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>

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>

Maternal Aggression

2021 ◽  
pp. 235-264
Author(s):  
Vibeke Ottesen
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Maternal Aggression ◽  
Adaptive Function ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Successful Prediction ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Societal Level

This chapter explores evolutionary psychological (EP) perspectives on maternal aggression, focusing on physical aggression, both lethal and nonlethal. It argues that the psychological mechanisms underpinning such aggression held an adaptive function to our foremothers. If such mechanisms formerly did hold an adaptive function, then maternal aggression should not be expected to be a random event, nor necessarily caused by pathology. Rather, the risk factors and characteristic traits of maternal aggression should follow an ancestrally adaptive and evolutionary logic. In which case, it should be a predictable phenomenon on a societal level. And as the chapter presents, the theoretical understanding of maternal aggression that EP perspectives offer has allowed for the successful prediction of risk factors and characteristic traits for such aggression. The chapter reviews these risk factors and traits, along with the theoretical reasoning the predictions are based on and the cross-cultural empirical support for their existence.

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.

Female Virtual Intrasexual Competition and Its Consequences

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose C. Yong ◽  
Norman P. Li ◽  
Katherine A. Valentine ◽  
April R. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Physical Attractiveness ◽  
Deep Level ◽  
Intrasexual Competition ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Real People ◽  
Key Dimensions

Intrasexual competition is a key component of sexual selection. Evolutionarily, women compete for access to and retention of mates on key dimensions that men have evolved to value and prioritize in their long- and short-term mates, in particular physical attractiveness. Such competition evolved to be adaptive in ancestral environments as the perceived competition consisted of real individuals. However, underlying psychological mechanisms for competition are excessively triggered and more continuously engaged in modern environments, because these psychological mechanisms for social comparison and competition, at a deep level, do not differentiate between real people and imagined intrasexual competition in the form of mass media images. Utilizing an evolutionary mismatch framework, this chapter explores ways that women are psychologically influenced by the pervasive presence of virtual same-sex competitors for mates. Various negative psychological states in modern societies (e.g., depression, eating disorders) may be linked to virtual intrasexual competition.

Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition

2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 675-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tomasello ◽  
Malinda Carpenter ◽  
Josep Call ◽  
Tanya Behne ◽  
Henrike Moll
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Cultural Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
Intentional Agents ◽  
Collaborative Activities

We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with others and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and some children with autism) understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality). Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The developmental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition.

Signaling under the Security Dilemma: An Experimental Analysis

2020 ◽  
pp. 002200272096826
Author(s):  
Brandon K. Yoder ◽  
Kyle Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Interstate Cooperation ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Signaling Mechanisms ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Offensive Realism

One of the most intractable debates in IR revolves around the severity and frequency of the security dilemma. Offensive realists argue that states are compelled to make worst-case assumptions about each other’s intentions, which yields inexorable competition and conflict even between mutually-benign actors. Yet others have argued that rational benign states should always be able to find cooperative signals that are costly enough to be credible, but not too costly to risk sending. If true, this should alleviate the security dilemma and facilitate cooperation, even under high initial distrust. However, there is little empirical work on interstate reassurance and the conditions under which mutually-benign actors can build trust. We address this gap using laboratory experiments to test Andrew Kydd’s canonical model of the security dilemma. We find strong support for the directional effects of the hypothesized signaling mechanisms. However, the frequency of cooperation is significantly lower than the model predicts, and the feasibility of reassurance is highly sensitive to the degree of prior trust. This implies that although reassurance can mitigate the security dilemma, offensive realism may still capture important psychological mechanisms that impede interstate cooperation.

scholarly journals Unraveling the evolution of uniquely human cognition

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (23) ◽  
pp. 6348-6354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan L. MacLean
Keyword(s):  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Change ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Human Aspects ◽  
Satisfactory Account ◽  
Substantial Progress

A satisfactory account of human cognitive evolution will explain not only the psychological mechanisms that make our species unique, but also how, when, and why these traits evolved. To date, researchers have made substantial progress toward defining uniquely human aspects of cognition, but considerably less effort has been devoted to questions about the evolutionary processes through which these traits have arisen. In this article, I aim to link these complementary aims by synthesizing recent advances in our understanding of what makes human cognition unique, with theory and data regarding the processes of cognitive evolution. I review evidence that uniquely human cognition depends on synergism between both representational and motivational factors and is unlikely to be accounted for by changes to any singular cognitive system. I argue that, whereas no nonhuman animal possesses the full constellation of traits that define the human mind, homologies and analogies of critical aspects of human psychology can be found in diverse nonhuman taxa. I suggest that phylogenetic approaches to the study of animal cognition—which can address questions about the selective pressures and proximate mechanisms driving cognitive change—have the potential to yield important insights regarding the processes through which the human cognitive phenotype evolved.

scholarly journals Dead infant carrying by chimpanzee mothers in the Budongo Forest

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Soldati ◽  
Pawel Fedurek ◽  
Catherine Crockford ◽  
Sam Adue ◽  
John Walter Akankwasa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Demographic Data ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Year ◽  
East African ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Infant Carrying ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Dead Infant ◽  
Budongo Forest

It has been suggested that non-human primates (hereafter primates) can respond to deceased conspecifics in ways that suggest they experience psychological states not unlike humans, which would indicate they exhibit some notion of death. Here, we report long-term demographic data from two East African chimpanzee groups. During a combined 40-year observation period we recorded 191 births of which around a third died in infancy, mostly within the first year. We documented the post-mortem behaviour of the mothers and found that Budongo chimpanzee mothers routinely carried deceased infants after their death, usually until the body started to decompose after a few days. However, we also observed three cases of extended carrying lasting for more than 2-weeks, one of which was followed by the unusual extended carrying of a substitute object and another which lasted three months. In each case, the corpses mummified. We discuss these data in view of functional hypotheses of dead infant carrying in primates and regarding the potential proximate mechanisms involved in this behaviour. We suggest that chimpanzees may exhibit psychological processes related to death of conspecifics similar to human grieving.

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.

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