The Evolution of Social Behavior: Examining Motivations for Altruism John Cuchural Storia della Filantropia Professoressa Giuliana Gemelli June 19 th, 2012

The Human Condition  Conscious thought is driven by emotion  It is committed to the purposes of survival and reproduction  Why does social life exist at all?  What is the identity of the driving forces?

The Invention of Eusociality  Eusocial- group members containing multiple generations are prone to perform altruistic acts as part of their division of labor

Features of Eusociality  A common, defensible nest where the group is forced to interact with each other  Division of labor amongst the multigenerational group wherein all sacrifice at least some of their interests to the group

How Natural Selection Creates Social Instincts  Behavioral traits, like physiological traits, are hereditary  Distinction between Unit and Target  Unit- gene or arrangement of genes  Target-combination of traits encoded by units and favored/disfavored by the environment

 Some targets acted on by group: communication, division of labor, dominance, and cooperation in performing communal tasks  Individual-versus-group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness  What benefits the group is quite often at odds at what benefits the individual

Human Eusociality  Evaluation by members of group led to difference between insects and humans  This led to most successful strategies becoming those mixing altruism, cooperation, competition, domination, reciprocity, defection, and decit

The Selfish Gene  The selfish need for reproduction is what drives all evolution  Competition for mates and resources  Drawbacks to out-and-out fighting  Nobel acts as just a “smart” strategy to survive

The War of the Sexes  Mates share no DNA but have half interest in offspring  There is incentive to trick mate into investing more  Female’s best interest to refuse sex before ample energy is invested into welfare of offspring  Males faithful, Females coy

Family Ties  Based on Hamilton inequality family altruism makes sense on a mathematical level  Bee stinging and dying to protect hive  However there is a difference between brother and child

Kin Selection  Also known as inclusive-fitness theory  States that the more closely related members of a group are, the more likely they are to become an eusocial group  Altruism based of collateral gains of relatives at the cost of personal genetic fitness

Need for a New Theory of Eusociality  Hamilton inequality: rb>c  r defined as the fraction of genes shared by altruist and recipient  Argument with the looseness of the definition of r  Multilevel natural selection as a blanket understanding instead

Wilson’s Steps of Eusocial Evolution  Formation of groups  Occurrence of preadaptive traits causing groups to be tightly formed (nest-depend)  Appearance of mutations that prescribe the persistence of the group (knocking out dispersal behavior)  In insects development of workers  Development of colony life into superorganisms

The Origins of Morality and Honor  Good and evil a product of multilevel selection where group vs individual selection act in opposition to each other  Charity can be seen through lens of indirect reciprocity  Naturalistic understanding of morality and the ability to overcome instincts to create a more just world

Sources  Seminar Overview : Darwin’s Medicine: Evolutionary Psychology and its Applications,“Charity giving, philanthropy, and volunteering: Implications from evolutionary and social sciences,” Friday 29 May 2009, University of Kent  Wilson, Edward O. The Social Conquest of Earth. 1. New York, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation,  Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. 30th anniversary. Oxford University Press, 2006.