6 May
2024
6 May
'24
7 a.m.
Dear BERGers,
This Wednesday James Brooks (Kyoto University) will be giving a seminar entitled "The
mechanisms and evolution of group-based cooperation". Please find the abstract below.
Please note that due to the time difference (James will be talking from Japan), the
seminar will take place at 10am. Hope you can attend!
Abstract: While humans’ psychological disposition towards both large scale cooperation and
intergroup competition has long been recognized, the majority of comparative psychology
research has focused on the dyadic level. I here review a set of our recent studies
focusing on the evolution of inherently group-level social behaviour with bonobos,
chimpanzees, and domestic horses. Bonobos and chimpanzees are humans’ two closest
relatives, and, despite diverging only recently, show considerable differences in
group-based behaviour in wild contexts. Horses are relatively distantly related to us
phylogenetically, but share with us an evolutionary history of domestication and show
group-level herding behaviour with multi-level social structure. Methods focused on
measurement of changes to social attention as well as naturalistic social behaviour
following administration of exogenous oxytocin or saline placebo, along with observation
of behavioural responses to outgroup stimuli. On the whole, evidence suggests that
oxytocin supports species-typical sociality, including in group-level contexts, and that,
as in humans, perceived outgroup threat promotes ingroup cohesion in our closest
relatives. These results provide empirical support for some existing hypotheses about the
relation between intergroup competition and group cooperation, highlight areas of study
warranting continued future investigation, and suggest that the evolutionary origins of
human group-mindedness may, in part, be understood through a history of intergroup
competition supported by the oxytocin system.
MSTeams link:
https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%2F_%23%2Fl%2Fmee…
[cid:9ef5eae6-ef6e-46b4-8c7b-4ce56f4c6233]<https://teams.microsoft.com/dl…
Join
conversation<https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%…
teams.microsoft.com
Remaining meetings:
Date
Time
Speaker
Format
08/05/2024
10:00
James Brooks (Kyoto)
Online
15/05/2024
tbc
22/05/2024
16:00
Elodie Freymann (Oxford)
online
Best wishes,
Pawel
-------------------------------
Dr Pawel Fedurek (he/his)
Lecturer in Psychology
Behaviour and Evolution Research Group (BERG)
Division of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences
University of Stirling
Stirling, FK9 4LA
Scotland, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1786 467844<tel:+441786467844>
Twitter: @fedurekp<https://twitter.com/fedurekp>
@BERG_Stirling<https://twitter.com/BERG_Stirling>
Staff page<https://www.stir.ac.uk/people/1080868> | BERG
page<https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/faculties/natural-sciences/our-research/research-groups/behaviour-and-evolution-research-group/>
I aim to reply within 3 working days (my working days are between Monday and Friday).
________________________________
Scotland’s University for Sporting Excellence
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159
