The Evolution of Human Normativity

2019 ◽  
pp. 139-153
Author(s):  
Carel P. van Schaik ◽  
Judith M. Burkart
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Functional Importance ◽  
Adaptive Function ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Hunting And Gathering ◽  
High Urgency ◽  
Human Subsistence ◽  
Strong Concern

Normative behavior is a human universal that is intimately linked to morality. Morality is an adaptation to the specifically human subsistence niche of hunting and gathering, which is skill-intensive and therefore relies on transmission of opaque knowledge and involves critical interdependence, reliance on coordinated division of labor, and synchronized collective action. This lifestyle requires the presence of a variety of emotions that coevolved with it as the proximate mechanisms enabling this adaptive function. The high-urgency feel to many of these emotions reflects their functional importance: it serves to give them priority over other motivations. It is also what, to contemporary humans, makes them recognizable as moral. The key components of human morality are (1) prosocial emotions, and (2) an urge to conform. Together, they produce the urge to comply with moral norms. Normativity is thus an integral part of human morality. It evolved when two preferences came together. Strong informational conformity, needed to enable the transmission of opaque knowledge, was already present in the anthropoid primate ancestors of hominids and hominins. The added component evolved with the evolution of strong interdependence: a strong concern for one’s reputation and fear of punishment, and thus strongly prosocial emotions. Thus, the emergence of normativity in our ancestors does not require a special explanation: it was an automatic byproduct of the emergence of moral behavior in our ancestors.

scholarly journals The motives for cooperation in work organizations

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
HELENA LOPES ◽  
ANA C. SANTOS ◽  
NUNO TELES
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Relational Satisfaction ◽  
Cooperative Behaviour ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Work Organizations ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Common Goals

Abstract:This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of cooperation in productive ventures, conceived of as collective action endeavours that require cooperation rather than mere coordination. It is argued that cooperative behaviour is grounded on three kinds of ‘common goods’, defined as goods that are shared and recognized as beneficial by the workers. These comprise common goals, relational satisfaction, and moral norms and values. The commonly held goods are associated with motives and behavioural rules which constitute both the reasons for cooperating and the means through which the dilemmatic nature of cooperation is overcome. It is further argued that the binding character of these rules is closely linked to humans’ ability and opportunity to communicate. Normative guidelines relative to management practices and directions for future research are also derived.

The Division of Labor and Proxy Agency

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Multiple Agents ◽  
Institutional Action ◽  
Institutional Agency ◽  
The Right ◽  
Proxy Agent ◽  
Right Intention

Chapter 13 first lays out the problem of proxy agency. An example of a proxy agent is a spokesperson for an organization. When the spokesperson, appropriately authorized, in the right conditions, with the right intention and message, speaks, we count the group as announcing something. Thus, it appears that the group does something but only one of its members acts. Proxy agency appears then to be inconsistent with the multiple agents analysis of collective action. Chapter 13 provides an account of proxy agency, focusing on the case of a spokesperson, that draws on the notion of a status function and constitutive agency to show it can be compatible with the multiple agents account of institutional action. Then it clarifies and extends the account by defending it against objections. Finally, it discusses the systematic use of the same terms in different senses in relation to individual and institutional agency.

Hunter-gatherer land management in the human break from ecological sustainability

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Feeney
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Ecological Sustainability ◽  
Is Research ◽  
Hunting And Gathering ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable ◽  
Human Subsistence

Evidence that human societies built on agricultural subsistence have been inherently ecologically unsustainable highlights the value in exploring whether any pre-agricultural subsistence approaches were ecologically sustainable or nearly so. The land management practices of some hunter-gatherer societies have been portrayed as sustainable, even beneficial. Research suggests such practices may fruitfully inform contemporary land management. As a human subsistence foundation, however, they may not have been ecologically sustainable. Figuring centrally in the late Pleistocene shift from immediate-return to delayed-return hunting and gathering, they enabled population growth, helped make possible the development of agriculture, and appear to have caused early environmental degradation. Consistent with this argument is research locating the origins of the Anthropocene near the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary, as societies were taking greater control of food production. It appears then that immediate-return hunting and gathering, which involved little or no land management, was the human lifeway most closely approaching ecological sustainability. Wider recognition of this idea would assist in understanding and addressing today’s ecological challenges.

scholarly journals Why Sing and Dance: an Examination of the Cooperative Effects of Group Synchrony

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Paul Reddish
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
Adaptive Function ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Cooperative Effects ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms

<p>The universality and antiquity of music and dance suggest that they may serve some important adaptive function. Why are music and dance cultural universals? One popular theory is that music and dance function to enhance mutually benefiting cooperation. While the cooperation hypothesis finds support from anthropological observations and recent experiments, the proximate mechanisms remain unclear. In this thesis, I examine if being in synchrony is a critical factor underlying music and dance’s cooperative effects. I define synchrony as rhythmically moving or vocalising in time with others. In support of synchrony’s role in fostering cooperation, a number of studies exploring two person interactions have found positive social effects from synchrony. However, it is not clear whether synchrony enhances cooperation in groups larger than two as typical with music and dance. This thesis describes five laboratory experiments that were conducted to investigate: (1) whether group synchrony increases cooperation; and (2) which psychological mechanisms are involved in producing synchrony’s cooperative effects. In the first three experiments, small groups of participants were asked to perform body movements or to vocalise words in time with the same (synchrony condition) or different (asynchrony condition) metronome beats. Cooperative behaviour was measured with a helping scenario and an economic game. A small increase in cooperation was found with synchronous movement compared to asynchronous movement (experiment 1 and 3). However, this difference was only significant with the economic game measure (experiment 3). When vocalisation was isolated (experiment 2), contrary to expectations, the highest level of helping occurred after the asynchrony vocal condition. A plausible explanation for such small and inconsistent effects comes from the method in which synchrony was manipulated. Following previous methodologies, the goal for participants was to entrain to their own beat. Yet in natural human ecologies, synchrony is a product of shared intentionality – the sharing of psychological states to produce collaborative behaviour. To better understand the contribution of shared intentionality, experiments 4 and 5 varied synchrony with shared intentionality, and then measured cooperation. These experiments revealed that when participants worked together to create synchrony, substantial increases in cooperation were found, for both synchronous vocalisations (experiment 4) and for synchronous movements (experiment 5). Synchrony was also found to significantly amplify two key hypothesised mediating variables: perceived similarity and entitativity (the degree to which a collection of people are perceived as a group). Path analysis supported a proposed mechanism by which synchrony combines with shared intentionality to produce greater cooperation through: (1) increased attention to the behaviours of other participants; and (2) reinforcement of successful cooperation. This thesis, therefore, extends previous research on group music and dance in three ways. First, the combined effect of synchrony and shared intentionality is identified as critical to the cooperation enhancing effects of music and dance. Second, it describes plausible mechanisms for how synchrony may lead to increased cooperation. Third, it provides empirical evidence in support of these mechanisms.</p>

Meeting at Grand Central

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Cronk ◽  
Beth L. Leech
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Common Pool Resource ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Slave Rebellions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter summarizes the book's findings regarding cooperation, coordination, and collective action as well as adaptation and the role that organizations play in fostering cooperation. It first considers four vignettes, each highlighting a contrast between a situation in which cooperation did occur and one in which it did not: water as a common-pool resource, grassroots justice in Tanzania, slave rebellions, and coordinated and uncoordinated air traffic. It then offers some observations regarding the relationship between the social and life sciences, with particular emphasis on consilience, emergence, and the scientific division of labor. The chapter explains how consilience is made possible by emergence and cites the study of cooperation as an excellent example of how the division of labor among the sciences can lead to a wide range of complementary insights regarding specific social phenomena.

scholarly journals Considerations of the proximate mechanisms and ultimate functions of disgust will improve our understanding of cleansing effects

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Tybur ◽  
Debra Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Function Versus ◽  
Adaptive Function ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Versus System

Abstract To understand the consequences of cleansing, Lee and Schwarz favor a grounded procedures perspective over recently developed disgust theory. We believe that this position stems from three errors: (1) interpreting cleansing effects as broader than they are; (2) not detailing the proximate mechanisms underlying disgust; and (3) not detailing adaptive function versus system byproducts when developing the grounded procedures perspective.

scholarly journals Why Sing and Dance: an Examination of the Cooperative Effects of Group Synchrony

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Paul Reddish
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
Adaptive Function ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Cooperative Effects ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms

<p>The universality and antiquity of music and dance suggest that they may serve some important adaptive function. Why are music and dance cultural universals? One popular theory is that music and dance function to enhance mutually benefiting cooperation. While the cooperation hypothesis finds support from anthropological observations and recent experiments, the proximate mechanisms remain unclear. In this thesis, I examine if being in synchrony is a critical factor underlying music and dance’s cooperative effects. I define synchrony as rhythmically moving or vocalising in time with others. In support of synchrony’s role in fostering cooperation, a number of studies exploring two person interactions have found positive social effects from synchrony. However, it is not clear whether synchrony enhances cooperation in groups larger than two as typical with music and dance. This thesis describes five laboratory experiments that were conducted to investigate: (1) whether group synchrony increases cooperation; and (2) which psychological mechanisms are involved in producing synchrony’s cooperative effects. In the first three experiments, small groups of participants were asked to perform body movements or to vocalise words in time with the same (synchrony condition) or different (asynchrony condition) metronome beats. Cooperative behaviour was measured with a helping scenario and an economic game. A small increase in cooperation was found with synchronous movement compared to asynchronous movement (experiment 1 and 3). However, this difference was only significant with the economic game measure (experiment 3). When vocalisation was isolated (experiment 2), contrary to expectations, the highest level of helping occurred after the asynchrony vocal condition. A plausible explanation for such small and inconsistent effects comes from the method in which synchrony was manipulated. Following previous methodologies, the goal for participants was to entrain to their own beat. Yet in natural human ecologies, synchrony is a product of shared intentionality – the sharing of psychological states to produce collaborative behaviour. To better understand the contribution of shared intentionality, experiments 4 and 5 varied synchrony with shared intentionality, and then measured cooperation. These experiments revealed that when participants worked together to create synchrony, substantial increases in cooperation were found, for both synchronous vocalisations (experiment 4) and for synchronous movements (experiment 5). Synchrony was also found to significantly amplify two key hypothesised mediating variables: perceived similarity and entitativity (the degree to which a collection of people are perceived as a group). Path analysis supported a proposed mechanism by which synchrony combines with shared intentionality to produce greater cooperation through: (1) increased attention to the behaviours of other participants; and (2) reinforcement of successful cooperation. This thesis, therefore, extends previous research on group music and dance in three ways. First, the combined effect of synchrony and shared intentionality is identified as critical to the cooperation enhancing effects of music and dance. Second, it describes plausible mechanisms for how synchrony may lead to increased cooperation. Third, it provides empirical evidence in support of these mechanisms.</p>

Humanitarian Aid and the European Union

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Pusterla ◽  
Elia Pusterla
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Governance ◽  
Member States ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Aid Policy ◽  
The Eu

The European Union Humanitarian Aid Policy (EUHAP) operates through the European Commission’s Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations Department (DG ECHO) in international humanitarian crises to help victims of man-made atrocities and natural catastrophes worldwide. EUHAP is a subject of vibrant debates given its sensitive scope of intervention and institutional uniqueness. This results, first, in discussions of the reason and legitimacy of humanitarian aid as well as the goals and impact on domestic politics of both donors and recipients. Second, EUHAP is institutionally provided with parallel competences that allow simultaneous and autonomous interventions of the European Union and Member States in humanitarian crises. This means that the EU and Member States can formally carry out independent humanitarian aid without obligation to coordinate. This makes EUHAP particularly relevant regarding the role of the EU as a humanitarian aid provider, the relations between the EU and Member States, the policy governance, and the policy implementation principles. First, coordination and cooperation between the EU and Member States are de facto essential, given the collective nature and global effects of humanitarian crises. Shared competence regulation through EUHAP may enhance the effectiveness of joint operations, overcome inefficient division of labor, and avoid divergence between intervention expected outcome and real performance. Second, parallel competences give to the EU the formal competence to carry out humanitarian actions and conduct a common policy, while Member States’ autonomous actions are not prevented. Indeed, despite the undeniable benefits of multilateral intervention, Member States may opt for bilateralism due to concerns for domestic autonomy and sovereignty breaches. Such collective action problems risk affecting policy coherence and effectiveness. Third, policy governance can make the difference in an effective and coherent EUHAP. This depends on the successful coordination of involved actors to avoid overlapping interventions, dispersion of resources, and particular political, economic, and bureaucratic interests to prevail. In so doing, Member States access the benefits of centralized coordination, monitoring, and division of labor and also avoid autonomy and sovereignty breaches. Fourth, the application of a costs/benefits rationale to common humanitarian interventions is not per se sufficient to ground and overcome the drawbacks of collective action and explain EUHAP. As per its Treaties, or in line with international humanitarian law, the EU adopts and pursues a humanitarian aid policy based on shared principles of solidarity, humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality.

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