Biology subjects

Karl Frost

Publications and source records attributed to Karl Frost.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2016

Calming Meditation Increases Altruism, Decreases Parochialism

It has been proposed that cultivating calm will increase altruism and decrease parochialism, where altruism is defined as self-sacrifice in support of others, regardless of group affiliation or identity, and parochialism is defined as prosocial self-sacrifice restricted to fellow members of a group. Such could be the case with a calming meditation practice. An alternate hypothesis, coming from the study of ritual, proposes that shared practices lead to bonding, increasing parochialism, but not altruism generally. These contradictory hypotheses of the potential effects of shared cultural practices of calming meditation were explored via a formal behavioral experiment using a simple treatment and control format with a short, facilitated breath awareness practice known to produce calm. Altruism and parochialism were measured through anonymous play in Public Goods games performed with both in-group and out-group individuals. The sum of contributions of the two plays gave a measure of altruism, while the difference between the two gave a measure of parochialism. The analysis of the results using Bayesian AICc model comparison methods supports the first hypothesis that calming practices reduces parochialism and increases altruism. The hypothesis of intentional shared practice as parochialism inducing was not supported by the results in this case of a shared calming practice.

Animal Behavior and Cognition↗

bioRxiv2016

Coevolutionary Dynamics of Costly Bonding Ritual and Altruism

While altruistic behavior and bonding in altruistic pairs or groups of cooperators is observed throughout the animal kingdom, the genetic evolution of such is on an ongoing source of debate, curiosity, and conflict in the behavioral sciences. Many such bonded groups and pairs are observed to take part in costly ritualized movement behavior that is hypothesized to trigger or maintain altruistic sentiments amongst the participants. Such costly ritualized practices could have evolved if they engaged pre-existing behavioral instincts that manifest as altruism in the new context of ritual bonding. While this seems at first to be a Green Beard hypothesis ( marker (ie., green beard) as honest signal of altruistic intent', an hypothesis well-known to be problematic), it is distinct in two important ways. First, the ritual as marker is costly, and second the ritual engages a pre-existing behavioral potential caused by genes which, importantly, have some other benefit. This paper models the genetic coevolutionary dynamics both analytically and through simulation. It finds that such coevolution can lead to fixation of altruism in a population or to cycling of altruism in the population, depending on the balance of costs and benefits. Where cycling occurs, even though altruism is consistently present in the population, population mean fitness declines with the introduction of these bonding rituals.

Evolutionary Biology↗

bioRxiv2016

Gene-Culture Coevolution of Prosocial Rituals

It has been argued that costly socially learned rituals have the potential to generate prosocial emotional responses arising from genetically based behavioral dispositions, hijacking these behavioral dispositions to solve otherwise intractable cooperation problems. An example is the innovation of synchronous movement rituals which seem to engage the same altruistic response as instinctual mimicry. Arguments against this hypothesis are based in the idea that cheap markers of altruistic intent (\"Green Beards\")are vulnerable to manipulation from non-cooperating free-riders that are similarly marked. This paper formally models the gene-culture coevolutionary dynamics of a system in which a costly socially learned ritual practice coevolves with the genes underpinning the prosocial response. This takes a genetic mismatch hypothesis (where fast evolution of socially learned behaviors create a temporary mismatch with the coevolving genes, which take longer to evolve to equilibrium) and models it dynamically. The genetic and cultural fitness equations are first analyzed for equilibrium and then simulations are used to predicting trajectories for both the socially learned behavior and the hijacked genetic trait over time. Relying on fast culture and slow genes, it demonstrates how high levels of ritual efficacy may be established, at least temporarily, through gene culture interaction. It also shows how longer term feedbacks on the genes from culture may lead to decreases in the prosocial gene in the population and reduced overall population mean fitness, despite high levels of altruism in the population.

Evolutionary Biology↗

bioRxiv2016

The Cultural Evolution of Hard-to-fake Rituals

It has been proposed that costly rituals act as honest signals of commitment to group beliefs when such rituals appear dysphoric and unappealing (costly) to non-believers, but appealing to true believers (Irons, 2001). If only true believers are willing to endure ritual behaviors and true belief also entails belief in altruistic cooperation, associating with other ritual practitioners can help solve cooperation dilemmas in groups by sorting out potential free-riders. While this hypothesis is obviously true if such faking of ritual is strictly impossible, strict impossibility seems implausible. Faking is defined by Irons in this context to be to be performing the ritual without commitment to group beliefs. In this paper, I posit various ways that such faking might be difficult, instead of impossible, or different ways in which such ritual faking might be costly and then formally model the social learning and cultural evolution dynamics to see where it may still hold theoretically that such rituals help maintain altruism in group and under what conditions. Analytic solution for evolutionary equilibrium is derived for each model, verifying that under a wide range of conditions for some, but not all interpretations, such hard-to fake rituals can help groups solve cooperative dilemmas, including in some circumstances that might not be intuitively obvious, such as where such free-riding is not visible and free-riders successfully represent themselves as true believers to observers.\n\nIt is also the case that while there has been some progress in cleaning up the definitional confusions in the animal signaling literature around costly signaling, the literature on human rituals as costly signals has introduced novel uses of the term cost. Theories referring to completely different mechanisms or even definitions of cost are sometimes conflated. To contextualize the analysis of costly-to-fake rituals, this paper provides a review of the ideas proposed in the literature on costly human rituals and differentiates them from costly signaling as used in the animal behavior literature.

Animal Behavior and Cognition↗