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:20060402T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20061029T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20070311T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20071104T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20080309T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20081102T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20090308T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20091101T090000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081110T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081110T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214304Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004833Z UID:4083-1226275200-1226275200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Noah Goldstein - The Constructive\, Destructive\, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms DESCRIPTION: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 not only those individuals themselves but society as a whole. However\, even thoughtful and well meaning communicators can convey norms ineffectively—or worse\, elicit a negative\, destructive backfire effect that may exacerbate an already unappealing situation. Yet\, even in such instances\, when a certain social norm leads individuals to perform destructive behaviors\, other types of social norms can be employed to mitigate the negative influence of that norm. I will discuss how\, when\, and why different kinds of social norms play constructive\, destructive\, and even reconstructive roles in motivating human behavior. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/noah-goldstein-the-constructive-destructive-and-reconstructive-power-of-social-norms/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081103T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081103T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214303Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004833Z UID:4082-1225670400-1225670400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:John Alcock - Why I Am Still a Single-Minded Adaptationist DESCRIPTION: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 the state of the study of animal behavior when I entered the field and the effects of the revolution that occurred around this time thanks to Hamilton and George C. Williams. I will present my take on the challenges to the “adaptationist programme” that have occurred since 1966. These challenges include Gould and Lewontin’s famous attack in the 1970s but also the current attempt to revive group selection led by David S. Wilson and E.O. Wilson. In addition\, I will explain why the cultural evolution approach to human behavior has only limited usefulness. I hope to be still in one piece when I am finished. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/john-alcock-why-i-am-still-a-single-minded-adaptationist/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081027T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081027T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214300Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004833Z UID:4081-1225065600-1225065600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Brooke Scelza - Bush Forager\, Shop Forager: Production and Consumption Behavior in a Group of Western Desert Aborigines DESCRIPTION:Brooke Scelza: UCLA Department of AnthropologyAustralian Aborigines in the Western Desert have gone through a nutritional transition in the last 50 years; moving from a diet of mainly indigenous “bush foods” acquired during daily foraging trips to one that includes store-bought products delivered directly to community shops. Although store-bought foods are more convenient\, their availability fluctuates due to poor road conditions\, community budget constraints and food spoilage. Small game and certain species of widely available large game\, on the other hand\, require more energy to acquire\, but have a relatively consistent rate of return. An evolutionary perspective on diet choice suggests that people should make choices that will optimize their daily caloric intake and respond quickly to resource depletion. In this paper I will look at the consumption of foraged and store-bought foods in one Martu Aboriginal community to better understand issues of diet choice\, foraging time allocation and risk management. I will then place this case study within a broader framework to demonstrate how an evolutionary approach can illuminate new ways of thinking about human behavior related to diet and nutrition. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/brooke-scelza-bush-forager-shop-forager-production-and-consumption-behavior-in-a-group-of-western-desert-aborigines/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081020T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081020T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214259Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004833Z UID:4080-1224460800-1224460800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Gary Charness - Three Field Experiments on Procrastination and Willpower / Territoriality and Gender in the Laboratory DESCRIPTION:Gary Charness: UC Santa Barbara Department of EconomicsWe conducted three field experiments to investigate how people schedule and complete tasks\, providing some of the first data concerning procrastination and willpower under financial incentives. In our first study\, we paid students $95 if they completed 75 hours of monitored studying over a five-week period. We also required people to meet interim weekly targets in one treatment\, but not in the other. In a second study\, the task consisted of answering of multiple-choice questions on seven consecutive days\, with staggered start dates and an endogenous task ordering (tasks varied by number of questions). In our third study\, participants answered 20 multiple-choice questions over two consecutive days\, varying whether this was during the week or on the weekend. Participants were required to complete an easy or difficult Stroop test (used by psychologists to deplete willpower) on the first day\, before any questions could be answered. We find evidence of procrastination and willpower depletion/replenishment\, as well as evidence suggesting a self-reputation interpretation. And yet the behavioral interventions we used led to outcomes that surprised us in all three studies\, although these outcomes are largely consistent with the standard neo-classical model.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/Charness_Procrastination.pdf URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/gary-charness-three-field-experiments-on-procrastination-and-willpower-territoriality-and-gender-in-the-laboratory/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081013T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081013T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214257Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004833Z UID:4079-1223856000-1223856000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Jessica Lynch Alfaro - Biological And Cultural Evolution In Capuchin Monkeys: Mapping Behavioral Traditions Onto A Cebus Molecular Phylogeny DESCRIPTION:Jessica Lynch Alfaro: UCLA Center for Society and GeneticsDespite growing interest in capuchin monkeys as model organisms for social learning and cultural evolution\, comparative evolutionary study of Cebus behavioral traits across field sites and species have been impeded by the lack of a robust phylogenetic hypothesis for the group. Here I present the first molecular phylogeny of Cebus and use it as a framework to study the evolution of social and foraging traditions\, including anointing behaviors and tool use. Using tissue collected from museum specimens of wild-caught capuchins of known provenance across Latin America\, I sequenced portions of three mtDNA genes (12s\, 800 bp; cytB\, 307 bp; d-loop\, 435 bp) and reconstructed phylogenetic relationships using likelihood and Bayesian methods. My data revealed Cebus as a monophyletic genus composed of distinct tufted and non-tufted clades. In contrast to morphological studies\, the data revealed that C. albifrons and C. libidinosis are each paraphyletic. Genetic diversity in the tufted capuchin clade was concentrated in the Atlantic forest\, and the Amazonian tufted capuchins were nested as a subclade within Atlantic forest capuchins. I estimated divergence times within Cebus using external fossil calibrations under the assumption of a relaxed molecular clock and used this timetree to test whether social and foraging traditions have evolved more quickly in tufted versus non-tufted clades. This study provides both the first detailed molecular phylogeny for Cebus and new approaches to examining rates of behavioral evolution for different traits across capuchin populations. Conclusions from this study have implications for the prioritization of conservation funding and data collection. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/jessica-lynch-alfaro-biological-and-cultural-evolution-in-capuchin-monkeys-mapping-behavioral-traditions-onto-a-cebus-molecular-phylogeny/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081006T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20081006T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214256Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004833Z UID:4078-1223251200-1223251200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Russell Jackson - What You See is not What You Get: Evolved Distance Perception Adaptations DESCRIPTION:Russell Jackson: CSU San Marcos Department of PsychologyDistance perception is among the most ubiquitous psychological phenomena known. Humans utilize distance estimation during all waking hours and even when sleeping. Distance perception likely takes place to this same extent in most other animals and distance perception also occurs in many non-animal species. \nFurthermore\, distance perception is one of the oldest researched topics in modern behavioral science. The most commonly cited founding of modern psychological science dates to Wundt’s investigations of distance perception in the late 1800s. Distance perception is among the most common mental tasks and has been investigated since the founding of psychology. \nUnfortunately\, some of the most important questions about distance perception remain unanswered. How and why do we perceive distances the way that we do? Why is distance perception sometimes wildly inaccurate? Why are there such big individual differences in distance perception? We have yet to answer to these questions well. \nRecent application of evolution by natural selection has yielded novel insights to these questions. I will discuss recent evidence from several empirical studies that discovered large magnitude visual effects\, including illusions\, in everyday distance perception. These illusions appear to occur constantly throughout human experiences and reach magnitudes of nearly a factor of two. These findings also illuminate a potential cause for the most prevalent\, but least acknowledged\, finding of all distance perception research. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/russell-jackson-what-you-see-is-not-what-you-get-evolved-distance-perception-adaptations/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080929T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080929T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214255Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004833Z UID:4077-1222646400-1222646400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Brian Skyrms - Evolution of Signaling Systems With Multiple Senders and Receivers DESCRIPTION:Brian Skyrms: UC Irvine Department of Logic & Philosophy of ScienceSender-Receiver games are simple\, tractable models of information transmission. They provide a basic setting for the study the evolution of meaning. It is possible to investigate not only the equilibrium structure of these games\, but also the dynamics of evolution and learning – with sometimes surprising results. Generalizations of the usual binary game to interactions with multiple senders\, multiple receivers\, or both\, provide the elements of signaling networks. These can be seen as the loci of information processing\, of group decisions\, and of teamwork. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/brian-skyrms-evolution-of-signaling-systems-with-multiple-senders-and-receivers/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080602T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080602T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214127Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004833Z UID:4076-1212364800-1212364800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Gyorgy Gergely - Beyond Imitative Learning: The case for Natural Pedagogy Evolutionary Mechanisms of Cultural Knowledge Transmission in Humans DESCRIPTION:Gyorgy Gergely: Central European University\, Budapest\, Stanford Center\nfor Advanced Studies in Behavioral SciencesHuman minds construct cultural products that form part of the environmental niche to which new generations of human minds must adapt. A remarkable feature of cultural transmission is that infants fast-learn a vast amount of cultural skills very early on even when they cannot yet fully grasp their relevant causal\, functional\, intentional\, or adaptive properties. This represents an apparent paradox: how can such cognitively ‘opaque’ cultural forms be successfully transmitted and maintained across generations? Are there specialized cognitive mechanisms evolved to make efficient intergenerational transfer of such cultural knowledge possible? \nThe dominant view holds that it is the capacity for imitative learning that serves the evolutionary function of\ncultural transmission in humans. I’ll argue\, however\, that presently proposed models of imitative learning face\nthe problem of ‘relevance-blindness’ as they lack appropriate selection mechanisms to differentiate relevant\n(to be re-enacted and learned) from non-relevant\, incidental to be disregarded) aspects of observed\nbehaviors. ‘Relevance-blind’ imitative copying would be a wasteful and inefficient transmission mechanism\nlikely to lead to distorted reproduction and eventual extinction of useful cultural innovations over the\ngenerations. \nI’ll suggest that the emergence of cognitively opaque cultural skills during hominin evolution and the\nconsequent need for their efficient intergenerational transmission created evolutionary pressure leading to the\nselection of a new type of ‘relevance-guided’ social-communicative learning mechanism of mutual design:\nthe system of ‘Natural Pedagogy’ (NP) (Gergely & Csibra\, 2006). On the naïve “teacher’s” side\, NP involves an\ninstinctual inclination to ostensively manifest – and guide the ignorant “learner’s” inferences to identify –\nrelevant cultural information to be fast-learned. On the naïve “learner’s” side\, NP involves evolved sensitivity\nto ‘ostensive’ (e.g.\, eye-contact\, contingent reactivity\, or infant-directed speech) and referential (e.g.\, gaze-shift\nor pointing) cues that are interpreted to signal the other’s communicative intention to manifest new\, relevant\n(and generalizable) cultural knowledge about a referent (and its kind). Such cues trigger a receptive learning\nattitude to fast-learn ostensively manifested contents even when they are cognitively opaque to the\nlearner. I’ll present evidence to support the NP hypothesis from our infancy studies testing the basic\nassumptions of the theory about the nature of early cultural learning in humans in a number of different\nknowledge domains. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/gyorgy-gergely-beyond-imitative-learning-the-case-for-natural-pedagogy-evolutionary-mechanisms-of-cultural-knowledge-transmission-in-humans/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080519T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080519T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214127Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4075-1211155200-1211155200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Katie Hinde - Magnitude\, Sources\, and Consequences of Individual Variation in Milk Production in Rhesus Macaques DESCRIPTION:Katie Hinde: UCLA AnthropologyLactation represents the greatest post-natal cost of mothering in primates and numerous studies have\nestablished that variation in maternal condition is associated with infant growth\, development\, health\, and\nsurvival. Presumably the effects of maternal condition are mediated through milk output during lactation\,\nhowever this relationship remains poorly understood. Here I present the first systematic investigation of the\nmagnitude\, sources\, and consequences of individual variation in mother’s milk for an Old World monkey.\nRhesus macaques produce dilute milk typical of the primate order\, however there was substantial variation\nbetween mothers\, as well as within mother\, over lactation in milk composition and yield\, and therefore the milk\nenergy available for the infant. Maternal life history was associated with milk yield and milk energy density was\nbiased in favor of sons\, especially first-born sons. Infants that had higher available milk energy at one month\nof age were characterized by higher activity levels and greater confidence at 3.5 months of age suggesting that\nmother’s milk may serve as a nutritional cue that calibrates infant behavior and temperament to maternal\nand/or environmental conditions. These results\, obtained from a well-fed captive population\, demonstrate that\nsmall differences between mothers can have important implications for lactational investment and infant\noutcomes. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/katie-hinde-magnitude-sources-and-consequences-of-individual-variation-in-milk-production-in-rhesus-macaques/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080512T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080512T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214126Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4074-1210550400-1210550400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Peter Todd - Investigating mate search with simulation and speed-dating DESCRIPTION:Peter Todd: U of Indiana Cognitive Science\, Informatics\, and Psychological and Brain SciencesThe choice of a mate is not only one of the most important decisions in our lives\, but also one of the most difficult\, fraught by lack of knowledge of the options to come and inability to return to options already passed by. How do we make this challenging sequential choice\, at the same time we are trying to convince someone else to choose us—and more specifically\, how do we decide when our search is over? To find out\, we could follow a set of individuals through multiple relationships over an extended period of time—or we can speed things up: We can build simulated mate-seekers who embody plausible decision rules for searching for partners\, and see how they fare in an artificial mating market\, comparing their behavior to that of aggregated humans. We can also speed up human mate-seekers themselves\, by having them participate in speed-dating events and observing their searches as they meet and interact with a succession of potential partners. With these methods we are testing a satisfying search model that adjusts mate aspiration levels lower after failed relationships and higher after successful ones. We are also able to test other hypotheses about the kinds of mate choices people make\, and how well matched they end up being. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/peter-todd-investigating-mate-search-with-simulation-and-speed-dating/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080505T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080505T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214126Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4073-1209945600-1209945600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Debra Lieberman - It's all relative: Altruism\, sexual aversions\, and morality DESCRIPTION:Debra Lieberman: U of Hawaii PsychologyMechanisms for detecting kin rely on cues that correlated with relatedness in ancestral environments to adaptively regulate mate selection and altruistic effort. For siblings\, one potential cue\, proposed by Edward Westermarck\, is co-residence duration. Another cue that would have been highly predictive of siblingship is seeing one’s mother caring for a newborn. Data from a series of investigations show that these two cues regulate the development of altruistic motivations\, sexual aversions\, and\, as a by-product\, moral sentiments relating to incest. Revisiting the natural experiments that fueled the discussion over how sexual aversions and moral sentiments develop\, I show that these two cues also explain the data from the Taiwanese minor marriages. Furthermore\, I provide new evidence that childhood co-residence predicts altruistic tendencies\, sexual aversions\, and moral sentiments in individuals raised in the communal fashion of the Israeli Kibbutzim. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/debra-lieberman-its-all-relative-altruism-sexual-aversions-and-morality/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080428T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080428T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214125Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4072-1209340800-1209340800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Susan Perry - Social learning about foraging strategies in wild capuchin monkeys. DESCRIPTION:Susan Perry: UCLA AnthropologyWhite-faced capuchin monkeys are best known for their innovation and traditions in the domain of social\ncommunication; however\, social learning appears to play a role in the acquisition of their foraging techniques\nas well. In this talk\, I explore several lines of evidence indicating social influence in food processing\ntechniques. Several foods are processed differently at different sites that are similar both genetically and\necologically. Within social groups\, those monkeys who spend more time together are also more likely to\nshare the same foraging technique. There is also evidence that monkeys bias their social learning\nopportunities to preferentially observe models who are foraging on rare or hard-to-process foods\, thus\nproviding useful information on what to eat and how to eat it. Developmental studies yield evidence for a\nconformity bias in use of food processing techniques\, even for individuals who have already learned both of\ntwo possible techniques. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/susan-perry-social-learning-about-foraging-strategies-in-wild-capuchin-monkeys/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080421T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080421T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214118Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4071-1208736000-1208736000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Gary Marcus - Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind DESCRIPTION:Gary Marcus: NYU PsychologyIn fields ranging from reasoning to linguistics\, the idea of humans as perfect\, rational\, optimal creatures is\nmaking a comeback – but should it be? Hamlet’s musings that the mind was “noble in reason …infinite in\nfaculty” have their counterparts in recent scholarly claims that the mind consists of an “accumulation of\nsuperlatively well- engineered designs” shaped by the process of natural selection (Tooby and Cosmides\,\n1995)\, and the 2006 suggestions of Bayesian cognitive scientists Chater\, Tenenbaum and Yuille that “it\nseems increasingly plausible that human cognition may be explicable in rational probabilistic terms and that\,\nin core domains\, human cognition approaches an optimal level of performance”\, as well as in Chomsky’s\nrecent suggestions that language is close “to what some super-engineer would construct\, given the\nconditions that the language faculty must satisfy”. \nIn this talk\, I will I argue that this resurgent enthusiasm for rationality is misplaced\, for three reasons. First\, I\nwill suggest that recent empirical arguments in favor of human rationality rest on a fallacy of composition\,\nimplicitly but mistakenly assuming that evidence of rationality in some (carefully analyzed) aspects of cognition\nentails that the broader whole (i.e. the human mind in toto) is rational. In fact\, establishing that some particular\naspect of cognition is optimal (or perfect\, or near optimal) is not tantamount to showing that the system is a\nwhole is; current enthusiasm for optimality overlooks the possibility that the mind might be suboptimal even if\nsome (or even many) of the components of cognition have been optimized. Second\, I will argue that there is\nconsiderable empirical evidence (most well-known\, but rarely given due attention in the neo-Rationalist\nliterature) that militates against any strong claim of human cognitive perfection. Finally\, I will argue that the\nassumption that evolution tends creatures towards rationality or “superlative adaptation” is itself theoretically\nsuspect\, and ought to be considerably tempered by recognition of what Stephen Jay Gould called “remnants of\nhistory”\, or what might be termed evolutionary inertia. \nI will close by suggesting that mind might be better seen as what engineers call a kluge: clumsy and\ninelegant\, yet remarkably effective. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/gary-marcus-kluge-the-haphazard-construction-of-the-human-mind/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080414T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080414T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214118Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4070-1208131200-1208131200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff - Embodied cognition in an emerging language: Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language DESCRIPTION:Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff: UCSD\, Stonybrook UWe report here on work we have carried out with colleagues Wendy Sandler and Irit Meir on an emerging sign\nlanguage\, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL). ABSL developed de novo in a small closed community\nof Bedouins which is now in its third generation of signers. In this talk\, we show how a new human language\nis assembled over a relatively short period of time. In this language\, the body emerges as a primary signifier\,\nfiguring prominently in the form of verbs\, particularly in grammatical notion of subject. Broadly\, we find that the\niconicity of the body and space around the body interacts with emerging grammatical structures\, including\nword order and morphology\, resulting in a complex story about the deployment of physical\, human resources\nin the service of natural language grammars. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/carol-padden-mark-aronoff-embodied-cognition-in-an-emerging-language-al-sayyid-bedouin-sign-language/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080407T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080407T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214118Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4069-1207526400-1207526400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Sam Bowles - The Coevolution of Parochial Altruism and War DESCRIPTION:Sam Bowles: Santa Fe InstituteAltruism — benefiting fellow group members at a cost to oneself — and parochialism – hostility toward\nindividuals not of one’s own ethnic\, racial or other group — are common human behaviors. The intersection of\nthe two – which we term parochial altruism — is puzzling from an evolutionary perspective because altruistic or\nparochial behavior reduces ones payoffs by comparison to what one would gain by eschewing these\nbehaviors. But parochial altruism could have evolved if parochialism promoted inter-group hostilities and the\ncombination of altruism and parochialism contributed to success in these conflicts. Our game-theoretic\nanalysis and agent-based simulations show that under conditions likely to have been experienced by late\nPleistocene and early Holocene humans\, neither parochialism nor altruism is viable singly\, but by promoting\ngroup conflict\, they could have evolved jointly. http://www.bec.ucla.edu/Bowles.pdf URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/sam-bowles-the-coevolution-of-parochial-altruism-and-war/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080331T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080331T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214117Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4068-1206921600-1206921600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Carel van Schaik - Dominance styles and male-male coalitions among nonhuman primates and humans DESCRIPTION:Carel van Schaik: Anthropological Institute & Museum\, University of ZurichNaturalistic data on nonhuman primates show that the degree of despotism among males in primate groups\nis predicted by the degree to which mating access to females can be monopolized. Degree of despotism\nshould affect other aspects of male behavioral strategies\, such as how long top-dominants’ tenure is\, how\ntop-dominance is achieved and which groups are targeted for dispersal\, as well as the feasibility and\nprofitability of different kinds of male-male coalitions. Primate data support these predictions. This primate\nmodel is then applied to human foragers. A fundamental difference is caused by the presence of weaponry.\nWhen opportunities for despotism increase\, violent coalitionary takeovers of top dominance and the formation\nof elites emerge. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/carel-van-schaik-dominance-styles-and-male-male-coalitions-among-nonhuman-primates-and-humans/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080310T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080310T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214117Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004834Z UID:4067-1205107200-1205107200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Becky Frank - The role of contingent reciprocity and market exchange in the lives of female olive baboons DESCRIPTION:Becky Frank: UCLA AnthropologyThe goal of this project was to examine the dynamics of exchange among female baboons and test\npredictions derived from a biological market model of grooming. Evolutionary theory predicts that cooperation\namong nonkin will be limited to reciprocating partners who monitor the balance of trade within their\nrelationships in order to prevent cheating. But primates may be cognitively limited to negotiating balanced\nreciprocity over very short time scales. If so\, then trade might be regulated in a biological market\, where\nsupply and demand determines the value of an exchange\, and individuals choose to trade with the partner\noffering the highest value. Individuals maximize their immediate benefits without having to monitor the\nbalance of their exchanges over time. When demand for a partner or commodity is greater than the supply\,\nindividuals compete for access to the preferred partner by raising the price they are willing to pay. Applied to\nprimate grooming exchanges\, a market model predicts that females will balance the amount of grooming they\ntrade within single bouts when all partners offer similar value. In some cases\, partners can offer other\nvaluable benefits and will trade those with who ever offers the most grooming in return. Thus\, females are\npredicted to trade grooming for access to resources when feeding competition is elevated and rank\ndifferences translate to differential foraging success. Females are also predicted to trade grooming with\nmothers of young infants in exchange for access to the infant. I tested these predictions in a group of 16 adult\nfemale olive baboons in Chololo\, Kenya. In this troop\, females only reciprocated within the same grooming\nbout 34% of the time and balanced their grooming more evenly over many bouts than within single bouts.\nNon-mothers preferentially groomed mothers of young infants\, but did not compete for access to infants by\nraising their grooming offers to mothers as the availability of infants declined. When feeding conflict within\ndyads was high\, females provided additional grooming to their higher ranking partners\, but they do not spend\nmore time co-feeding in return. These results suggest that female baboons are capable of monitoring their\nexchanges over time and can trade across some currencies\, but it is not clear that market pricing explains the\nobserved patterning of exchange. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/becky-frank-the-role-of-contingent-reciprocity-and-market-exchange-in-the-lives-of-female-olive-baboons/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080303T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080303T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214026Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004835Z UID:4066-1204502400-1204502400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Jelmer Eerkens - Material culture evolution: an archaeological perspective on forces and rates of change DESCRIPTION:Jelmer Eerkens: UC Davis AnthropologyLaboratory experiments and ethnographic studies show that many aspects of human culture\, particularly\ninformation\, can change quickly in the course of transmission. The archaeological record indicates much\nmore conservative rates of change\, at least for material culture. Is there common theoretical ground between\nthe micro- and macro- scales? This paper considers some of the factors that affect culture change and the\nrate at which material culture\, and variation therein\, might change in the archaeological record. As well\, it\nexplores the micro-macro perspectives. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/jelmer-eerkens-material-culture-evolution-an-archaeological-perspective-on-forces-and-rates-of-change/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080225T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080225T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214025Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004835Z UID:4065-1203897600-1203897600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:John Mitani - Cooperation in wild chimpanzees DESCRIPTION:John Mitani: University of Michigan Anthropology URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/john-mitani-cooperation-in-wild-chimpanzees/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080211T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080211T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214024Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004835Z UID:4064-1202688000-1202688000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Steve Gangestad - Human Estrus: Function and Phylogeny DESCRIPTION:Steve Gangestad: University of New Mexico PsychologyBroad\, ambitious conceptualizations of the evolution of human sexuality (and accompanying unique social\,\ndevelopmental\, and intellectual adaptations) offered by anthropologists and biologists over the last half\ncentury have been\, almost universally\, rooted in a foundational assumption: That women evolutionarily “lost”\nestrus—a distinct fertile-phase sexuality—and instead evolved “continuous” sexuality across the reproductive\ncycle\, which functioned to “conceal” ovulation. Recent research suggests that this assumption is wrong;\nwomen clearly do exhibit a distinct “fertile-phase” sexuality. This talk addresses a number of questions about\nthe conceptual significance and theoretical meaning of these recent findings: (a) Is this fertile phase sexuality\nappropriately referred to as human “estrus\,” and\, if so\, on what basis?; (b) What selection pressures shaped\nfertile-phase sexuality; was it shaped through direct selection or through indirect selection (i.e.\, as\nbyproduct)?; (c) Recent evidence also suggests that men respond differently to women as a function of their\nphase (typically\, being more attracted to women in their fertile phases than women in their luteal phases); is\nwomen’s fertility in fact not concealed? A general reinterpretation of women’s purported “lost estrus\,”\ncontinuous sexuality\, and concealment of fertility will be offered. The theme that a proper understanding of\nhuman sexuality requires a broader comparative perspective than is often brought to bear in evolutionary\npsychology is stressed. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/steve-gangestad-human-estrus-function-and-phylogeny/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080204T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080204T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214024Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004835Z UID:4063-1202083200-1202083200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Aaron Blaisdell - Intervention and Causal Inferences in Rats DESCRIPTION:Aaron Blaisdell: UCLA Psychology and Brain Research InstituteI report a series of experiments showing that rats appear to make causal inferences in a basic task that taps\ninto core features of causal reasoning. (1) They derived predictions of the outcomes of interventions after\npassive observational learning of different kinds of causal models. After learning through Pavlovian\nobservation that Event A was a common cause of Events X and Food (XßAàFood)\, rats predicted Food when\npresented with Event X as a cue but discounted the alternative cause A when they generated X by means of a\nlever press. (2) Rats showed evidence of reality monitoring. After learning an XàAàFood causal chain where\nX was a tone and A was a light\, when tested on X rats expected A to occur. But when A did not occur during\ntesting\, rats did not expect food. By hiding the light during testing on X\, however\, rats showed no disruption of\nfood expectancy\, suggesting that rats understood that A was unobservable. (3) Finally\, we present evidence\nthat rats treated their actions as special in causal learning. Discounting of a previous cause was only\nobserved with interventions but not with other observable events; rats were capable of flexibly switching\nbetween observational and interventional predictions; and discounting occurred on the very first test trial.\nThese results confirm causal-model theory but refute associative theories.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/Blaisdell_Paper.pdf URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/aaron-blaisdell-intervention-and-causal-inferences-in-rats/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080128T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080128T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T214023Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004835Z UID:4062-1201478400-1201478400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Mark Collard - Risk and technological innovation in small-scale societies DESCRIPTION:Mark Collard: Simon Fraser University Archaeology URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/mark-collard-risk-and-technological-innovation-in-small-scale-societies/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080114T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080114T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T213929Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004835Z UID:4061-1200268800-1200268800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Afzal Upal - Do we have religion because evolution favors opportunistic learners? DESCRIPTION:Afzal Upal: OccidentalCognitive anthropologists such as Pascal Boyer have argued that religious concepts are minimally\ncounterintuitive and that this gives them mnemic advantages. I will ague that people have the memory\narchitecture that results in such concepts being more memorable because it makes them better learners\nwhich gives them an evolutionary edge over their competitors. I will show how such benefits emerge in the\nreal-time processing of comprehending narratives such as folk tales. This model suggests that memorability\nis not an inherent property of a concept as Boyer appears to assume; rather it is a property of the concept\, the\ncontext in which the concept is presented\, and the background knowledge that the comprehendor possesses\nabout the concept. The model predicts how memorability of a concept should change if the context containing\nthe concept were changed. I will also present the results of experiments carried out to test these predictions.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/Upal_Paper.pdf URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/afzal-upal-do-we-have-religion-because-evolution-favors-opportunistic-learners/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080107T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20080107T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T213929Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004836Z UID:4060-1199664000-1199664000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Roger Sullivan - Revealing the paradox of drug reward in human evolution DESCRIPTION:Roger Sullivan: CSU Sacramento\, Anthropology\, and UC Davis School of Medicine\,\nPsychiatry and Behavioral SciencesNeurobiological models of drug abuse propose that drug use is initiated and maintained by\nrewarding feedback mechanisms. However\, most commonly used drugs are plant neurotoxins\nthat evolved to punish\, not reward\, consumption by animal herbivores. Reward models therefore\nimplicitly assume an evolutionary mismatch between recent drug-profligate environments\nand a relatively drug-free past in which a reward center\, incidentally vulnerable to neurotoxins\,\ncould evolve. In contrast\, emerging insights from plant evolutionary ecology and the genetics\nof hepatic enzymes\, particularly cytochrome P450\, indicate that animal and hominid taxa have\nbeen exposed to plant toxins throughout their evolution. Specifically\, evidence of conserved\nfunction\, stabilizing selection\, and population-specific selection of human cytochrome P450\ngenes indicate recent evolutionary exposure to plant toxins\, including those that affect animal\nnervous systems. Thus\, the human propensity to seek out and consume plant neurotoxins\nis a paradox with far-reaching implications for current drug-reward theory. We sketch some\npotential resolutions of the paradox\, including the possibility that humans may have evolved\nto counter-exploit plant neurotoxins. Resolving the paradox of drug reward will require a\nsynthesis of ecological and neurobiological perspectives of drug seeking and use.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/Sullivan.pdf URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/roger-sullivan-revealing-the-paradox-of-drug-reward-in-human-evolution/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071203T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071203T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T213928Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004836Z UID:4059-1196640000-1196640000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Michael Arbib - New Sign Languages and Language Evolution DESCRIPTION:Michael Arbib: USC NeuroscienceHuman language is far more than speech and its derivatives such as writing. Human signed languages like\nAmerican Sign Language are fully expressive human languages\, and speakers normally accompany their\nspeech with facial and manual gestures. Thus any theory of language evolution must address these integral\nroles that manual signs and gestures play today. What are the capabilities of the human brain that make it\npossible for humans to learn language while other creatures can not? How much structure must the social\nenvironment offer a child to acquire language? We probe these questions by studying two sign languages of\nrecent vintage. Nicaraguan Sign anguage developed in just 25 years while Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language\ndeveloped over at most 70 years\, and are still developing. We examine the emergence and dynamics of these\nlanguages to advance discussion of what supports society offered to allow these communities to exploit the\nhuman brain’s readiness for language in novel ways.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/ArbibPaper.doc URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/michael-arbib-new-sign-languages-and-language-evolution/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071126T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071126T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T213927Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004836Z UID:4058-1196035200-1196035200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Russ Poldrack - How\, and what\, can neuroimaging tell us about the mind? DESCRIPTION:Russ Poldrack: UCLA PsychologyIt has become common practice amongst neuroimaging researchers to infer the presence of mental\nprocesses from activation in particular parts of the brain. The validity of this practice\, which I refer to as\n“reverse inference”\, depends upon how selectively specific brain regions are associated with specific mental\nprocesses. I will present evidence suggesting that these associations are often weak\, providing little\nevidence in favor of the reverse inference. I will also discuss general strategies by which one can use\nneuroimaging to inform theories of mental processes. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/russ-poldrack-how-and-what-can-neuroimaging-tell-us-about-the-mind/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071119T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071119T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T213925Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004836Z UID:4057-1195430400-1195430400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Richard Lippa - Sex Differences in Sexuality\, Personality\, and Cognitive Abilities across 53 Nations:\nProbing Evolutionary and Sociocultural Explanations DESCRIPTION:Richard Lippa: Cal State University\, Fullerton Department of PsychologyBBC data from 53 nations and from more than 200\,000 participants provide new insights into sex differences\nin: (1) sexual traits (e.g.\, sex drive and sociosexuality)\, (2) mate preferences (e.g.\, the value assigned to\nphysical attractiveness\, intelligence\, honesty in a mate)\, (3) personality traits (e.g.\, extraversion\,\nagreeableness\, neuroticism\, people-versus-thing orientation)\, and (4) cognitive abilities (mental rotation\nability\, line angle judgment ability). Predictions that follow from social role theory—e.g.\, that sex differences\nwill be larger in countries with stronger gender roles—received little support in the BBC data. In contrast\,\npredictions that follow from evolutionary theories—e.g.\, that there will be consistent sex differences across\nnations\, which do not covary with nations’ levels of gender equality—received support for many of the\nassessed sex differences. Results for sociosexuality (sex differences were larger in patriarchal than in\ngender-egalitarian nations\, and women’s sociosexuality varied more across nations than men’s did) were\nconsistent with a hybrid model—that cultural factors influence women’s sociosexuality more than men’s and\nare superimposed on biologically-based sex differences. Results for sex differences in trait SDs (e.g.\, across\nnations\, women varied more than men did in sex drive and extraversion; men varied more than women did in\nagreeableness and mental rotation scores) also tended to support biological theories over social structural\ntheories\, except in the case of sociosexuality\, where results were consistent with a hybrid model that\nassumed cultural influences superimposed on biological predispositions: for sociosexuality\, men were more\nvariable than women in patriarchal countries\, but the reverse was true in gender-egalitarian countries.http://www.bec.ucla.edu/Lippa_sex_drive_and_sociosexuality_UCLA%5B1%5D.doc URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/richard-lippa-sex-differences-in-sexuality-personality-and-cognitive-abilities-across-53-nationsprobing-evolutionary-and-sociocultural-explanations/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071105T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071105T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T213920Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004836Z UID:4056-1194220800-1194220800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Kerri Johnson - Gender Counts: Why perceptions of masculinity and femininity are as important as the cues that convey them DESCRIPTION:Kerri Johnson: UCLA Communication StudiesIn the 1950s\, Doris Troy famously sang\, “Just one look…that’s all it took\,” implying that attraction can begin\nwith little more than a glance. Contemporary research in person construal generally corroborates this\nobservation\, but debate continues about precisely how physical cues come to convey attractiveness. One\nunresolved question centers on whether objective indices of masculinity and femininity predict perceived\nattractiveness. Attempts to answer this question have been frustrated by contradictory results. In this talk\, I\nwill argue that masculinity and femininity are better defined as subjective judgments of the gender-typicality of\na trait\, not as objective indices of sexual dimorphism. I will present data suggesting that once sex\ncategorization has occurred\, sexually dimorphic traits are interpreted to be either masculine or feminine\, the\ntypicality of which strongly predicts perceptions of attractiveness. Masculine men and feminine women are\nperceived as attractive; feminine men and masculine women are not. This perspective has several important\nimplications. First\, this perspective implies that the accuracy or error in the cognitive representations of sexual\ndimorphism will systematically skew gender judgments and thereby affect perceived attractiveness. At times\,\nthis may result in preferences that appear quite extreme by objective standards. At other times\, this may even\nyield preferences for traits that are gender atypical by objective standards. Second\, this perspective\nacknowledges the importance of cultural and ecological factors as moderators of the relation between cues\nand attractiveness. Perceptions of masculinity/femininity are likely to vary systematically with culture and\necology\, and perceived attractiveness should vary accordingly. In sum\, my talk will describe how perceptions\nof masculinity and femininity provide the evaluative interpretation of biologically relevant cues – engendering\nrapid and ready judgments of attractiveness from “just one look.”http://www.bec.ucla.edu/Johnson&Tassinary(2007).pdf URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/kerri-johnson-gender-counts-why-perceptions-of-masculinity-and-femininity-are-as-important-as-the-cues-that-convey-them/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071029T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071029T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T213919Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004836Z UID:4055-1193616000-1193616000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Rob Kurzban - Morality is (at least) a Three-Player Game DESCRIPTION:Rob Kurzban: Penn PsychologySubstantial debate remains about the ultimate and proximate explanations for why people choose to punish\nthird parties\, individuals involved in interactions that have had and will have no direct effect on the punisher.\nHere\, one particular type of third-party punishment is explored\, moralistic punishment\, enduring a cost to inflict\ncosts on an individual who has violated a perceived moral norm. Results from a series of experiments\nsuggest that 1) third-party punishment\, at least in these cases\, is considerably less frequent and smaller in\nmagnitude than would be expected from existing models\, 2) knowing that one will be observed in meting out\nmoralistic punishment increases individuals’ willingness to do so\, and 3) inducing emotions such as\nempathy has systematic effects on both moralistic punishment and compensating victims of moral wrongs.\nThese findings are discussed in the context of possible evolved functions of moral psychology\, focusing on\nthe centrality of moralistic punishment for understanding the nature of the moral game being played. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/rob-kurzban-morality-is-at-least-a-three-player-game/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071022T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20071022T000000 DTSTAMP:20260504T201547 CREATED:20200922T213918Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T004837Z UID:4054-1193011200-1193011200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Andrew Shaner - Age at onset of schizophrenia: Evidence of a latitudinal gradient DESCRIPTION:Andrew Shaner: UCLA VA HospitalVariation in the age at onset of a multifactorial disease often reflects variation in cause. In this talk\, I show a linear latitudinal gradient in the mean age at onset of schizophrenia in 13 northern-hemisphere cities\, ranging from 25 years old in Cali\, Columbia (at 4 degrees north) to 35 years old in Moscow\, Russia (at 56 degrees north). This striking association has not been previously reported. I consider several explanations\, including the effects of pathogen stress\, natural selection\, sexual selection\, migration\, life-history profiles\, or some combination of these factors\, and I propose a test of competing causal hypotheses.http://bec.ucla.edu/papers/Shaner07.pdf URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/andrew-shaner-age-at-onset-of-schizophrenia-evidence-of-a-latitudinal-gradient/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR