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LS 15 Final

Terms in this set (37)

Happiness: Why is the rate and direction of change more important than levels? How does this relate to material acquisition?
Our happiness (or unhappiness) is derived from the change in our current state. The higher the rate of change, the more often we are happy or unhappy. Levels affect our degree of emotion, but our minds adjust quickly so that we don't stay sulking or content. Rather, we are designed to be happy when we feel like we are making progress, so our levels become less relevant. Therefore, the rate and direction of change is more important than levels because the more change that occurs, the longer we feel the emotion.

Our happiness is an equation of our performance - our expectations. If our expectations are set, going above them is what registers as progress and makes us happy. Similarly, below our expectations we feel disappointment and wish to avoid sad feelings.

Material acquisition can make us happy for the short term, but we quickly adjust to our newfound wealth. This is why additional income doesn't bring us happiness past poverty. We become used to our current income to become hungry again and strive for more for our genes.
Why are emotions designed to be less permanent than they feel?
Emotions are brain states that alter our behavior to achieve better outcomes for our genes. As such, we can only be in one state so long until they are no longer beneficial. Our genes only care about improvement in our reproductive success, so emotions change based on whether we are reaching that goal.

Happiness tells us when we have reached a beneficial outcome. Since success is relative to other individuals, we cannot stay happy or else we fall behind. Therefore, we wish to keep working to reach happiness again.
Describe 3 lines of evidence that support the idea that emotions are tools that genes use to manipulate our behavior.
Happiness: We strive to be happy. Happiness is the reward our genes give us after we accomplish something beneficial to our reproductive success. Therefore, we are controlled by our genes to keep doing things beneficial to them.

Sadness: When we fall below our expectations and achieve outcomes not beneficial for our genes, we are punished with sadness. We try to avoid this feeling, and so we are pushed by our genes to achieve beneficial outcomes.

Success is relative: We are never satisfied even when we think once we get something we will be. Since success is relative, we are always striving to get as much as possible.
Using an example, describe the interplay between culture and biology
Culture is the transmission of information by extra-cellular means. By passing on ideas within a society, we can build inventions based upon culture that frees us from some biological constraints.

Glasses is an invention of culture that alleviates the constraints of poor vision caused by a maladaptive allele. Evolution would remove poor vision in our EEA, but our culture allows the allele to spread with the advent of glasses.
What is the fundamental reproductive equation and what does it reveal about culture and biology?
Sex=Pregnancy=Babies=maternal child care=loss of female economic opportunity=loss of female political power.

Culture disrupts the fundamental reproductive equation by breaking the connections. Condoms allow us to have sex without pregnancy. Abortions allows us to have pregnancy without babies. Day care allows us to have babies without maternal child care.

It signifies that culture allows us to break the constraints of biology. We no longer have to be follow what our biology has set for us.
Using two examples, explain what constrained learning is and how it illuminates culture-biology interplay?
Constrained learning is how we are more inclined to learn things based upon natural connections or timing. We are less able to learn when connections don't normally happen in nature or if we miss a critical period. It is a "genetically-coded hypothesis".

In lab rats, rats that exposed to nausea after drinking funny, but not bad, water learn adversity towards the funny taste. However, if they were shocked, they don't learn the connection because it wouldn't be likely for them to be shocked after drinking water in their EEA.

For humans, we are exposed to language as soon as we are born in our EEA. We are in a critical period to learn language and are able to do it easily. We are unlikely to encounter another language, and therefore our critical period of enhanced learning becomes closed as we grow up. That makes it difficult for adults to learn new languages because of biological constraints.
What is the EEA ? Why is it important to be aware of it?
EEA is the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. It is the environment in which a species is adapted to be successful in. By removing a species from their EEA causes maladaptive behaviors.

It is important for us to be aware of our EEA because it sheds light upon our behaviors. We often act in a way counter-productive in our industrial society because our behaviors that were helpful in our EEA aren't today. We grew up as hunter-gatherers in small groups of 100 where social connections and buffering against future uncertainty were vital to survival.
Why is the EEA sometimes different from our current environment?
Our EEA can differ from our current environment because of slow adaption or removal from the EEA. Adaption is a catch-up game with our environment, and so our genes may not change fast enough to keep pace. Therefore, some behaviors can become mismatched.

Our environment could also change from the EEA. If we were to experience sudden changes, like industrialization, or removal from our EEA, we will still carry the same behaviors into the different environment. Since our behaviors were adapted for a specific behavior, they could now be mismatched.
Describe three examples about species having a different EEA than their current environment
Livestock: Livestock are raised purely for meat and other bodily products. They are fed excessively to produce the desired product. Animals respond by performing actions beneficial to their EEA: consuming all the food they can. Therefore, they are maladapted because easy access to food fattens them up and brings them closer to the slaughter.

Zoo animals: Zoo animals are obese because they live a life of luxury. They don't need to work for their food as much as wild animals because they are fed. As such, they laze around for most of the day while accumulating weight. Their genes compel them to be lazy and eat easy food when it is not beneficial because their genes think there will be an unexpected famine. Their actions would be justified in their EEA, but they are maladaptive now that they are removed from the EEA.

Marine Life: Fish evolved in an environment without plastic. Since small pieces of plastic resemble food, fish may eat them without realizing that they are poisonous. While eating everything that resembles food would help them in their EEA, it is maladaptive in an ocean filled with plastic.
What does mismatch mean? What are its implications for our instincts?
Mismatch refers to behaviors that would've been beneficial in our EEA, but are not in our current environment. It means that our instincts should not be trusted because they may lead us to behaviors that are detrimental in our current environment.
Why is it hard to be a teenager?
It is hard to be a teenager because society tells them to have children later in life, while their biology tells them to have kids now. In our EEA, they are at the age where they should be having children. However, in today's society, it would be inappropriate. Trying to maximize reproductive success would in fact do the opposite; they would be stigmatized and unlikely to further reproduce. This struggle to reconcile biology and culture is what makes being a teenager hard.
Describe three other examples of conflict that humans experience due to the alien nature of our world.
Obesity: The best way to save food and survive the next famine in our EEA is to eat it all. Food expires, but fat stays. Therefore, we should eat as much as we can. However, because of easy access to food, this leads to obesity. As such, our tendency to eat as much food as possible is a maladaptive behavior and demonstrates conflict between our genes and our alien world.

Altruism to strangers: In our EEA, we should look for every opportunity to improve our relationships within our groups. Since we lived in relatively small groups, word about reputation spreads quickly. However, nowadays, we see thousands of different people a day and will most likely never meet them again. Being altruistic comes at a cost to us which may never be paid back because we lack multiple interactions. However, we still do it expecting compensation because of our EEA.

Drugs: Our endocrine system works around the interaction between neurotransmitters and receptors. However, our receptors activate whenever a molecule that resembles the target NT is able to fit in the "key"; it never knows if it is the actual NT or not. Drugs are made to take advantage of this recognition issue. They may resemble our NT but act differently at the synapse. Therefore, it has become maladaptive because drugs, which weren't in our EEA, can hijack our endocrine system due to this flaw.
What is the naturalistic fallacy and give an example in which people commit it.
The naturalistic fallacy is when people believe something that is natural is good, and just because something is unnatural it is bad.

This relates to advertisements of food. If companies label a product as natural, people are more inclined to believe that it is good for them and buy. However, it doesn't mean that it is good for the consumer. For example, Quaker cereal is labeled as all natural, yet it has a high sugar content above the recommended daily intake of sugar.

Vitamins are also natural, but not necessarily good for people in excessive quantities. Companies can label foods with vitamins in order to increase sales. People believe that vitamins are natural and good for the body; however, they can be toxic in large quantities. Companies take advantage of the naturalistic fallacy to promote vitamin rich foods that are supposedly "more healthy".
Describe the organization and function of the nervous system. Compare and contrast it with hormones.
The nervous system is made out of neurons which are divided into motor, sensory, and interneurons. Motor neurons are the neurons in our brain and spinal cord that communicate actions to muscles, gland, etc. Sensory neurons are the neurons within our peripheral nervous system that transmit information about our environment to our central nervous system. Interneurons connect our sensory neurons together.

Our nervous system works upon electrical signals, which are fast-acting. They produce reflexive actions and other actions that are fast, but fleeting. Our endocrine system work by using hormones, which are chemical messengers that flow through the bloodstream. They are slower, but produce longer lasting changes. They are mostly in charge of growth and bodily changes.
What do our senses all have in common with respect to how they help our bodies respond to external stimuli?
Our senses carry information about the outside world to our brain and spinal cord, which interpret it and send commands to our muscles via motor neurons. They are all versions of the same neuron, just specialized to respond to certain stimuli.
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