John Alcock: Arizona State University Department of Life SciencesI will review why I became an adaptationist and continue to believe that the theory of natural selection as amended by W.D. Hamilton supplies us with all we need in order to understand all aspects of animal behavior, including that of our own species. I will examine […]
Noah Goldstein: UCLA Anderson School of ManagementSocial norms can be powerful drivers of human behavior, which means that communicators who can properly harness norms hold in their hands a powerful tool for persuasion. If utilized properly, communicators can effectively convey such norms in ways that motivate individuals to engage in positive, constructive behaviors that benefit […]
John Mikhail: Georgetown LawScientists from various disciplines have begun to focus renewed attention on the psychology and biology of human morality. One research program that has recently gained attention is universal moral grammar (UMG). UMG seeks to describe the nature and origin of moral knowledge by using concepts and models similar to those used in […]
Tatsuya Kameda: Hokkaido University Department of Behavioral ScienceFeeling and expressing emotions appropriately in the right context is an essential component of social behavior. It has been suggested that emotional functioning has been weakened among contemporary Japanese youth, who exhibit acute social withdrawal, a "cultural pathology" known as Hikikomori (Hattori, 2005; Zielenziger, 2006). Assuming that Hikikomori […]
Peter DeScioli: Chapman University, Economic Science InstituteExploration of the cognitive systems underlying human friendship will be advanced by identifying the biological functions these systems perform. Here I propose that human friendship results from cognitive mechanisms designed to assemble support groups for potential conflicts. I draw on game theory to identify computations about friends that can […]
Caleb Finch: USC Davis School of GerontologyHuman lifespans have increased remarkably from the 20 year life expectancy (LE) of the great apes. The normative 40 y LE of pre-industrial peoples has recently risen to about 80 y in privileged populations during the last 200 years. I propose that diet and infections are key to understanding […]
Karthik Panchanathan: UCLA Department of AnthropologyBehavioral economics studies have shown people to have other-regarding social preferences. In the Dictator Game, for example, dictators transfer some portion of their endowment to recipients, who start out without an endowment. If people were self-interested, those assigned the role of dictator would keep all of their endowment; those assigned […]
James Fowler: UCSD Political Science DepartmentSocial networks exhibit strikingly systematic patterns across a wide range of human contexts. While genetic variation accounts for a significant portion of the variation in many complex social behaviors, the heritability of egocentric social network attributes is unknown. Here we show that three of these attributes (in-degree, transitivity, and centrality) […]
Nathan Bailey: UC Riverside Department of BiologySame-sex mating behavior has been extensively documented in non-human animals, but we still know relatively little about its evolutionary impact. What evidence exists that same-sex sexual behavior can be adaptive? Do the genetic and physiological mechanisms underlying same-sex mating help explain its ultimate cause and maintenance in populations? How […]
Robert Boyd: UCLA Department of AnthropologyIn this talk I explain how culturally heritable differences in wealth between social groups can arise and be maintained even when the only adaptive learning process driving cultural evolution increases individuals' economic gains. The key assumptions are that human populations are structured into groups and that cultural learning is more […]
