scholarly journals Harsh childhood environmental characteristics predict exploitation and retaliation in humans

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1750) ◽  
pp. 20122104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. McCullough ◽  
Eric J. Pedersen ◽  
Jaclyn M. Schroder ◽  
Benjamin A. Tabak ◽  
Charles S. Carver
Keyword(s):  
Cooperative Interaction ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Social Strategies ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Childhood Exposure ◽  
Developmental Variation ◽  
Adaptive Calibration ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Childhood Environment

Across and within societies, people vary in their propensities towards exploitative and retaliatory defection in potentially cooperative interaction. We hypothesized that this variation reflects adaptive responses to variation in cues during childhood that life will be harsh, unstable and short—cues that probabilistically indicate that it is in one's fitness interests to exploit co-operators and to retaliate quickly against defectors. Here, we show that childhood exposure to family neglect, conflict and violence, and to neighbourhood crime, were positively associated for men (but not women) with exploitation of an interaction partner and retaliatory defection after that partner began to defect. The associations between childhood environment and both forms of defection for men appeared to be mediated by participants' endorsement of a ‘code of honour’. These results suggest that individual differences in mutual benefit cooperation are not merely due to genetic noise, random developmental variation or the operation of domain-general cultural learning mechanisms, but rather, might reflect the adaptive calibration of social strategies to local social–ecological conditions.

Experience-Driven Plasticity and the Emergence of Psychopathology: A Mechanistic Framework Integrating Development and the Environment into the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie A McLaughlin ◽  
Laurel Joy Gabard-Durnam
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Early Life Adversity ◽  
Developmental Variation ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
Environmental Experience ◽  
Dependent Learning ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Research Domain ◽  
Specific Learning

Despite the clear importance of a developmental perspective for understanding the emergence of psychopathology across the life-course, such a perspective has yet to be integrated into the RDoC model. In this paper, we articulate a framework that incorporates developmentally-specific learning mechanisms that reflect experience-driven plasticity as additional units of analysis in the existing RDoC matrix. These include both experience-expectant learning mechanisms that occur during sensitive periods of development and experience-dependent learning mechanisms that may exhibit substantial variation across development. Incorporating these learning mechanisms allows for clear integration not only of development but also environmental experience into the RDoC model. We demonstrate how individual differences in environmental experiences—such as early-life adversity—can be leveraged to identify experience-driven plasticity patterns across development and apply this framework to consider how environmental experience shapes key biobehavioral processes that comprise the RDoC model. This framework provides a structure for understanding how affective, cognitive, social, and neurobiological processes are shaped by experience across development and ultimately contribute to the emergence of psychopathology. We demonstrate how incorporating an experience-driven plasticity framework is critical for understanding the development of many processes subsumed within the RDoC model, which will contribute to greater understanding of developmental variation in the etiology of psychopathology and can be leveraged to identify potential windows of heightened developmental plasticity when clinical interventions might be maximally efficacious.

scholarly journals Social-ecological innovation: adaptive responses to urban environmental conditions

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 1063-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Dennis ◽  
Richard P. Armitage ◽  
Philip James
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Ecological Innovation

scholarly journals Social-ecological innovation in remote mountain areas: Adaptive responses of forest-dependent communities to the challenges of a changing world

2018 ◽  
Vol 613-614 ◽  
pp. 894-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Melnykovych ◽  
Maria Nijnik ◽  
Ihor Soloviy ◽  
Albert Nijnik ◽  
Simo Sarkki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Mountain Areas ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Ecological Innovation ◽  
Changing World

scholarly journals Match and mismatch: conservation physiology, nutritional ecology and the timescales of biological adaptation

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1596) ◽  
pp. 1628-1646 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Raubenheimer ◽  
Stephen J. Simpson ◽  
Alice H. Tait
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Ecology ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Geometric Framework ◽  
Conservation Physiology ◽  
Genetic Changes ◽  
Integrative Framework ◽  
High Level ◽  
Developmental Responses

Conservation physiology (CP) and nutritional ecology (NE) are both integrative sciences that share the fundamental aim of understanding the patterns, mechanisms and consequences of animal responses to changing environments. Here, we explore the high-level similarities and differences between CP and NE, identifying as central themes to both fields the multiple timescales over which animals adapt (and fail to adapt) to their environments, and the need for integrative models to study these processes. At one extreme are the short-term regulatory responses that modulate the state of animals in relation to the environment, which are variously considered under the concepts of homeostasis, homeorhesis, enantiostasis, heterostasis and allostasis. In the longer term are developmental responses, including phenotypic plasticity and transgenerational effects mediated by non-genomic influences such as parental physiology, epigenetic effects and cultural learning. Over a longer timescale still are the cumulative genetic changes that take place in Darwinian evolution. We present examples showing how the adaptive responses of animals across these timescales have been represented in an integrative framework from NE, the geometric framework (GF) for nutrition, and close with an illustration of how GF can be applied to the central issue in CP, animal conservation.

Imitation: Neither instinct nor gadget, but a cultural starting point?

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey J. Powell
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Starting Point

Abstract Heyes asks whether cultural learning mechanisms are cognitive instincts or cognitive gadgets. I argue that imitation does not fall into either category. Instead, its acquisition is promoted by its value in social interactions, which is evident across phylogeny and ontogeny and does not depend on the role of imitation in cultural learning.

The Psychological Foundations of Ritual Learning

2021 ◽  
pp. 163-194
Author(s):  
Rachel E. Watson-Jones ◽  
Nicole J. Wen ◽  
Cristine H. Legare
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Research ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Contextual Cues ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Fixedness ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Ritual Behavior ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Ritual Learning

Abstract ritual is a universal feature of human culture. A decade of psychological research provides new insight into the early emerging propensity for ritual learning. Children learn the ritual practices and instrumental skills of their communities by observing and imitating trusted group members such as adults and peers. They use social and contextual cues to determine when an action is an instrumental skill versus a ritual, and they modify their behavior accordingly. When behavior is interpreted as a ritual, children imitate with higher fidelity, engage in less innovation, are more accurate when detecting differences, and display more functional fixedness than when behavior is interpreted as instrumental. Children and adults also transmit ritual behavior to others with higher fidelity than they do instrumental behavior. The authors propose that affiliation with social groups motivates imitative fidelity of ritual. Species-specific social learning mechanisms facilitate the transmission of instrumental skills as well as rituals intergenerationally and enable cumulative cultural learning.

Engaging Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in Environmental Management Could Alleviate Scale Mismatches in Social–Ecological Systems

BioScience ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (8) ◽  
pp. 699-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R Herse ◽  
Phil O’B Lyver ◽  
Nigel Scott ◽  
Angus R McIntosh ◽  
Simon C Coats ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Ecological Feedbacks ◽  
Fine Resolution

Abstract Scale mismatches in social–ecological systems constrain conservation by obscuring signals of environmental change, which could otherwise feed back to inform adaptive responses and solutions. We argue that engaging indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) in place-based environmental management could generate the fine-resolution information and workforce needed to alleviate scale mismatches. We illustrate our argument using a case study initiated by Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand and demonstrate that the current broad scales of hunting regulation and assessment in black swan (kakī anau, Cygnus atratus) management could obscure local ecological drivers of populations. Many IPLC can facilitate adaptive place-based management by continually monitoring ecological feedbacks (e.g., population numbers, habitat conditions) at fine resolutions through customary resource use and observations. However, disregard for IPLC rights, scepticism of traditional ecological knowledge, restricted opportunity to connect with resources, compartmentalization of resource management, and insufficient funding limit IPLC engagement and must be overcome to alleviate scale mismatches.

scholarly journals Structures, Systems and Differences that Matter: Casting an Ecological-Intersectionality Perspective on Female Subsistence Farmers’ Experiences of the Climate Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-582
Author(s):  
Laurel Steinfield ◽  
Diane Holt
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Subsistence Farmers ◽  
Ecological Conditions ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Female Farmers ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
The Voice

Based on research with subsistence farmers in Kenya, this article applies a gender and ecological-informed intersectionality lens to explores how and why overlapping modes of social injustices and ecological conditions augment subsistence female farmers’ vulnerability and shape their (non)adaptive responses to the climate crisis. We uncover the inter-locking and underlying social/ecological power dynamics at macro (global; biosphere), meso (country; local ecosystems), and micro (interpersonal, personal; inter-populations/communities of organisms) levels, revealing how these human- and natural-world elements intra-act and affect consumers’ actions/vulnerabilities and undermine the effectiveness of climate-resilient interventions. We call for scholars/practitioners to identify and address intersecting global and localized power dynamics (including their own positions of power), to add a gender- and ecological-focus, and to include the voice and perspective of all participants so that solutions do not increase (gendered) inequalities/inequities or vulnerabilities.

scholarly journals Artificial evolution of robot bodies and control: on the interaction between evolution, learning and culture

2021 ◽  
Vol 377 (1843) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Hart ◽  
Léni K. Le Goff
Keyword(s):  
General Scheme ◽  
The Body ◽  
Robotic Systems ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Artificial Evolution ◽  
Collective Knowledge ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Cumulative Culture ◽  
And Control ◽  
Future Work

We survey and reflect on how learning (in the form of individual learning and/or culture) can augment evolutionary approaches to the joint optimization of the body and control of a robot. We focus on a class of applications where the goal is to evolve the body and brain of a single robot to optimize performance on a specified task. The review is grounded in a general framework for evolution which permits the interaction of artificial evolution acting on a population with individual and cultural learning mechanisms. We discuss examples of variations of the general scheme of ‘evolution plus learning’ from a broad range of robotic systems, and reflect on how the interaction of the two paradigms influences diversity, performance and rate of improvement. Finally, we suggest a number of avenues for future work as a result of the insights that arise from the review. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines’.

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