Goal Relevance and Desirability of Virtuous Behavior in Satisfying Affiliative and Pathogen Avoidance Needs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitch Brown
Keyword(s):  
Group Living ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Behavioral Repertoire ◽  
Fundamental Nature ◽  
Virtuous Behavior ◽  
Goal Relevance ◽  
Effective Group ◽  
Pathogen Avoidance

Recent findings suggest that behavioral repertoires frequently conceptualized as virtuous possess a fundamental nature that implicates virtues as highly desirable in facilitating group living through factors of caring, self-control, and inquisitiveness. Although much of this desirability has previously demonstrated in mating domains, it could be possible their benefits extend to affiliative and pathogen-avoidant domains. Two studies (N=285) sought to determine the potential costs and benefits of associating with virtuous individuals (Study 1) and how these affordances could shape subsequent interpersonal preferences (Study 2). In Study 1, participants inferred a caring behavioral repertoire as particularly effective at facilitating both affiliative and pathogen-avoidant goals, whereas inquisitiveness was perceived as threatening to pathogen-avoidant goals. Study 2 provides evidence dispositionally heightened affiliative interests heightened preferences for caring, but pathogen-avoidant motives did not influence preferences. I frame results from an evolutionary perspective and synthesize it with recent findings demonstrating how virtue shapes effective group living.

scholarly journals A field demonstration of the costs and benefits of group living to edible and defended prey

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 20150152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward A. M. Curley ◽  
Hannah E. Rowley ◽  
Michael P. Speed
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Laboratory Research ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Predator Satiation ◽  
Chemical Defences ◽  
Behavioural Biology ◽  
Wild Predators ◽  
First Time

Both theoretical and laboratory research suggests that many prey animals should live in a solitary, dispersed distribution unless they lack repellent defences such as toxins, venoms and stings. Chemically defended prey may, by contrast, benefit substantially from aggregation because spatial localization may cause rapid predator satiation on prey toxins, protecting many individuals from attack. If repellent defences promote aggregation of prey, they also provide opportunities for new social interactions; hence the consequences of defence may be far reaching for the behavioural biology of the animal species. There is an absence of field data to support predictions about the relative costs and benefits of aggregation. We show here for the first time using wild predators that edible, undefended artificial prey do indeed suffer heightened death rates if they are aggregated; whereas chemically defended prey may benefit substantially by grouping. We argue that since many chemical defences are costly to prey, aggregation may be favoured because it makes expensive defences much more effective, and perhaps allows grouped individuals to invest less in chemical defences.

scholarly journals Detours increase local knowledge—Exploring the hidden benefits of self-control failure

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0257717
Author(s):  
Christian Dirk Wiesner ◽  
Jennifer Meyer ◽  
Christoph Lindner
Keyword(s):  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Comparison Task ◽  
Number Comparison ◽  
Control Failure ◽  
The Cost

Self-control enables people to override momentary thoughts, emotions, or impulses in order to pursue long-term goals. Good self-control is a predictor for health, success, and subjective well-being, as bad self-control is for the opposite. Therefore, the question arises why evolution has not endowed us with perfect self-control. In this article, we draw some attention to the hidden benefits of self-control failure and present a new experimental paradigm that captures both costs and benefits of self-control failure. In an experiment, participants worked on three consecutive tasks: 1) In a transcription task, we manipulated how much effortful self-control two groups of participants had to exert. 2) In a number-comparison task, participants of both groups were asked to compare numbers and ignore distracting neutral versus reward-related pictures. 3) After a pause for recreation, participants were confronted with an unannounced recognition task measuring whether they had incidentally encoded the distracting pictures during the previous number-comparison task. The results showed that participants who exerted a high amount of effortful self-control during the first task shifted their priorities and attention toward the distractors during the second self-control demanding task: The cost of self-control failure was reflected in worse performance in the number-comparison task. Moreover, the group which had exerted a high amount of self-control during the first task and showed self-control failure during the second task was better in the unannounced third task. The benefit of self-control failure during number comparison was reflected in better performance during the recognition task. However, costs and benefits were not specific for reward-related distractors but also occurred with neutral pictures. We propose that the hidden benefit of self-control failure lies in the exploration of distractors present during goal pursuit, i.e. the collection of information about the environment and the potential discovery of new sources of reward. Detours increase local knowledge.

Delay of Gratification as Reputation Management

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (9) ◽  
pp. 1174-1182
Author(s):  
Fengling Ma ◽  
Dan Zeng ◽  
Fen Xu ◽  
Brian J. Compton ◽  
Gail D. Heyman
Keyword(s):  
Delay Of Gratification ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Reputation Management ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Reputational Concerns

Although delay-of-gratification tasks have long been used as measures of self-control, recent evidence suggests that performance on these tasks is also driven by rational decision processes. The present research examined whether the effects of rational decision processes extend beyond costs and benefits embedded in the task itself to include anticipated consequences for the child’s reputation. Across two studies, 3- and 4-year-olds from China ( N = 273) were assigned to a standard delay-of-gratification condition or to a reputation condition in which they were told that their teacher or a peer would find out how long they had waited. Children waited longer in the reputation conditions and longer in the teacher condition than in the peer condition. This is the first evidence that children’s performance on a delay-of-gratification task is sensitive to reputational concerns and to the identity of potential evaluators of their behavior.

scholarly journals Costs and benefits of group living in primates: an energetic perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1727) ◽  
pp. 20160239 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Catherine Markham ◽  
Laurence R. Gesquiere
Keyword(s):  
Group Size ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Adaptive Significance ◽  
Physiological Measures ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Energetic Stress ◽  
Metabolic States ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Changes ◽  
Energetic Balance

Group size is a fundamental component of sociality, and has important consequences for an individual's fitness as well as the collective and cooperative behaviours of the group as a whole. This review focuses on how the costs and benefits of group living vary in female primates as a function of group size, with a particular emphasis on how competition within and between groups affects an individual's energetic balance. Because the repercussions of chronic energetic stress can lower an animal's fitness, identifying the predictors of energetic stress has important implications for understanding variation in survivorship and reproductive success within and between populations. Notably, we extend previous literature on this topic by discussing three physiological measures of energetic balance—glucocorticoids, c-peptides and thyroid hormones. Because these hormones can provide clear signals of metabolic states and processes, they present an important complement to field studies of spatial and temporal changes in food availability. We anticipate that their further application will play a crucial role in elucidating the adaptive significance of group size in different social and ecological contexts. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Physiological determinants of social behaviour in animals'.

scholarly journals Costs and benefits of multi-male associations in redfronted lemurs ( Eulemur fulvus rufus )

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 620-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Port ◽  
Rufus A. Johnstone ◽  
Peter M. Kappeler
Keyword(s):  
Driving Force ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Behavioural Ecology ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Reproductive Competition ◽  
Eulemur Fulvus

The evolution of group-living has fascinated but also puzzled researchers from the inception of behavioural ecology. We use a simple optimality approach to examine some of the costs and benefits of group-living in redfronted lemurs ( Eulemur fulvus rufus ). We show that dominant males profit from accepting subordinates within their groups, as the latter significantly decrease the likelihood that the group is taken over by intruders. This benefit is large enough to outweigh the costs of reproductive competition and may constitute the driving force behind the evolution of multi-male associations in this species.

scholarly journals Sociality and health: impacts of sociality on disease susceptibility and transmission in animal and human societies

2015 ◽  
Vol 370 (1669) ◽  
pp. 20140116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Kappeler ◽  
Sylvia Cremer ◽  
Charles L. Nunn
Keyword(s):  
Disease Ecology ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Social Buffering ◽  
Health And Fitness ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Health Related Research ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Survival And Reproduction

This paper introduces a theme issue presenting the latest developments in research on the impacts of sociality on health and fitness. The articles that follow cover research on societies ranging from insects to humans. Variation in measures of fitness (i.e. survival and reproduction) has been linked to various aspects of sociality in humans and animals alike, and variability in individual health and condition has been recognized as a key mediator of these relationships. Viewed from a broad evolutionary perspective, the evolutionary transitions from a solitary lifestyle to group living have resulted in several new health-related costs and benefits of sociality. Social transmission of parasites within groups represents a major cost of group living, but some behavioural mechanisms, such as grooming, have evolved repeatedly to reduce this cost. Group living also has created novel costs in terms of altered susceptibility to infectious and non-infectious disease as a result of the unavoidable physiological consequences of social competition and integration, which are partly alleviated by social buffering in some vertebrates. Here, we define the relevant aspects of sociality, summarize their health-related costs and benefits, and discuss possible fitness measures in different study systems. Given the pervasive effects of social factors on health and fitness, we propose a synthesis of existing conceptual approaches in disease ecology, ecological immunology and behavioural neurosciences by adding sociality as a key factor, with the goal to generate a broader framework for organismal integration of health-related research.

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