Module 2: [Sep 7-21] Animals, neuro-biological, and social influences on cooperation and conflict. Writeup # 1 due Fri Sep 16, 6p.

Sep 7 (W): 4. Cooperation as a survival strategy among nonhuman animals.

- - Woodruff Health Sciences Center, “Chimpanzees Choose Cooperation over Competition,” Emory News Center [blog] (Aug 22, 2016), Woodruff.pdf
  - Robert Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (London: Vintage, 2017), part of chapter 10, “The Evolution of Behavior,” 328-374, Sapolsky Ch 10.pdf
  - Optional: James Gorman, “Vampire Bats Know Sharing Blood with Friends is Good Manners,” New York Times (Mar 19, 2020), Gorman NYT 2020.pdf
  - Optional: Katie Hall and Sarah F. Brosnan, “Cooperation and Deception in Primates,” Infant Behavior & Development 48 (2017), 38-44, Hall Brosnan.pdf
  - Optional: Raghavendra Gadagkar, Survival Strategies: Cooperation and Conflict in Animal Societies (Cambridge: Harvard Univ Press, 1997), 1-12, 25-39, 57-108, Gadagkar.pdf

Sep 12 (M): 5. Inequality, fairness, and violent conflict among nonhuman animals.

- - Nicholas Wade, “Chimps, Too, Wage War and Annex Rival Territory,” New York Times (Jun 21, 2010), Wade.pdf
  - Frans de Waal, “Two Monkeys Were Paid Unequally [excerpt]” [video lecture] Youtube (Apr 4, 2013), https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg
  - Sarah F. Brosnan, “Fairness and Other-Regarding Preferences in Nonhuman Primates,” in Paul J. Zak et al., eds, Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy (Princeton: Princeton Univ Press, 2008), 77-104, Brosnan.pdf

Sep 14 (W): 6. “Us” versus “Them”: how malleable group identity influences cooperative behavior.

- - Robert Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (London: Vintage, 2017), chapter 11, “Us versus Them,” 387-424, Sapolsky, 387-424.pdf

Sep 19 (M): 7. The role of “social capital” and civil society in promoting cooperation.

- - Robert Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (London: Vintage, 2017), part of chapter 9, 291-296, Sapolsky, 291-296.pdf
  - Robert D. Putnam, “The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life,” American Prospect 13 (Spring 1993), 35-42, Putnam.pdf

Sep 21 (W): 8. Intra-group power and the influence of social hierarchies and rank on behavior.

- - Robert Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (London: Vintage, 2017), chapter 12, “Hierarchy, Obedience, and Resistance,” 425-477, Sapolsky, 425-477.pdf

Resources & Links for this Module

Recordings: Session 4 (Sep 7); Session 5 (Sep 12); Session 6 (Sep 14); Session 7 (Sep 19); Session 8 (Sep 21)
Discussion: Module 2 Discussion
In-Class Whiteboards: Session 8 Whiteboard.pdf
Session Activity Logs:
Assignments: Writeup # 1
Additional items:
- Sapolsky lecture video: overview of "Behave" -- https://youtu.be/GRYcSuyLiJk?t=590 [from 09:50 to 12:56]
- BBC Earth documentary video of chimp war patrol [caution: intense and graphic]
- Robb Willer and Jan Voelkel, "Here's What Persuades Americans to Support Democracy over Party," Washington Post: Monkey Cage [blog] (Sep 13, 2022), Willer Voelkel MC 2022.pdf -- and their full paper... and related information about Us-Them'ing in the US population here
- Implicit Association Test online: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
- The "fairness" experiment video link: https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg

Your workflow for any upcoming session:

Look at the learning objectives and discussion questions for the next upcoming session
Do the readings for the upcoming session before it meets
Revisit the learning objectives & discussion questions - can you meet or answer them?
Check in on the module discussion thread: post questions, or comments
Attend class and participate
Check back in on the same module discussion thread: post about your 'muddiest point,' the issue or idea you were most confused about from the past session, or a follow-up comment you want to make in response to something that came up in discussion

Session 4 Learning Objectives

Apply the Prisoner's Dilemma and collective action problem insights from the last module's readings to the subject of animal behavior
Describe what might constitute 'cooperative' or 'altruistic' behavior among nonhuman animals in various contexts
Identify several competing explanations of this cooperation or apparent 'altruism' among members of an animal species vis-a-vis each other
Apply each of these to a observations of cooperation in a wide variety of species
Evaluate the merits of the competing explanations of cooperation using these examples
Compare levels and the nature of cooperation within various species and seek to explain those differences using evolutionary logic
Consider the possible application of these explanations to human social and political interaction

Session 4 Discussion Questions

What constitutes 'cooperative' or 'altruistic' behavior among nonhuman animals in various contexts? Give examples.
Why, as the Gadagkar optional reading argues, might such apparent altruism be “paradoxical from the point of view of Darwin’s theory of natural selection” (p9)?
Why do de Waal's chimps cooperate, and under what circumstances? Do you find this behavior puzzling, and if so, why?
Why do individual animals in a given species cooperate with one another? What are some various possible explanations of that phenomenon, and what observational implications do those different explanations generate, that we might distinguish the causes from one another?
- Consider some of the candidate explanations or concepts from the readings, such as incidental coordination, reciprocity to advance a shared genome, reciprocity with unrelated others, and group selection. Refer to the Sapolsky reading.
We learned some determinants of cooperation from our readings last week, such as the role of repeated interaction, reciprocity, & the shadow of the future; and the impact of group size on cooperation levels. Do these apply in the animal behavior context? Why or why not?
In Axelrod's round-robin Prisoner's Dilemma experiments, for reciprocity, and the tit-for-tat strategy, to work, individuals must interact repeatedly with one another, recognize other players individually, and be able to recall how those others behaved in the past. Are these assumptions met in the animal context?
How might cooperation be sustained through reciprocity in a larger group, in which individuals may not interact with specific other individuals all that frequently, and in which an individual's first-hand information about a specific other individual will thus be limited or nonexistent?
For cooperation to be determined by genetic similarity, individuals must be able to recognize other individuals that are genetically related. Is this assumption reasonable in the animal context? In the human context?? Refer to Sapolsky's discussion of this issue.
Why do some species seem to exhibit more cooperation than others? What causes cooperation to 'evolve' as a survival strategy?
When, if at all, does cooperation represent 'altruism' in our common sense of the term?
Relate the evidence and arguments from this week to last week's. Think about Axelrod's computer tournament. Under which situations does it pay to adopt a deceptive strategy, as opposed to a cooperative one (see the optional Hall and Brosnan reading)?
Are humans exceptional in their propensity to cooperate or in the means by which they can adopt to promote cooperation?
What biological features and processes are necessary to support cooperation among animals? Neurological capacity? Capacity to understand others' perceptual and mental states?

Session 5 Learning Objectives

Analyze, apply, evaluate theories to the case of de Waal’s Yerkes chimp cooperation experiment [(a) individual, (b) group, (c) kin selection, & (d) reciprocal altruism]
Analyze, apply, evaluate theories to the case of Ngogo chimp ‘warfare’
Define ‘inequity aversion’, analyze its implications for behavior, and develop candidate explanations for inequity aversion and its evolution – Brosnan and de Waal’s monkey experiments
Apply and evaluate those hypotheses to cooperation among humans

Session 5 Discussion Questions

What instances of aggression and violent conflict among nonhuman primates do the readings discuss? What are some possible explanations of that behavior and the evidence regarding those explanations? What, in particular, are the competing individual- versus group-level selection mechanisms considered? What impact have humans had on conflict among these nonhuman primates?
What is “war” like among chimps in the wild?
Why does it occur?
How is this ‘adaptive’ and how would natural selection cause this trait to evolve?
Is this warfare a model for the genetic roots of conflict among humans?
Mitani’s puzzle: why do individuals take risks for the group?
In what way, as per the NYT reading, does cooperation "make war possible"?
What is the concept of "fairness," and what role might it play in facilitating and impeding cooperation? Do animals have a sense of 'fairness' and how does it affect their behavior? How would we know? Why would inequity aversion evolve through natural selection? What role might it play in shaping human cooperation?
**What is inequity aversion or response? Why do creatures have this response? What benefits might it generate for the individual?**
Under what circumstances does inequity reduce cooperation? How and when and using what mechanisms can partners overcome inequity-based reluctance to cooperate?

Session 6 Learning Objectives

Define ‘inequity aversion’, analyze its implications for behavior, and develop candidate explanations for inequity aversion and its evolution – Brosnan and de Waal’s monkey experiments
Define the “Us vs. Them” phenomenon, and identify examples of this phenomenon in animal and human behavior. Generate possible explanations of this, and of the evolutionary adaptiveness of this tendency. Analyze: what implications
Analyze: what conditions make the in-group/out-group distinction more or less important in shaping animals and humans’ behavior?
Apply to, and evaluate with, the Willer-Voelkel experiments on interventions that influence the apparent Us-Them divide in US partisan politics

Session 6 Discussion Questions

Questions on Brosnan reading and experiment video:
- What is inequity aversion or response?
- **Why do creatures have this response? What benefits might it generate?**
- **Q for us: under what circumstances does inequity reduce cooperation?** How and when and using what mechanisms can partners overcome inequity-based reluctance to cooperate?** Think about the role of in- versus out-group membership, the individuals place in the dominance hierarchy, repeated interaction and individual recognition/information, and other aspects of the social context.
Questions on Sapolsky reading:
- What is the Us-Them phenomenon, and how does it influence cooperative/conflict behavior?
- What explains/originates this tendency to dichotomize? Is this tendency to divide the world into Us-Them categories ingrained, genetic, universal? (And what is the basis for your answer to this?)
- What conditions activate a stronger Us-Them categorization tendency?
- How malleable are these categorizations? How can we overcome this tendency to divide, which in turn shapes our cooperative behaviors?
- STUDY on INTERVENTIONS. Analyze: the Willer-Voelkel Stanford experiment, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/13/midterms-election-deniers-republicans-democrats/ and discuss

Session 7 Objectives

Define the concepts of social capital and civil society and relate those to 'social construction' of Sapolsky's Us-Them/in-group/out-group categorizations
Explain and evaluate and critique Putnam's argument about how social capital can help to promote broader public interest outcomes
Analyze and evaluate these competing arguments as applied to the contemporary US case

Session 7 Discussion Questions

Key theme for the day: whether, how, and under what circumstances a society with many well-organized interest groups, what Madison called 'factions,' might still be able to produce civic and political outcomes that best advance the overall public interest, that avoid intensification of conflict among competing groups, and that build a sense of shared interest even where diverse interests are a prevalent basis for identity and organization?
Putnam highlights the role of "social capital."
Critiques of Putnam?
How does Putnam's concept of social capital, and the source of it, relate to the contextual emergence of Us-Them categories, as per Sapolsky?
How would you assess the degree of social capital in contemporary United States civil society?

Session 7 Resources

- Map of regions in Italy
- Reinhardt family trip photos: Sienna Piazza del Campo July 2019; Sienna neighborhood parade July 2019
- Putnam's "Social Capital Primer"
- Associational participation and anti-immigrant violence in South Africa

GSS Trends

Various animal examples

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