Friends have recurrently provided social, material, and emotional support—helping humans meet a range of recurrent challenges tributary to fitness. But friendships are not the first type of relationship that comes to mind when thinking about research in social psychology or evolutionary social science. Moreover, when friendships are the focus, work typically foregrounds the friendship dyad. […]
Groupishness is a tendency to commit prosocial acts for which the pathway to compensatory fitness benefits is unpredictable. It is unique to humans, and its evolution is not well understood. A difficulty is that the adaptive value of groupishness comes from indirect reciprocity, which is hard to explain in societies that contain power asymmetries such […]
For better or worse, humans are now one of the major causal forces acting on the earth’s biosphere. Many would point to technology as the reason, but what exactly is technology? In this lecture, I will develop an evolutionarily grounded definition of technology that highlights three key features: material production, social collaboration, and cultural reproduction. […]
This is a special BEC talk in honor of the retirement of one of BEC's core faculty members, Joe Manson. Please note the special time! Refreshments and snacks on the balcony of the anthropology department will follow Joe's talk.
Dr. Keolu Fox, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, UCSD This speaker will be presenting in person. Indigenous Data Lifecycles for Indigenous Futures Abstract: According to The Economist, in 2018 oil was the most-traded commodity in the world. But in 2019, the demand for oil had been surpassed by the demand for data, including digital sequence information (DSI) […]
Dr. Martin Surbeck, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University This talk will be presented via Zoom. Aspects of competition and cooperation in the genus Pan. Abstract: I will talk about aspects of competition and cooperation in our closest living relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees. Firstly, I will explore how differences in female sexuality […]
Dr. Marina Davila-Ross, Reader in Comparative Psychology, University of Portsmouth This talk will be presented via Zoom. Laughter and Smiles: Towards understanding the Complexity and Phylogenetic Continuity of Positive Communication in Hominids Abstract: Laughter and smiles are arguably the strongest behavioural indicators of positive emotional states in humans and they also represent pervasive tools of […]
Dr. Tessa Solomon-Lane, Asst. Professor of Biology, Keck Science Dept., Claremont McKenna, Pitzer & Scripps Colleges More info: https://tessasolomonlane.com/ This speaker will be presenting in person. Growing up in a dynamic social world: early-life effects on behavior and neuroendocrine function Abstract: Why, and how, do individuals behave the way they do? Social behavior has long […]
Dr. Assal Habibi, Assoc. Professor of Psychology, University of Southern California This speaker will be presenting in person. The Brain's Crescendo; How Music Training Impacts Child Development Abstract: In an ongoing multi-year longitudinal study, we have been investigating the effects of a group-based music training program on development of children, beginning at age 6, using […]
Dr. Amy Lu, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Stony Brook University This talk will be presented via Zoom. Female counterstrategies to infanticide in lactating gelada females: adaptive, but not cost-free Abstract: Adverse socioecological conditions can have pervasive effects on health and fitness. For mothers, adverse conditions can trigger cost-cutting strategies that limit investment in reproduction. […]
