group display as an adaptive response

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  • Group display as an adaptive response
    • sport
      • Xenophobia
        • Wilson claimed that xenophobia (a fear and hatred of foreigners), has been documented in every group of animal displaying higher forms of organisation
          • Natural selection appears to favours those genes causing humans to be altruistic towards member of there own group but intolerant towards outsiders
            • Shaw and Wong – mechanism that prompt suspicions toward strangers would have been favoured by natural selection
              • Enabling ancestors to avoid attack and leave behind offspring
                • Macdonald adaptive to exaggerate negative stereotypes about outsiders as over perception of threat is less costly than under perception
        • Xenophobic displays on the terraces
          • Podaliri and Balestri – evidence of xenophobic tendencies in Italian football crowds 2005 Serie A match a Lazio player performed the roman salute in the direction of Lazio fans
            • This was an expression of solidarity with Lazio fans and provocative gesture toward Livorno fans that had left-wing attitudes
          • Research support for xenophobic displays
            • Foldesi – evidence to support the link between xenophobia and violent displays.
              • Racial conduct of a core of extremist supporters led to increase of general spectator violence
                • Xenophobic outburst in particular increased
      • Territoriality
        • Threat displays
          • Group displays in sport - based on territoriality (protective response to invasion of ones territory)
            • Animal species show threat behaviours/displays towards outsiders and attack with greater vigour when defending home territory - Huntingford and Turner
              • This is the same as when humans put on displays before a sports teams match; e.g. the war chant being used by the Samoa in a 1991 Rugby World Cup, before a match
        • Testosterone (T) and territorial behaviour
          • Animals are more aggressive with high levels of T
            • Neave and Wolfson – football teams playing at home far more likely to win than visiting teams cause players have benefit of huge surge of T before a match
              • Could be due to evolved drive to defend home territory
                • Team members who felt that the burden of defending the territory lay with them had higher levels of T compared to other players
        • Lewis et al – crowd support was rated as most sig factor contributing to home advantage
          • Through their displays of support, fans felt responsible for distracting opponents and inspiring their teams
            • The r/s with crowd size unclear, shown to operate even with small crowds – Pollard and Pollard
              • Unclear if adaptive function is to distract the other team or psych up home team; because its so unclear then its suggested that the original adaptive function isn’t really relevant anymore
        • Does a home adv really exist?
          • Moore and Brylinsky – challenges claim that home crowd displays provide territorial advantage
            • Measles epidemic resulted in two American teams playing 5 games w/no spectators and 4 with
              • The Saints scored average of 76.25 with spectators and 84.20 w/out spectators
                • The Hawks scored an average of 64.29 w/specs and 71.5 w/out
                  • Suggests displays of support didn’t increase team performance
                    • Could also just be because more games were played without so that could account for the higher score without specs
    • warfare
      • Evolutionary explanation would lead us to expect any behaviour associated with warfare would’ve evolved because of adaptive benefits for indivs and offspring
      • Benefits of aggressive displays
        • Sexual Selection
          • Societies that experience frequent warfare, males more likely to escape infanticide than females
            • Therefore there is a disproportionate number of males and they get rewarded by access to females – Divale and Harris
              • Aggressive displays and bravery attractive to females, absence reduced indiv male’s attractiveness
                • Male warriors in traditional societies tend to have more sexual partners and more children suggesting a direct reproductive benefit – Chagnon
          • Palmer and Tilly – males in street youth gang had more sexual partners than ordinary males
            • Leunissen and van Vugt – military men had more sex appeal but only if they have been observed showing bravery in combat
        • Acquisition of status w/in group
          • Aggressiveness by indiv warrior leads to respect from peers and so strengthens bond with other males
            • Displays of aggressive behaviour and battle bravery means indivs are more likely to share benefits associated w/ status, which in turn increases reproductive fitness
      • Costly displays
        • signal commitment
          • Irons – costliness of permanent displays e.g. scars/mutations means that they serve as honest signal of commitment to group and so benefit from profit of warfare against other group
        • Minimising likelihood of defection
          • Thorpe – in groups where war is common, displays are important for survival of group
            • Permanent displays minimise ability too abscond to other groups and increase commitment to group of which they are member
      • War is not in the genes
        • Emerged when humans shifted from nomadic to settled existence
          • People can’t walk away from trouble, have more to lose and fight over
            • Warfare emerged as response to changing lifestyle
              • This suggests aggressive displays are not biological compulsions but consequence of environmental changes – LeBlanc and Register
      • Limitations of evolutionary explanation for warfare
        • Evol approach fails to explain levels of cruelty often found in warfare
          • Anthropological evidence suggests this is more due to DDD than evolutionary adaptation
      • IDA – Gender bias
        • They don’t adequately reflect women in the research
          • Women have far more to lose from fighting in near death situation and less to gain
            • The understanding of displays typically found in warfare is limited to the behaviour of males rather than females
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