Chapter 2, part2.

Howdy! I'm back, and on a saturday too!! Fancy that.

It's raining here so my children have spent the morning running around and beating on each other. Honestly when they don't get to venture into the outdoors their relationship with each other turns from less Karen and Richard to more Jack and Ralph (a la William Golding). Seriously, it can get ugly-and the youngest is only 14 months old.

Anyway-onto the next part of the chapter and we've moved away from asbo chimps to...

Theory of Mind: The ability to see from anothers perspective, to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to be able to predict your own and other people's behaviour and feelings. Also, the ability to be deceptive, based on assumptions. This ability to be able to interact with others is essential in our reproductive success, attracting a suitable mate and forming alliances, therefore ensuring survival.

Studying TOM and it's evolutionary history may point ep's in the direction of why humans developed it as a way of explaning it's contribution to many different psychological characteristics. Looking at chimps for example, who have little or no presence of tom, may suggest that humans developed it after they split from chimps. Archaeological evidence of burial rituals may also suggest a tom present in humans as they may have seen certain rituals as being necessary to enter into the afterlife, indicating an ability to see from the potential perspective of another.

The Maxi Test-

• Wimmer and Perner (1983)-original maxi test (or false belief test). A variation of this was proposed in 1985 by Baron-Cohen et al. called the Sally-Anne test (Gross, 2005).
• In the Sally-Anne experiments, two puppets (called Sally and Anne-just in case you didn't get it lol) were used. Sally had a marble which she puts into a blanket and then leaves the room. While she is not there, Anne moves the marble from the basket and puts it into a box (cheeky sod). Then Sally comes back into the room.
• Participants are then asked where Sally will look for her marble (hopefully not in the same place as my marbles-lost forever I tell you!).
• People with tom are thought to say the basket-they are aware that Sally has her own perspective and will not know what they know as she did not witness it. Participants without tom however will say that the marble is in the box-they don't understand that Sally has a perspective different from their own; they are unable to see someone else's point of view.

When the initial maxi test was done on children it was found that the majority of children 6 years and over had tom, and majority of 3-4 year olds did not. However, it was thought that this initial test was too complex and involved a language barrier, especially for children so young. many variations of the task were carried out, so finding that some children as young as 2 posessed tom (my child does not have this yet-she is still convinced that she is the pivotal point on which the world turns and she wants some chocolate buttons NOW!). Studies have also shown a universal capacity to tom as children across different cultures have been found to possess tom, indicating an evolutionary path. There are lots more figures etc in the book which I won't bother to regurgitate here.

People with autism are also used as participants on the maxi test. Autism is often marked by lack or impairment of social interaction ability. The tests on people with autism showed that they performed 'significantly less well' than the participants without autism.

Non-human primates are also been studied for evidence of tom. Lots of studies have been used, such as the Povinelli (1996) test which wanted to see if an ape would follow the gaze of the researcher, therefore demonstrating that they acknowledged the researchers differing view point. However, it is not known whether this is evidence of tom or simply the ape mimicking behaviour.

Artefacts found by archaeologists are also used to prove the presence of tom, as mentioned above, with burial rituals and art. Baron-Cohen (1999) suggests that tom evolved with the evolution of modern humans, hence the art and burial rituals which emerged at that time. However, with lack of evidence and different evidence and so on, it is difficult to pin point the exact time frame.

I have to leave this here as my youngest is just emerging from her nap-I shall update this entry later!

Ok-I'm back in the land of blog!! And ready to talk about altruism and reciprocity as defined by evolutionary psychology, so here goes...

Altruism according to Wiki is: selfless concern for the welfare of others. According to ep, it is universal as it can be found across cultures, and genetic evidence (as found in green alga) suggests it may be an adapted behaviour. (Obviously one cannot extrapolate from green alga that humans are the same, although my level of brain cells and the levels held by algae are probably about the same right now). The chapter covers three kinds of altruism-

Altruistic behaviour amongst kin:

Although being altruistic suggests a cost to the individuals genes' reproductive success, Hamilton (1964) developed the concept of inclusive fitness, which means that helping your relatives (who will have similar genes to you), will positively effect the reproductive success of your kin, and as reproductive success is about genes and not individuals then this is similar to your own reproductive success. According to Hamilton, the more closely related you are to someone, the more likely you are to behave altruistically towards them.

Reciprocal altruism:

Carrying out an altruistic act for someone not related to you where the altruist repays the favour-'you scratch my back i'll scratch yours'. Requires theory of mind (so that the altruist can make assumptions as to whether or the person in question will repay the favour). However, it is not guaranteed that the favour will by repaid. The prisoner's dilemma game on page 147 shows an example of research into this. It is believed that the person is more likely to reciprocate if they believe they are going to meet the altruist again, and therefore it would be beneficial for both parties to cooperate. A game of tit-for-tat then ensues (known as evolutionary stable theory), which is commonly used by people to decide how to react to others.

Indirect altruism:

Where (and i'll use the example in the book as that's easier!) A will follow out an altruistic act towards B even though B will not reciprocate, then C will behave altruistically towards A, even though C does not benefit at all from the transaction. This kind of behaviour is thought to occur in order to provide individuals with a positive reputation-the more people know about an altruist the more likely they are of wanting to help them out. Therefore being an altruist is a good way for someone to gain resources (is cash) and support from the community, therefore aiding their survival. Altruistic behaviour may also be a way of attracting a sexual partner as it may make them more desirable.

There has also been research into animals and altruism. Research into chimps was carried out which suggested that they sometimes do act altruistically (in this instance, by helping the human researcher to reach something that they couldn't get)-suggesting that the common ancestor of humans and chimps may have had altruistic tendencies. Again, problems with this research occurs as it is done in lab settings and the same behaviour may not be carried out an a more natural setting.

So summerise: Altruism may be a universal evolved response, an adaptation. However, it is difficult to pinpoint when it evolved in humans.

So there you have it-two psychological characteristics as explained by the evolutionary psychology perspective. Phew. I'm very pleased to be able to just move onto the next chapter without having to attempt to concoct something that loosely resembles an assignment! Onto the next chapter....

Good luck folks

Candyflee xx