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Study Guide Midterm 1

Terms in this set (94)

EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES
Tinbergen's 4 Levels
Ontogeny, Function, Mechanism, Phylogeny
Why do male white-crowned sparrows sing a different song in Marin County than in Berkeley?
Ontogeny: be with father in the critical period
Function: sexual function
Mechanism:
Phylogeny:
Why does a male student from the US South respond more violently to being jostled in a hallway than a male student from the US North?
Ontogeny:
Function:
Mechanism:
Phylogeny:
Why does a peacock have such a large tail?
Ontogeny:
Function:
Mechanism:
Phylogeny:
Why does a honey bee worker achieve reproductive success via inclusive fitness but not via individual fitness?
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Why does a chocolate confection that is shaped like feces trigger a disgust facial expression in the viewer?
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Why was Homo sapiens the first species that was able to solve the "start-up problem" on such a big scale?
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Natural Selection
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Many scientists before Darwin believed that the "transmutation of species" occurred (i.e., species changed over time).
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What were the postulates of Darwin's contribution to this debate?
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Why was his contribution so important?
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In what way did a teenage boy - with little education - play a key role in Darwin's "Eureka" moment?
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Neanderthals had larger brains than modern humans. How might this fact be evidence that "evolution is not progress"? What is the "tree metaphor" of the evolution of life? Why is a tree metaphor misleading?
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Understanding patterns of diversity
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A pair of purple parrots are blown by a storm to a new volcanic island archipelago. Ten million years later, you arrive to explore the archipelago.
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Based on the FOUNDER EFFECT, what is your expectation of the plumage color of parrots on all the islands?
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Island A has a small number of trees that make big, hard seeds and a small number of trees that make small, soft seeds. Based on ADAPTIVE RADIATION, how many seed-eating species do you expect to find on this island? How will these species differ from each other?
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Island B has the same trees as Island A. But Island A suddenly has 2 years of increased rainfall while Island B undergoes 2 years of drought. How will this effect the population of parrots on each island?
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Sexual Selection
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If natural selection arises from competition for scarce resources, what are the scarce resources that leads to sexual selection?
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How does the Handicap Principle explain why one sex (usually the male) carry large, conspicuous weapons (antlers) or large, conspicuous signals (song, plumage)?
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Two stags (adult male deer) are battling each other with locked antlers, while three does (adult female deer) watch. Which behavior is an example of intersexual selection and which is an example of intrasexual selection?
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How was a pair of scissors and a bottle of glue used in Africa to test predications of the Handicap Principle in a bird species?
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Kin Selection
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Why did Haldane joke that he would sacrifice his life for two brothers or 8 cousins?
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How is this quip an accurate summary of Hamilton's Rule? Define the rule.
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Why is nepotism such a powerful strategy in human behavior? If it's so powerful, why is nepotism outlawed in WEIRD organizations (e.g., hiring decisions)?
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Why could "altruism" actually be considered "selfish"?
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DUAL INHERITANCE
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Culture and Evolution
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A philosopher claims that humans are unique among all species because they have cumulative culture. How could you use the example of bird song to convince the philosopher that humans are not unique in this regard?
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Other species with cultural transmission - dolphins, whales, chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys - live in large groups. Why is this so important for culture?
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What ecological factor do other primates that use tools - chimpanzee, capuchin monkeys - have in common with humans?
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Why was this ecological factor possible critical in solving the 'start-up problem' for humans?
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WEIRD
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If you compared two small societies. You notice that one society relied heavily on profits made by selling wares in a distant market, where they sold produce to strangers, while the other society grew enough food to support their families without traveling outside their own village.
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If you tested people from these two societies on the Ultimatum and Dictator Games, how would you predict they would differ?
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Why would they differ, in comparison to UCLA students on this game?
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What experiences have led these WEIRD students to differ from most small societies?
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What are small scale societies that also 'make more WEIRD-like decisions' in this game, but for completely different reasons, arising from their own specific culture?
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Population Thinking
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What 3 tasks have been used to measure spatial cognition that produce remarkably different results in different societies?
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How can you explain this: a WEIRD person is more generous in the Ultimatum Game - which suggests they are more cooperative - yet they are less affected by the orientation of the frame in the Rod and Frame Test? How can you reconcile these two observations?
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Why are these kinds of results called "population thinking"?
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How would you define "dual inheritance"?
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Mechanisms of cultural transmission
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Why can we argue that ants teach? Meerkats?
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What are the 5 mechanisms of cultural transmission?
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How do human societies vary in how these mechanisms are used?
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What methods can be used in the lab to study the parameters than influence how accurately a behavior is transmitted between "generations"?
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What is a collective brain?
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Adaptations for survival
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Our history of disease
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How did our evolutionary history predispose humans to be more susceptible to disease?
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How do pathogens manipulate behavior of their host to increase the pathogen's reproductive success?
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Why did Europeans have so many more diseases than did the indigenous societies in the Americas?
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When did this proliferation of diseases begin? How might our current pandemic be another example of this historical pattern?
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Behavioral defenses
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Why has our response to disease symptoms been likened to a smoke detector?
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What is an example of behavioral immunity in an ant?
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What is the relationship between a parrot's bright colors, the Handicap Principle and a tropical climate, where most parrots live?
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Based on this relationship, how might you explain the fact that in many tropical parrots, both males and female are colorful?
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How does pathogen load impact mating system in humans?
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What are other behaviors are found to vary between cultures that historically differ in the prevalence of disease?
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How does the perception of an experimental disease state change social judgement?
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Parochialism and collectivism
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Why would xenophobia and even genocide be interpreted as an irrational response to perceived threat of disease?
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Why might a collectivist society suffer fewer losses during a pandemic than an individualistic society?
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If so, how could this be an example of dual inheritance, i.e., cultural evolution influencing genetic evolution?
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Disgust
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What is the difference between biological and cognitive disgust? What is an example of each?
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Why might nausea be an adaptive response to a disgust elicitor?
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Why is a cockroach a disgust illicitor but not a honeybee?
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Why might a woman be easily disgusted by certain foods during the first trimester of her pregnancy?
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How can you reduce disgust to a specific object?
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What is an example of cognitive disgust that is unrelated to disease?
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Human evolutionary history
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What are the two intersecting pathways that led to modern humans?
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How did we happen to be in the right place at the right time to solve the start-up problem?
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What is the volume of an average common chimpanzee brain? A modern human?
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Chimps never left the tropical forest. How was the success of Homo a result of being forced to leave the forest when the climate became more unpredictable?
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Who were our competitors in this new habitat?
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When Homo erectus evolved, what characteristics did this first Homo species have in common with these competitors?
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Foraging adaptations
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What are some of the behavioral, anatomical and physiological adaptations that humans evolved to become foraging machines, i.e., to hunt large prey animals?
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How did our success at hunting prey animals lead to changes in our gastrointestinal tract?
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How did our ability to control fire and to cook lead to changes in the size of our mouth, teeth and jaws?
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What is the potential energetic benefit of cooking food? Do other species do something similar?
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What is the potential social benefit of evening campfires?
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Human olfaction
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What species have been shown to use odors to navigate?
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Why might the human external nose be the functional equivalent of the head of a hammerhead shark or an insect's antennae?
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What are three possible hypotheses for the evolution of a unique external 'pyramid' in the genus Homo?
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What is a possible hypothesis to explain why the human nose became narrower in populations that left Africa and began domesticating plants and animals, around 15,000 years ago?
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