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Invariances in the architecture of pride across small-scale societies.

ABSTRACT: Becoming valuable to fellow group members so that one would attract assistance in times of need is a major adaptive problem. To solve it, the individual needs a predictive map of the degree to which others value different acts so that, in choosing how to act, the payoff arising from others' valuation of a potential action (e.g., showing bandmates that one is a skilled forager by pursuing a hard-to-acquire prey item) can be added to the direct payoff of the action (e.g., gaining the nutrients of the prey captured). The pride system seems to incorporate all of the elements necessary to solve this adaptive problem. Importantly, data from western(-ized), educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies indicate close quantitative correspondences between pride and the valuations of audiences. Do those results generalize beyond industrial mass societies? To find out, we conducted an experiment among 567 participants in 10 small-scale societies scattered across Central and South America, Africa, and Asia: (i) Bosawás Reserve, Nicaragua; (ii) Cotopaxi, Ecuador; (iii) Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco; (iv) Enugu, Nigeria; (v) Le Morne, Mauritius; (vi) La Gaulette, Mauritius; (vii) Tuva, Russia; (viii) Shaanxi and Henan, China; (ix) farming communities in Japan; and (x) fishing communities in Japan. Despite widely varying languages, cultures, and subsistence modes, pride in each community closely tracked the valuation of audiences locally (mean r = +0.66) and even across communities (mean r = +0.29). This suggests that the pride system not only develops the same functional architecture everywhere but also operates with a substantial degree of universality in its content.

SUBMITTER: Sznycer D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6099881 | biostudies-other | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Invariances in the architecture of pride across small-scale societies.

Sznycer Daniel D Xygalatas Dimitris D Alami Sarah S An Xiao-Fen XF Ananyeva Kristina I KI Fukushima Shintaro S Hitokoto Hidefumi H Kharitonov Alexander N AN Koster Jeremy M JM Onyishi Charity N CN Onyishi Ike E IE Romero Pedro P PP Takemura Kosuke K Zhuang Jin-Ying JY Cosmides Leda L Tooby John J

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20180801 33

Becoming valuable to fellow group members so that one would attract assistance in times of need is a major adaptive problem. To solve it, the individual needs a predictive map of the degree to which others value different acts so that, in choosing how to act, the payoff arising from others' valuation of a potential action (e.g., showing bandmates that one is a skilled forager by pursuing a hard-to-acquire prey item) can be added to the direct payoff of the action (e.g., gaining the nutrients of ...[more]

PMID: 30068602

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Project description:BackgroundHumans life histories have been described as "slow", patterned by slow growth, delayed maturity, and long life span. While it is known that human life history diverged from that of a recent common chimpanzee-human ancestor some ~4-8 mya, it is unclear how selection pressures led to these distinct traits. To provide insight, we compare wild chimpanzees and human subsistence societies in order to identify the age-specific vital rates that best explain fitness variation, selection pressures and species divergence.MethodsWe employ Life Table Response Experiments to quantify vital rate contributions to population growth rate differences. Although widespread in ecology, these methods have not been applied to human populations or to inform differences between humans and chimpanzees. We also estimate correlations between vital rate elasticities and life history traits to investigate differences in selection pressures and test several predictions based on life history theory.ResultsChimpanzees' earlier maturity and higher adult mortality drive species differences in population growth, whereas infant mortality and fertility variation explain differences between human populations. Human fitness is decoupled from longevity by postreproductive survival, while chimpanzees forfeit higher potential lifetime fertility due to adult mortality attrition. Infant survival is often lower among humans, but lost fitness is recouped via short birth spacing and high peak fertility, thereby reducing selection on infant survival. Lastly, longevity and delayed maturity reduce selection on child survival, but among humans, recruitment selection is unexpectedly highest in longer-lived populations, which are also faster-growing due to high fertility.ConclusionHumans differ from chimpanzees more because of delayed maturity and lower adult mortality than from differences in juvenile mortality or fertility. In both species, high child mortality reflects bet-hedging costs of quality/quantity tradeoffs borne by offspring, with high and variable child mortality likely regulating human population growth over evolutionary history. Positive correlations between survival and fertility among human subsistence populations leads to selection pressures in human subsistence societies that differ from those in modern populations undergoing demographic transition.

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Invariances in the architecture of pride across small-scale societies.

Publications

Invariances in the architecture of pride across small-scale societies.

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