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Lectures summary Biology of Human Behavior
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Biology of Human BehaviourLecture 1 Van den Berg
Social behaviour: behaviour that has fitness consequences for both the individual that performs the
behaviour, and at least one other individual.
Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings impossible to
perform on infants and animals.
Coordination game: two individuals hunt the same animal result in positive
pay off.
1 bison hunter in population results in only mammoth hunters
Half bison hunters, half mammoth hunters results also in only mammoth
hunters
Evasion game (Hawk-Dove game): two individuals competing over resources.
Aggressive individual wins from peaceful individual +2
Aggressive individual fights aggressive individual great change of getting hurt
means getting a negative payoff -2.
One aggressive individual in population, the rest is all peaceful will lead to
stable equilibrium.
One peaceful individual in population, the rest is aggressive will also lead to
stable equilibrium.
The rare type always has the advantage and will increase in population, leading to
the same equilibrium.
,Altruism = behaviour of an animal that benefits another at its own expense.
Charles Darwin: “He who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than
betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble
nature”
Co-operators have no benefit at all will extinct eventually.
Cost (C) = 1
Benefit (B) = 2
One co-operator in population results in only defectors
Half co-operators and half defectors results also in only defectors
One defector in population results in only defectors
Tragedy of the commons = a situation in a shared-resource system where individual users, acting
independently according to their own self-interest, behave contrary to the common good of all users
by depleting or spoiling the shared resource through their collective action.
Will lead to an equilibrium that is bad for everybody.
How can altruism still evolve?
Kin selection = natural selection in which an apparently disadvantageous characteristic
(especially altruistic behaviour) increases in the population due to increased survival of
individuals genetically related to those possessing the characteristic.
o rb > c
Reciprocity = is a social norm of responding to a positive action with another positive action,
rewarding kind actions. An individuals helping will be seen results in getting help by another
individual.
o Direct
o Indirect
,Part II lecture 1
Genetical evolution
There is a discrete unit of inheritance
The Mendelian inheritance rules
Central dogma of molecular biology
Cultural vs Genetic evolution
We can have selection, but
o It is intertwined with inheritance through selective social leaning
New variation is generated, but
o During the life of an individual
o In a directed way
We have inheritance, but
o It’s not a hardwired particle that is physically transmitted
o It is not one-way
o There are no simple rules
Culture and cooperation
Both inherently social
Both prominent in humans
Most people contributed more when
they could punish others.
N-condition: contribution
P-condition: punishment
Lecture 2, 3 and 4 Schiefenhovel
Cross-cultural human ethology: to find out the human condition
Ethology: the study of normal behaviour
Jurgen Aschoff: founder of chronobiology
, New Guinea - Melanesia
A veritable cultural „laboratory“ (appr. 1,000 culture/language groups)
Papuan peoples: arrival appr 50,000 b.p.
Austronesian peoples: arrival 5,000 b.p.
Eipo, member of Mek group of culture and languages.
Humans used to be seen as imperfect and animals as perfect.
Greek story: humans lacked abilities that animals did have, like having a good skin, good smell and
good hearing. God made up for these disabilities of humans: having a well-developed brain and
language.
Humans are excentric, defective and non-fixed.
Our success on earth comes from the fact that we are unspecialized.
Ethnomedicine
Papuans: ancient population, lived in isolation useful to study culture and behaviour.
Austronesian: biggest language family (size, expanded).
Sapir-Whorf theory: all the things we see have names.
Linguistic encoding: cultural relativism = Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs, values,
and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged
against the criteria of another.
Opposite of cultural relativism is universality.
Heteronyms: names that come from the outside. Like west and east for people in New Guinea.
Cultural sexual dimorphism: differences between men and women.
Around the sacred men‘s houses yoek aik =taboo for women
Around the women‘s house bary eik =taboo for men
Human Ethological research: trying to understand the evolutionary biology of our perceptions,
emotions, mind, behaviour.
Crosscultural research is one approach to find out about the conditio humana
Taro (Colocasia esculenta; am) is the most important first food domesticated in Highland New
Guinea. (8,000 years ago)
Sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum), Saccharum edule andother food plants as well.
Insects and their larvae are food reserved for females and children.
Drinking water in bamboo tubes - no alcohol despite possible sources.
Bobyangde & her first baby: breastfeeding for appr. 2 ½ years (natural contraception)
Surprisingly good status of health -despite protein „shortage“.
The Eipo, as their neighbours, have often very athletic bodies and are extraordinary in their
performance, e.g. carrying loads of their own body weight across long distances and upwards for
2,000 m altitude or more in one day.
All this with minimal protein, appr. 50% of the daily minimum requirement of WHO.
Comparing animals is important in cross-cultural research zoology, primatology.
Child ethology: basis of biology and not culture.
Children born blind and deaf show similar behaviour as normal children (smiling behaviour)
Subsistence strategy: how we get our food.
1. Hunting-gathering and fishing. Hunting by men, gathering by women.
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