csibra indicate that one type of teaching\, called natural pedagogy\, is a human universal\, part of human nature\, and not found in the great apes. They hypothesize that this form of teaching emerges in infancy and that it enhances humans’ ability to faithfully transmit “opaque” cultural knowledge\, such the function of a particular tool. Learners evolved to pay attention to particular cues\, such as eye and body movements\, and teachers evolved the skills to convey important information to learners\, such as pointing\, using personal names\, looking at or making sounds about important knowledge. Cognitive science research on natural pedagogy is limited because all of their studies have been conducted in laboratories with Western infants. This study uses videotapes of 10 Aka hunter-gatherer 12-14 month-old infants in naturalistic settings to evaluate the natural pedagogy hypothesis. The study shows that natural pedagogy exists in hunter-gatherers\, but that it occurs relatively infrequently. The study also identifies two other forms of hunter-gatherer teaching—distributed teaching and opportunity scaffolding–that are rare or do not exist in the great apes and occur more frequently than natural pedagogy. The talk suggests that interactions between inherent evolved cognitive mechanisms\, such as natural pedagogy\, and culturally constructed niches of hunter-gatherers that promoted trust\, enhanced social learning and made cumulative culture a distinctive feature of modern Homo sapiens. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/barry-hewlett-teaching-trust-and-social-learning-in-aka-forager-infancy/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130225T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130225T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215702Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004812Z UID:4224-1361750400-1361750400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Lynn Fairbanks - Developmental Programming and Resilience in Vervet Monkeys DESCRIPTION:Lynn Fairbanks: UCLAThere has been considerable interest in gestational and neonatal influences on developmental trajectories in humans and other mammals in recent years. This presentation reviews results from the Vervet Research Colony demonstrating effects of maternal condition\, diet and weight loss on maternal and infant behavior. To understand the impact of variation in maternal investment on development\, it is important to recognize that infants are not simply the passive recipients of variation in maternal care. Mothers and infants adjust their behavior in relationship to one another\, with the mother responding to her own condition\, and the infant trying to counteract attempts to limit maternal care.\n Longitudinal effects of maternal condition on juvenile behavior are then examined from contrasting theoretical perspectives\, including developmental canalization\, fetal programming\, resilience\, and stress inoculation theories. Results suggest that behavioral development is largely resilient to developmental challenges within an expectable range of experience. They provide support for stress inoculation theory in that juveniles who experienced higher levels of early maternal rejection as infants became more active promoters of their own social development\, while the inhibitory effects of adverse early experience on juvenile behavior were more evident under novel and challenging circumstances. The results are consistent with the view that infant and juvenile behavior evolved in the context of variation in maternal care\, and selection has favored strategies for immature offspring to get what they need for physical and social development. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/lynn-fairbanks-developmental-programming-and-resilience-in-vervet-monkeys/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130211T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130211T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215555Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004812Z UID:4223-1360540800-1360540800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:John Capitanio - Personality in rhesus monkeys: Some proximate\, ultimate\, and practical considerations. DESCRIPTION:John Capitanio: University of California\, DavisThere has been a growing interest in the study of animal personality\, and nonhuman primate research has played a significant role in this field for many decades. My research program has focused on the causes and consequences of variation in personality dimensions in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). In this talk\, I will focus on recent and current studies of prenatal and early postnatal influences on personality\, some physiological mechanisms by which personality is associated with health outcomes\, and implications of variation in personality for fitness-related outcomes\, as well as for outcomes associated with management of captive primate colonies. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/john-capitanio-personality-in-rhesus-monkeys-some-proximate-ultimate-and-practical-considerations/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130204T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130204T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215554Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004812Z UID:4222-1359936000-1359936000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Ben Karney - Gender Differences in the Importance of Attractiveness and Weight in Established Romantic Relationships DESCRIPTION:Ben Karney: University of California\, Los AngelesAmong strangers\, no variable has as much power to predict interpersonal judgments as physical appearance. In particular\, more physically attractive people are judged as more desirable romantic partners\, and generally males have been found to be more affected by a partner’s physical appearance than females. But does physical appearance continue to play a role in established relationships? We addressed this question across several studies of the early years of marriage. Drawing upon observational data on newlywed’s marital interactions\, and longitudinal data on the trajectory of their marital satisfaction over time\, these studies examined how the facial attractiveness of each partner (as rated by objective observers) and the body mass index (BMI) of each partner accounted for relationship processes and outcomes. In general\, these results suggest that\, in established relationships\, the absolute level of each partner’s attractiveness matters less than the relative attractiveness of partners within the couple. Moreover\, we observe consistent gender differences\, such that outcomes are more favorable in couples wherein wives are more attractive than their husbands\, and less favorable in couples wherein husbands are more attractive than their wives. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/ben-karney-gender-differences-in-the-importance-of-attractiveness-and-weight-in-established-romantic-relationships/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130128T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130128T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215554Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004812Z UID:4221-1359331200-1359331200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Mark Handcock - Statistical Modeling of Social Networks DESCRIPTION:Mark Handcock: University of California\, Los AngelesIn this talk we give an overview of social network analysis from the perspective of a statistician. The networks field is\, and has been\, broadly multidisciplinary with significant contributions from the social\, natural and mathematical sciences. This has lead to a plethora of terminology\, and network conceptualizations commensurate with the varied objectives of network analysis. As the primary focus of the social sciences has been the representation of social relations with the objective of understanding social structure\, social scientists have been central to this development. We illustrate these ideas with Exponential-family random graph models (ERGM) which attempt to represent the complex dependencies in networks in a parsimonious\, tractable and interpretable way. A major barrier to the application of such models has been lack of understanding of model behavior and a sound statistical theory to evaluate model fit. This problem has at least three aspects: the specification of realistic models; the algorithmic difficulties of the inferential methods; and the assessment of the degree to which the network structure produced by the models matches that of the data. \nWe will also consider latent cluster random effects models and touch upon issues of the sampling of networks and partially-observed networks. \nWe illustrate these methods using the “statnet” open-source software suite (http://statnet.org). URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/mark-handcock-statistical-modeling-of-social-networks/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130114T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130114T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215553Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004812Z UID:4220-1358121600-1358121600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:James W. Pennebaker - Using function words to understand people\, groups\, and culture DESCRIPTION:James W. Pennebaker: University of Texas at AustinThe smallest and most frequently used words in English are function words — pronouns\, prepositions\, articles\, auxiliary verbs\, etc. These overlooked words are profoundly social and can signal the ways people think\, feel\, and relate to others. Using a variety of text analysis methods\, it is possible to track function words to deduce an author’s age\, sex\, social class\, personality\, honesty\, status\, and emotional state. By analyzing ongoing interactions\, the degree to which couples\, groups\, or larger entities are listening to and effectively communicating with others can be estimated. The function word analytic approach has interesting implications for research projects in the social sciences\, humanities\, education\, business\, medicine. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/james-w-pennebaker-using-function-words-to-understand-people-groups-and-culture/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130107T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20130107T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215553Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004812Z UID:4219-1357516800-1357516800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Aaron Lukaszewski - The Origins of Heritable Personality Variation: An Integrative Evolutionary Approach DESCRIPTION:Aaron Lukaszewski: Loyola Marymount UniversityTwo basic questions in the study of personality origins are (1) Why do people vary in their personality trait levels? and (2) Why do distinct trait dimensions covary in consistent patterns within individuals\, rather than varying independently? The current presentation describes an integrative evolutionary framework within which both of these questions can be addressed\, and highlights supportive empirical findings. For instance\, since physical strength and physical attractiveness likely predicted the reproductive payoffs of extraverted behavioral strategies across most of human history\, it was theorized that extraversion levels are facultatively calibrated to variations in these phenotypic features. Confirming these predicted patterns\, strength and attractiveness together explained a surprisingly large fraction of the variance in extraversion in Studies 1 and 2 – effects that were independent of variance explained by an androgen receptor gene polymorphism. Study 3 then provided evidence that the covariation among a wide array of interpersonal traits (e.g.\, extraversion\, emotionality\, attachment styles) is orchestrated by their facultative calibration in response to common input cues. Overall\, these findings suggest that multiple types of proximate mechanisms – facultative calibration and specific gene polymorphisms – operate in concert to determine adaptively-patterned personality (co)variation. http://bec.ucla.edu/papers/Lukaszewski_BEC.pdf URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/aaron-lukaszewski-the-origins-of-heritable-personality-variation-an-integrative-evolutionary-approach/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121203T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121203T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215353Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004813Z UID:4215-1354492800-1354492800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Scott A. Reid - Perceived Distance Between Accents\, Religious Groups\, and Attraction to Ingroup-Accented Speakers\, is Calibrated to the Costs of Infection Risk DESCRIPTION:Scott A. Reid: University of California\, Santa BarbaraThere is evidence that humans have adaptations to avoid outgroup members who potentially harbor novel pathogens. However\, intergroup contact can produce fitness costs (e.g.\, violence and disease)\, or benefits (e.g.\, trade\, mates\, and technologies)\, which suggests that it would be beneficial to possess an adaptation that enables the accurate tracking of group memberships. We predicted that accurate group tracking is accomplished through cognitively differentiating between social groups\, and that this differentiation would be calibrated to the potential risk of infection. Consistent with this hypothesis\, we found that increases in pathogen disgust are associated with increases in perceived similarity to ingroup-accented speakers and perceived dissimilarity from outgroup-accented speakers\, particularly after exposure to pathogenic stimuli. Further\, the effect of pathogen disgust on the accuracy of social categorization was mediated by intergroup differentiation. In this talk I present evidence for this group tracking hypothesis for accents\, as well as recent evidence that extends the hypothesis to perceptions of similarity to religious groups\, and to female judgments of the sexual attractiveness of ingroup- over outgroup-accented male speakers. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/scott-a-reid-perceived-distance-between-accents-religious-groups-and-attraction-to-ingroup-accented-speakers-is-calibrated-to-the-costs-of-infection-risk/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121126T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121126T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215354Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004813Z UID:4217-1353888000-1353888000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Georg Striedter - What's Special About Human Brains? DESCRIPTION:Georg Striedter: The University of California\, Irvine. Human brains are much larger than one would expect for primates of our body size. They also feature more neurons and a proportionately larger neocortex. Prefrontal cortex\, in particular\, is significantly larger in humans than in other species. Although these features make the human brain unique\, most of them are in line with allometric expectations\, meaning that they can be predicted from the large size of our brains. Thus\, human brains are fairly typical primate brains; they just became unusually large. Nonetheless\, there are good reasons to believe that the evolutionary expansion of the human brain\, especially of prefrontal cortex\, caused evolutionary changes in neural connectivity and function. Dr. Striedter will review some of the evidence supporting this idea and place it in the larger context of brain and behavioral evolution. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/georg-striedter-whats-special-about-human-brains/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121119T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121119T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215354Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004813Z UID:4216-1353283200-1353283200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Christina Palmer - Maternal-Fetal Genotype Incompatibility as a Risk Factor for Schizophrenia DESCRIPTION:Christina Palmer: The University of California\, Los AngelesPrenatal/obstetric complications are implicated in schizophrenia susceptibility. Some complications may arise from maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility\, a term used to describe maternal-fetal genotype combinations that produce an adverse prenatal environment. As will be described\, maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility can occur when maternal and fetal genotypes differ from one another\, or when maternal and fetal genotypes are too similar to each other. Incompatibility genes for each of these scenarios have been implicated as risk factors for schizophrenia and a review of maternal-fetal genotype incompatibility studies suggests that schizophrenia susceptibility is increased by maternal-fetal genotype combinations at the RHD\, ABO\, and HLA-B loci. Maternal-fetal genotype combinations at these loci are hypothesized to have an effect on the maternal immune system during pregnancy\, which can affect fetal neurodevelopment and increase schizophrenia susceptibility. During this presentation\, data will be synthesized and the hypothesized biological role of these incompatibility genes in the etiology of schizophrenia will be described. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/christina-palmer-maternal-fetal-genotype-incompatibility-as-a-risk-factor-for-schizophrenia/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121029T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121029T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215352Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004813Z UID:4214-1351468800-1351468800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Rafael Nunez - Making sense of Time: Body\, Ecology\, and Culture in Human Abstraction DESCRIPTION:Rafael Nunez: The University of California\, San DiegoTime\, a fundamental aspect of human experience\, is elusive and abstract. We cannot perceive time directly through the senses in the way we perceive color\, texture\, or heat. In order to make sense of\, and talk about\, temporal experience we must construe it in a stable and tractable manner. This is achieved via cultural practices built on the recruitment of bodily-grounded mechanisms that make human imagination possible\, such as conceptual mappings. This remarkable but ubiquitous phenomenon manifests itself via ordinary linguistic metaphors as in the English expressions “the week ahead looks great” and “way back\, in my childhood.” Furthermore\, beyond words and grammar\, this phenomenon can be observed also through largely unconscious motor actions co-produced with speech — spontaneous gestures\, which reveal its deep conceptual nature. But\, is the human conceptualization of time universal? Based on shared general features of body morphology there is a widespread egocentric pattern which places future in front of Ego and past behind\, as in the above linguistic examples. However\, there are striking variations as well\, which can be documented with rigorous ethnographic linguistic/behavioral observations. In this presentation I will show data from our projects conducted among the Aymara of the Andes\, and the Yupno of the mountains of Papua New Guinea. The Aymara operate with a “reversed” egocentric pattern in which the future is conceived as being behind Ego and the past as being in front. More recently\, and perhaps even more strikingly\, we found that the Yupno spontaneously construe time spatially not even in egocentric terms\, but in terms of allocentric topography: past as downhill and future as uphill — a pattern that had not been documented before. Moreover\, the Yupno construal is not linear\, but exhibits a particular “bent” geometry that appears to reflect the local terrain. Our results show that humans make sense of time sharing some basic spatial universals\, but that striking differences also exist regarding the types of spatial properties that are recruited for spatializing time. The findings shed light on how\, our universal human embodiment notwithstanding\, linguistic\, cultural\, and environmental pressures generate and come to shape abstract concepts. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/rafael-nunez-making-sense-of-time-body-ecology-and-culture-in-human-abstraction/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121024T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121024T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215339Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004813Z UID:4211-1351036800-1351036800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Frances Chen - The Neurobiology of Sensitivity to Social Support and Interpersonal Conflict DESCRIPTION:Frances Chen: University of FreiburgSocial relationships are a source of support and comfort in our lives\, as well as a source of stress and conflict. Thus\, the ability to regulate responses to both positive and negative emotions and cognitions arising from social interactions can significantly influence both physical and mental health. In my talk\, I will present evidence from two studies suggesting an early-emerging and persistent role of the oxytocin system in sensitivity to social support. Specifically\, common variants of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) predict physiological\, psychological\, and behavioral responses to social support and stress in both adults and infants. I will also present results from a third study exploring the role of the oxytocin system in human social approach behavior. In addition\, I will discuss my ongoing research on how internal working models of relationships (e.g. perceptions and beliefs about the status and intentions of social partners) interact with neuroendocrine activity to influence responses to social stress and interpersonal conflict. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/frances-chen-the-neurobiology-of-sensitivity-to-social-support-and-interpersonal-conflict/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121022T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121022T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215338Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004813Z UID:4209-1350864000-1350864000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Steven J. Heine - Positive Self-Views\, East and West DESCRIPTION:Steven J. Heine: University of British ColumbiaA core psychological motivation for people is to view themselves positively\, yet for decades the vast majority of evidence for this motivation came from North American samples. More recent research finds that this motivation varies importantly across cultures\, because there are different kinds of positive views that are prioritized in different cultures. Positive self-views are primarily made manifest in North America through a desire to maintain high self-esteem – that is\, a desire to have a positive evaluation of themselves. In contrast\, the kind of positive self-view that is prioritized in several East Asian cultures is a strong desire to maintain face – that is\, a desire to have others in one’s social network judge that the individual is functioning adequately in their position within that network.\nThese two distinct kinds of positive self-views are associated with highly divergent psychological processes. In their efforts to maintain high self-esteem\, North Americans demonstrate stronger tendencies for self-enhancement\, they show more of a promotion focus\, maintain a largely internal frame of awareness\, and have more entity theories of abilities. In contrast\, in their efforts to maintain face\, East Asians show stronger tendencies for self-improvement\, demonstrate more of a prevention focus\, maintain a largely external frame of awareness\, and have more incremental theories of abilities. Evidence for cultural variation in each of these processes will be discussed\, alongside discussions of alternative explanations. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/steven-j-heine-positive-self-views-east-and-west/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121015T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121015T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215338Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004814Z UID:4210-1350259200-1350259200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Noa M. Pinter-Wollman - Individual variation in Collective Behavior DESCRIPTION:Noa M. Pinter-Wollman: The University of California\, San DiegoThe behavior of biological systems emerges from the\nself-organization of multiple agents that interact with one another\nand follow simple local rules. However\, not all individuals within the\nsystem are identical. I study how individual variation in the behavior\nof worker ants affects the behavior of the colony\, a complex\nbiological system\, as a whole. In social insects\, natural selection\nacts at the colony level. Colonies of harvester ants use interactions\namong workers to closely regulate their foraging activity and balance\nthe trade-off between acquiring food and loosing water due to\ndesiccation while foraging. I will present empirical work from the\nfield and lab along with computer simulations to show how individual\nvariation in worker behavior affects the speed of information\nprocessing by colonies. I further show that colonies vary in how they\nadjust their collective behavior to environmental cues linking\nvariation at the colony level to behavioral variation among individual\nworkers. By exploring the causes and consequences of individual\nvariation within and among social insect colonies I hope to further\nour understanding of how complex biological systems operate and\nevolve. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/noa-m-pinter-wollman-individual-variation-in-collective-behavior/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121008T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121008T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215245Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004814Z UID:4208-1349654400-1349654400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Hillard Kaplan - Tsimane Aging and Human Life History Evolution DESCRIPTION:Hillard Kaplan: The University of New MexicoThis talk examines what we have learned about the aging process among Tsimane forager- horticulturalists\, and the implications of our results for understanding human life history evolution. I review our latest findings on behavior\, inter-generational transfers\, physical function\, immunocompetence and cardiovascular disease. Tsimane men and women remain net producers until about age 70\, the modal age at death for traditional populations\, with significant downward transfers to descendants. They also show that men and women adjust their time use as they age\, adapting to physical decline. Cardiovascular disease is rare\, and heart function remains preserved into the eight decade of life. Immunosenescence\, along with functional declines\, appears to be the major driver in the increasing risk of mortality with age. The lecture concludes with a discussion of the theory of human lifespan evolution\, and important new directions for research. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/hillard-kaplan-tsimane-aging-and-human-life-history-evolution/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121001T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20121001T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215244Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004814Z UID:4207-1349049600-1349049600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Hanah Chapman - Moral Disgust Discussed: Emotional and Cognitive Contributions to Human Morality DESCRIPTION:Hanah Chapman: Ohio State UniversityBeing lied to\, cheated upon\, stolen from—these are among life’s most emotional experiences\, and even watching them happen to someone else can trigger strong feelings. Recent work has confirmed the important role of emotion in human morality\, but less is known about precisely which emotions are involved and how emotion exerts its influence. In this talk\, I discuss the role of distinct emotions in morality\, with a focus on disgust. I also describe a new line of research that aims to examine how emotion and cognition interact to give moral values their special weight in decision-making. Taken together\, these two lines of work suggest that both emotion and cognition are key contributors to human morality. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/hanah-chapman-moral-disgust-discussed-emotional-and-cognitive-contributions-to-human-morality/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120604T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120604T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 CREATED:20200922T215244Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004814Z UID:4206-1338768000-1338768000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Jeff Snyder - He Would Never Hurt Me: Women’s Preferences for “Tough Guys” DESCRIPTION:Jeff Snyder: UCLAIn general\, women in the U.S. appear to prefer prestigious men to dominant men under most circumstances. However\, some women select domineering men as long-term intimate partners – sometimes at a high cost to themselves. Such women are likely sensitive to their self-perceived vulnerability to danger\, and hence may select domineering men when the benefits of the protection that such men can provide outweigh the costs that they may inflict on their partners. Evidence suggests that women prefer formidable\, domineering\, and aggressive men when they also report relatively higher fear of crime. This effect appears to be independent of socio-economic status and does not appear to be better explained by a promiscuous socio-sexual orientation or life history variables such as father absence. In addition\, preliminary evidence suggests that while women recognize at a general level that pair-bonding with aggressive and formidable men can be costly\, women in such relationships do not report that their partners are domineering or coercive with them. This latter phenomenon may be the result of self-deception\, allowing women to discount the costs of pair-bonding with such men. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/jeff-snyder-he-would-never-hurt-me-womens-preferences-for-tough-guys/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120528T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120528T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 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 BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120521T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120521T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 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:20120517T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120517T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 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:20120514T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20120514T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T141341 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 END:VCALENDAR