Altruism, more nurture than nature?
Posted by Science Oxford on October 2, 2009 | comments
Altruism has been an interesting topic for years. This below research offers evidence that suggests altruism has more to do with learned behaviour than genetics, but I expect the debate will rage on for years to come.
Read on to find out more:
Visit this page »Socially learned behavior and beliefs are much better candidates than genetics to explain why many people set aside self-interest to help strangers, a study suggests.
The research by Adrian V. Bell and colleagues of the University of California Davis appears in the Oct. 12 edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Altruism has long been a subject of interest to scientists. Superficially at least, evolutionary theory suggests altruism shouldn’t exist. Evolution occurs because some genes in a population are usually more advantageous than others. The favorable genes spread through the population because their bearers are able to out-reproduce other individuals, gradually changing the whole group’s characteristics. This doesn’t seem to allow for altruism, as presumably only those who help themselves ultimately get ahead in the evolutionary race.
Scientists have proposed a range of possible solutions to explain why altruism might arise.
Bell’s group used a mathematical equation, called the Price equation, that describes conditions under which altruism could evolve. This equation prompted the researchers to compare the genetic and the cultural differentiation between neighboring social groups.
Using previously calculated estimates of genetic differences, they used the World Values Survey—whose questions are likely to be heavily influenced by culture in many countries—as a source of data to compute the cultural differentiation between the same neighboring groups. They then found that the role of culture had a much greater scope for explaining giving behavior than genetics.
The World Values Survey was less useful for applying the results to ancient history, the researchers noted. But ancient practices, such as exclusion from the marriage market, denial of the fruits of cooperative activities, banishment and execution happen now as they did then. These activities would have exerted pressure against genes tending toward antisocial behavior, presumably in favor of genes that predisposed individuals toward being pro-social rather than anti-social. This would result in genes interacting with culture, or “gene-culture coevolution,” promoting pro-social tendencies, Bell and colleagues argue.
Bell is continuing his research in Tonga, where he plans to estimate statistically what social learning behaviors people have in general that may explain the distribution of cultural beliefs across the Tongan Islands.
04
Nov
I find attempts to empericise behaviours such as altruism, love, etc give us a better insight into the people doing such research than the subject they are researching. Perhaps there should be some research into why people are compelled to find the sum of human nature despite it being greater than the sum of its parts.
14
Jul
Richard Dawkins in “the Selfish Gene” includes a description of how living with altruism is more successful for a combination of two competing species, one of which is more aggressive than the other. So it is possible that this characteristic is also shared by other creatures and that human altruism is not so unique as we might otherwise think! It also suggests that Judeo/Christain religions, which call for altruism, have a basis which is a bit less devine and a bit more logical.