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Yin/Yang, Predator/Prey: The Dyadic Nature of Human Social Instinct
Jennifer Dimino
Preface
Out of the early morning mist that creeps in chilled tendrils from the thick, leafy canopy, a shadowy figure emerges and makes its way down the trunk of a massive baobab. It is a small primate, perhaps no more than 70 pounds, and its body is covered by a layer of dark hair, but it moves with a surprising agility that bespeaks its arboreal preferences. The figure arrives at the savannah floor and reaches with long-toed feet for the solid ground before releasing the baobab and hauling itself to an upright standing position. Now moving as a biped, the figure sniffs the wind and turns its attentions to a nearby thicket of raisin bush, beckoning with lush fruit. Two steps towards the thicket and the ape suddenly freezes, and scans the area with large, forward-facing eyes for a mere instant before launching itself back onto all fours and careening in a zigzag pattern back towards the baobab with a lioness hot in pursuit. The lioness leaps right as the ape dives left, and with but seconds to spare the ape scrambles back up the trunk of the baobab, shrieking a warning to the others in his troop watching nervously from overhead. The raisin bushes can wait.
*****
There are five of them, the upright-standing apes with the large eyes, and they gather silently in the shadows at the edge of the grass plain to survey the herd. They are dwarfed in stature by the prong-horned ungulates they stalk, but they seem unfazed, and they grip in their hands an assortment of stone tools fastened to wooden spears. The largest of the five makes a series of hand gestures to the others, who instantly fan out to the right and left flanks of the ungulate herd, staying low to the ground so as not to be seen. Once in position, one of the apes hidden in the tall grass issues a bird-call whistle, and the leader charges out of the shadows directly towards the herd of antelope, brandishing a spear. The antelope panic, and whirl on hooved feet to find the easiest escape route, but all they see to either side are more of the armed primates. Lacking options, the antelope surge forward, pursued by the spear-wielders, and, consumed by their blind terror, fail to realize that they are being steered towards a towering cliff over which there will be no return.
When the dust settles, the apes shoulder their spears and descend the cliff face with the skill of inveterate tree-climbers to claim their prize: four adult antelope and two juveniles, whose meat will sustain the entire troop and whose hides will provide warmth for the females and children whose survival depends on these pack hunters.
*****
Two very different scenarios, describing two animals seemingly worlds apart. One is an arboreal forager who is on the menu of many larger carnivores, who displays the caution, hesitation, and flight-instinct of a true prey animal. The other is a different creature altogether: a hunter who travels in groups, and wields not only stone tools but an intellect that enables him to imagine, improvise, and model. This intellect has removed him from the list of ‘typical’ prey animals and placed him amongst lions and wolves, for he is a predator capable of organizing systematic and strategic ambushes to acquire necessary resources.
Introduction
There is a scene in the film Star Wars: Episode V wherein the ambitious young warrior, Luke Sywalker, is chafing at Master Yoda’s refusal to accelerate his training, and asserts that he is ready to become a full-fledged Jedi. Yoda lifts an eyebrow and says “Ready? What know you of ‘ready’? ...This one a long time have I watched; all his life he has looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where. he. was. What he was doing.” (1980). Cloaked by the humor of a sassy, pint-sized alien Jedi master with a tenuous grip on English syntax, a deeper message lies hidden within this quote: do not lose sight of the present by dwelling in imaginings of the future. Be present at all times, be aware of your here and now, for it is the circumstances of the here and now and the choices you make in response to these circumstances, that will
ultimately dictate how your future unfolds. While perhaps a tad ‘sci-fi-esque,’ I can think of no better explanation than this quote by Master Yoda for why the large-scale,
scientifically-driven, mass self-reflection practice that is social psychology is of such profound value to human civilization.
Over the course of our existence, we humans have built up a global social paradigm of vast proportions, inspired by an intellect that allows for both supremely detailed categorization, complex abstract and logical modeling, and the cognitive
and complex it may yet become, it is placing an increased demand on its participants to do something that comes naturally to almost all intelligent organisms: categorize.
Cognitive categorization of the outside world is an adaptive response employed by almost all animals to address the pressures of a dynamic and unpredictable world. Even creatures considered low on the taxonomic totem pole perform this function: sea slugs categorize (and thus differentiate between) nighttime vs. daytime, bees differentiate between seasons, and fruit flies encased in their pupae differentiate, by way of
endogenous circadian pacemakers, between dawn, day, and dusk (the latter being ideal for eclosion). The process of maintaining a functional awareness of differences between stimuli encountered in the environment guides animals’ physical movements, feeding patterns, reproductive cycles, and – for those that wield the appropriate mental capacity – choices.
subordinate male hyena who fails to distinguish between a low-ranking female hyena and the alpha ‘queen’ could quickly find himself exiled from the clan forever…or dead. In this particular example, the male hyena either ignored his instinct to categorize, ignored his accumulated knowledge of hyena social protocol, or failed to maintain a proactive awareness of where he was…what he was doing. Such a failure to engage in self- and external-awareness can be dire, and – again – while the choices and categorization habits of modern humans typically are not so high-stakes, we are bound by the rules of
population dynamics, natural selection, and social dynamics as much as any other
creature. We, too, have and innate urge to categorize, and it is from this impulse that the science of social psychology emerges.
As social creatures, humans bear as much of a responsibility as dolphins in a pod or geese in a flock to maintain an awareness of the world around us and those peers around whom and with whom we live. By categorizing, we can differentiate between self/other, safe/dangerous, good/evil, and innumerable other dichotomies and scales of being that we are presented with by a social existence. Through the practice of
categorization and awareness, we can bring ourselves into a state of equilibrium with our social surroundings, and achieve a balance beneficial for the individual and society at large. Social psychology, the study of the ways and processes by which people’s
knowledge is power, then it behooves us to embrace social psychology, and reflect upon where we are…what we are doing.
The study of the social nature of human existence has been an ongoing endeavor for decades (or centuries, depending on your definitions of social psychology and science), and has resulted in the formulation of numerous theories and perspectives that aim to both interpret and categorize patterns of human social behavior. Classical theories include the sociocultural perspective (founded on the premise that an individual’s beliefs, personality, and inclinations are learned by watching and interacting with other people within a social context), the social learning theory (which posits that the vast majority of human behavior is acquired through observation and modeling, and that the socialization process of young children involves the internalization cultural attitudes and values acquired from parental figures), the social cognitive theory (which places
emphasis on the cognitive processes of the individual with a social setting), and
theoretical framework that serves to identify predictors of behavioral outcomes, identify variables that might interact in certain contexts to mediate and/or moderate behavior, explain recurrent patterns and trends in human interaction that can be used to extrapolate future societal trends, and classify/define certain behavioral phenomena such that they may be measured, assessed, and quantified.
While the benefits afforded us by the large-scale scientific study of human social behavior are significant, they are also incomplete, thanks to an incongruity embedded within the lingo of social psychology itself. Basic social psychology aims to explain human behavior on a macrocosmic scale, yet bases its definitions on behavioral patterns of the individual; it aspires to generalize social phenomena while espousing views that point to individual uniqueness developed within a vastly dynamic social and
environmental context. Most importantly, the theories of social psychology acknowledge that human social development is a process that does not occur in a vacuum, and that the infinite variables which shape the human psyche result in each person within a society formulating a subjective reality within which ‘general’ suppositions (such as social theories) may or may not entirely apply. Social constructs, much like beauty, may be thought to exist ‘in the eye of the beholder’ as well as at a macroscopic level, and much like the ancient eastern concept of yin and yang, social psychology is incomplete without both general theories and personal theories.
Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Hindu Tantra – centers around the practice of focused introspection as being key to personal enlightenment and growth. Sanskrit works dating back as far as 5,000 years BCE include references to meditative practice…which is, by and large, synonymous with self-reflection, in that the process of conscious observation of one’s thoughts and feelings can lead to a revelatory awareness that brings about a higher good (History of Meditation, n.d.).
If one were to travel back in time and gather a few of the greatest
post-Impressionist painters -say, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, and Pinchon – and stand them all in the same room in front of identical easels with identical palettes and identical paints, and ask them all to paint a picture of the same vase full of flowers, one would end up with five very different (and likely very beautiful) paintings. Despite having the same tools as the others and having all been taught to create art in the same ‘language,’ each man would conceptualize and interpret the reality of the vase of flowers in a unique way. Would the distinctly individualistic results be valuable? Of course, and beyond any aesthetic considerations, the different paintings would inspire commentary and reflection in all those who might look upon them. Personal theories of social
psychology are no different, in that – while derived from the same theoretical background and expressed in the same scientific language – they reflect not only the common tools and methodologies of science but the conceptualizations of the tool wielder. Each person construes of his or own social reality in a slightly different way, and, using the common tools of scientific, psychological inquiry, can generate a concept of social reality that both grounds him/her in the bigger picture and distinguishes him/her as a unique individual.
Without an ongoing and progressive practice of self-reflection, and the
would be easy for even the keenest of psychological minds to lose perspective. A ‘complete’ grasp of social theory requires both a macrocosmic and microcosmic
perspective, an ability to root one’s interpretations of global social constructs in her own subjective reality and – at the same time – acknowledge and observe how her personal theory aligns with universal human behavioral patterns. Balance promotes centeredness, and centeredness brings resilience…a vital quality for all those who seek to help others through the practice of psychology and the pursuit of psychological research. A clinician without center and who lacks a balanced perspective will never be able to achieve objectivity in assessing clients and proposing intervention strategies; a researcher who cannot extrapolate results achieved in the lab to macrocosmic, global phenomena will struggle with finding and/or proving the external validity of his work. Universal social theory is the yang to personal social theory’s yin, and only together do they create a useful and functional harmony.
Established social theories: an analysis
daring to question where and why one has acquired one’s own beliefs, and taking the time to assess one’s body of knowledge from a dispassionate standpoint…is hard. Like so many other creatures, humans crave stability and routine, even when it comes to those intangible factors that guide their lives. Calling into question all that one knows is a demanding process; however, as I have discussed, the results of such self-evaluation can be invaluable.
Of the classical and contemporary social psychological theories we have explored as a class over the past term, four stand out to me as being particularly resonant with my beliefs and/or system of cognitive interpretation: the sociocultural perspective, the social learning perspective, the rational choice theory, and the evolutionary perspective.
To explore the main tenets of each theory, and to illuminate to the reader their distinctions with regards to how they assess patterns of human social interaction, it is often useful to select a common social behavior and then compare how each theory would interpret it. Even something as commonplace as sharing – the act of altruistically distributing one’s possessions/resources amongst others without thought to or
consideration of personal gain/recompense – becomes a complex, multidimensional phenomenon in light of the various social psychology perspectives:
encourage individuals within those cultures to adopt and uphold the same ideals, i.e. that sharing is a positive act.
The SOCIAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE, which centers upon three main behavioral determinants (aggression, dependency, and
identification), would focus on the act of learning a behavior as being a process of socialization through the internalization of cultural ideals, values, and norms. Authority figures such as parents and teachers are seen as key players in the learning process, as they are both models for ‘correct’ behavior and wielders of power who can enact consequences – positive or negative – for a young learner’s achievement or ignorance of correct behavior.
The SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE places great emphasis upon the symbolic meaning of social actions as being instrumental in the learning process. According to this perspective, learning occurs within a dynamic context wherein action, environment, and cognition interact to produce/entrain behavioral modification and sustain social learning. A toddler observing two grownups sharing, and witnessing the positive outcomes of the adults’ behavior, will cognitively link positive symbolic meaning to the act of sharing. He will also develop, through his
observations, the expectation of positive outcomes for his own
engagement in sharing behavior in the future. If a child is brought up in an environment wherein sharing is performed frequently, environmental pressures will encourage the attachment of positive meanings to sharing within the child’s mind. The child’s observations, together with the cognitive associations he has formed and external
environmental/contextual influences, will serve to produce [his own] sharing behavior.
that is shared by every sentient organism on the planet, wherein the potential costs of a future action are weighed against the possible benefits. This assessment may take place at a subconscious level, but it is one that has helped propel the evolution of today’s species and has aided humans run the gauntlet of daily survival in an often unpredictable world.
Long ago, before the conveniences of technology and
infrastructure made cost/benefit analysis fade into the background of basic human considerations, the stakes for human behavioral ‘gambles’ were high: a group of Homo neanderthalensis setting out on a week-long hunting expedition represented both high cost (the investment of time, energy, and safety) and high risk (the possibility of failure, illness, injury, or death)…but the potential benefits were equally high (taking down large game and bringing large quantities of vital sustenance back to the clan).
While modern people typically do not face such high-stakes choices in their everyday lives, the motivation for personal gain and fear of personal loss still significantly affect human choice analysis and behavioral preference. Insofar as the example of sharing goes, a child considering whether or not the engage in this behavior would be hindered by contemplation of cost (I have two cookies; if I share one with my friend, I’ll have less for myself…and I like cookies) and motivated by gain (sharing will make my friend happy, which will make me happy; it also is the right thing to do, because my parents have taught me sharing is good). What the child will ultimately elect to do depends on which way the scale tips in his mind.
The EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE of social psychology would maintain that sharing is a behavioral phenotype selected for by nature that benefits the individual, group, and species at large. While solitary species typically do not engage in sharing behaviors (with the exception of
feeding/nursing young), social species do share, and adhere to very distinct behavioral rules.
troop of gorillas stands a much better chance at holding territory if all the troop members are strong and healthy. Thus, it makes adaptive sense for the sharing of resources to be selected for as a behavior, which is why we can observe wolves sharing kills with the pack, mustang mares sharing ‘babysitting’ duties amongst each other, and human children sharing their juice boxes with other people. Sharing benefits the species at large, and is therefore ingrained into the species’ culture as an adaptive behavior. (Dimino, 2015)
college used to drive me crazy, in that the professors (and even the field itself) seemed not to care about the actual words written by the great authors of our time but rather sought to wheedle out hidden layers of meaning that I often believed didn’t exist. To be sure, Shakespeare’s works are profound, and The Bard certainly used metaphorical and allegorical writing to convey complex ideas and meanings to the reader/audience; my professors, however, could never accept the possibility that when Shakespeare wrote of a tree in his poems, he was actually, really writing about…a tree.
Unlike some of the contemporary social psychology theories, the application of which occasionally feels to me like trying to get water from a stone, the sociocultural perspective, the social learning perspective, the rational choice theory, and the evolutionary perspective feel grounded in truth to me. Empirical scientific research emphatically supports them (particularly the results of psychological and anthropological studies), and – perhaps most significant with regards to my present endeavor – they lend themselves well to expansion, and the formulation of new theories based on their
underlying principles.
A New Direction: My Personal Theory of Social Psychology I have explored the evolution of Homo sapiens from anthropological,
psychological, neurophysiological, and behavioral perspectives, with the intention of formulating a novel social psychological theory based on man’s uniquely dyadic
behavior arise from behavioral programming once designed to facilitate predator
avoidance…and, later, to enable and enhance predation. I believe humans both possess and exhibit vestiges of deeply-encoded survival patterns of social behavior, and that universal ‘rules’ that apply to all predators and prey in the animal kingdom – as well as the interactions that arise between them – can be used to predict and explain some of modern man’s more complex social inclinations. Our prey- and predator-derived emotional inheritances combine to make us what we are today, and – like the entities of yin and yang – continuously shift, merge, offset, and combine in intricate ways to create a fluid whole… This ‘whole’ is the sum of modern human behavior.
A conceptual and evolutionary background: From man the prey to man the predator
While primate evolution continues to present the scientific community with mysteries and inspire hotly contested debates, there is no disagreement that the very oldest of man’s ancient ancestors were arboreal primates. As tree-dwellers, early proto-hominids subsisted primarily on vegetation, with the occasional inclusion of invertebrates - namely insects - to supplement their diets. They were also prey animals that ranked relatively low on the food chain, and as such had to develop precautionary and avoidance behaviors to evade such hunters as snakes, large felines, and wolves. Knowing what we know now about general prey behavior, there is little question that early hominids were cautious, tentative, and careful creatures; of Homo sapiens’ two instinctive inheritances, that of PREY is far older, and significantly more deeply ingrained.
and limbs (Hunt, 2014). Forest canopies were rich with vital resources and, like monkeys and apes of today, early hominids enjoyed a variety of plants and fruits, nuts and boring insects as food. So what was it, precisely, that tempted our tree-dwelling ancestors down onto solid ground, and sparked not only the hominids’ physical transformation into bipedal, upright walkers but also their behavioral transformation from prey-foragers to pack predators? To answer this question, it is necessary to explore whether or not predatory instincts evolved before or concurrently with the development of hominid bipedalism. If the former is true, and hunting behaviors preceded ancient humans’ transition to the ground, it is possible that emergent predation behavior itself may have contributed to the evolution of the first fully land-dwelling hominid societies (Dimino, 2015).
While we have only stone artifacts and fossilized remains by which to investigate ancient hominid social behavior, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists do have an wonderful resource by which they are able to extrapolate what early hominid life was like 5-7 million years ago (hereafter: mya): extant nonhuman primates (Fahy et al., 2013). The species currently being ascribed the label of “oldest true hominid” is Orrorin
“Man the hunter,” one of the most persistent and pervasive theories regarding the evolution of hominid bipedalism, is and has always been closely linked with tool use for hunting and defense (Tuttle, 2014). There are some scientists, however, who have challenged this idea, noting that stone tools clearly designed for predation have only ever been discovered in association with later hominids (such as Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis), and therefore it is unlikely that earlier hominid species did not hunt.
The rebuttal to the lessened primacy of the ‘man the hunter’ theory has come in the form of empirical reports of meat-eating and active hunting amongst modern chimpanzees.
Chimpanzees (Pan paniscus and Pan troglodytes) – along with baboons, capuchins, and bonobos – occupy a highly exclusive niche of nonhuman primates who systematically hunt large vertebrates and consume meat (Tuttle, 2014). The specific patterns of their predation behavior vary from population to population; nevertheless, recent studies and behavioral surveys of African chimps have provided conclusive evidence of a prevalent tendency to predate sizable vertebrates amongst these social apes. While the exact dietary contribution of animal flesh to the chimpanzee diet is not entirely understood (hunting may be a symbolic, ritualistic behavior with a non-dietary goal, or it may represent directed effort towards resolving gaps in their nutrition), the results of such studies have provided the scientific community with extensive observational data that details male chimpanzee hunting behavior and subsequent meat-sharing protocol (Dimino, 2015).
enough to produce a detectable isotope signal in hair keratin and bone collagen) (2013). Their results were astonishing: isotope values from the Tai chimps’ tissue samples confirmed prior behavioral observations of frequent hunting/meat eating amongst male chimps (who employ hunting methods that range from scavenging to opportunism to organized stalking/chasing), suggesting that a) meat is actually a key nutritional staple for the chimps and b) meat consumption and associated predation behavior may have helped sustain the evolution of the large human brain (Fahy et al., 2013). Yes, modern chimps rely heavily on the fruits of foraging behavior – plants, fruits, and insects – but many extant populations also hunt in organized groups for the express purpose of predating other animals such as monkeys and wild boar. Similar differences in food
acquisition/consumption behavior may have persisted throughout hominid evolution, perhaps stretching back in time even earlier than widely believed (Fahy et al., 2014). Reconstructing the social behavior of our ancient ancestors could provide us with clues as to how the interaction between nutritional demands and social systems promoted hominid social evolution.
Evolutionary change is generally thought of as the movement of a species from one adaptive point to another; in practice, the availability of viable evolutionary pathways is constrained when movement to an adjacent point involves a drop in fitness for those individuals (Foley & Lee, 1989). Loss of fitness can be sparked by alterations in
counter-tactic to the increased threat of predation and a response to widely spread
resources. Large territories also present problems for those who dwell therein, in that the widely spread resources of the open savannah requires increased mobility. Furthermore, maintaining successful foraging strategies becomes difficult in the context of habitats with significantly different seasons (Foley & Lee, 1989). For early hominids, such as Australopithecus afarensis, such a confluence of environmental and logistical factors
would presumably encourage a shift towards meat-eating and hunting as a strategy (not to mention the acceleration of more efficient bipedal locomotor traits). According to Foley & Lee (1989), there is general agreement in the scientific community that by 1.6mya - contemporaneous with the appearance of Homo erectus - hominids were
processing meat at a higher level than is known for any extant nonhuman primate species. Foley and Lee also note that while the causes of meat-eating are ecological, the
consequences are social; in such a context, increased cooperation amongst individuals to hunt larger game would be advantageous…hence, the rise of “man the [group] hunter” and modern Homo sapiens’ predatory instincts.
The Essence of Yin: Behavioral Characteristics of Prey Animals The Distance Hypothesis: Fight or Flight
likewise engaged by these cues both mentally and physically (Low et al., 2008). From an evolutionary perspective, the psychology and related physiological states of human emotion and be defined as action dispositions – states of increased vigilance and
physical mobilization associated with survival goals (Frijda, 1987; Lang et al., 1997, Low et al., 2008).
One of the most well-known behavioral patterns associated with threat response is that of “fight or flight,” the two last-ditch options for any prey animals faced with
imminent predation: a cape buffalo staring down the barrel of a lioness ambush may either choose to run, and blend in with the herd in hopes of escape…or it may choose to stand its ground, and test its strength and horned weaponry against the feline onslaught. “Fight” and “flight” are but the observable results of an autonomic process within the target animal’s cognitive machinery that is thought to be mediated by the distance hypothesis.
A 2008 study by A. Low, P.J. Lang, C. Smith, and M.M. Bradley, in which psychophysiological arousal secondary to threat vs. reward stimuli was explored in humans by way of a computer simulation, showed that human responses to both pleasant and ‘dangerous’ stimuli align closely with those of nonhuman animal models. The results of their experiment, wherein human volunteers were asked to play a computer game in which they had to identify and react to a ‘threat’ (an image of a dangerous fish) based on the perceived proximity of the threat, demonstrated that human emotion is highly context-dependent and adaptive. Data gathered from various physical and cognitive measures (including heart rate, skin conductivity, and brain event-related-potential) of the participants revealed that “[the] looming picture sequences prompted systematic modulation of somatic, autonomic, and brain responses [in the participants] varied reliably with the apparent distance from the goal” (p. 870). Put simply, Low et al., demonstrated that human prey instincts and prey-driven responses mirror those of any other prey animal when confronted with a threat, and that the closer the threat seems, the more we react on the psychological and physical levels.
Consider the following scenario:
A jogging enthusiast wanting to spice up her typical routine elects to try a new route that takes her to a part of town she’s never been to before, and notices that, despite the fact she is taking every safety precaution – a reflective vest, running in daylight hours, keeping a cell-phone with her – she’s nervous as she sets off for her run. Her heart is beating faster than usual, her palms are sweaty, and she finds herself glancing to the side more frequently than usual. She tells herself she’s being silly, but subconsciously she is feeling the effects of a behavioral response that once may have saved the life of her ancient ancestors.
Quorum Sensing: Majority Rules
Consider the following scenario:
It is a blisteringly hot and humid summer day, and a group of 7 teenage boys decides to beat the heat (and assuage their boredom) with a swim at a nearby quarry. The quarry, long since abandoned, features a beautiful swimming hold set amongst towering granite cliffs, and offers respite from the oppressive heat. Upon arrival, one of the boys – Jeff - announces that he wants to cliff-dive into the swimming hole from a ridge about three stories up, in blatant disregard for the posted signs that warn “Danger: shallow water” and “NO cliff-diving.” Sam, one of the group, recalls a news story from a few years back, in which an out-of-towner died from a botched dive off of the very same ridge Jeff wishes to use… and he announces his refusal to participate. Jeff waves a hand impatiently, calls Sam a wuss, and insists he’s going to cliff-dive anyway. After Jeff, another boy voices his support for the cliff-dive plan…and another…and then another. As soon as 5 of the boys announce their intent to cliff-dive with Jeff, Sam’s doubts begin to fade, and he finds himself wanting to cliff-dive, too.
Quorum sensing, an adaptive strategy employed in many biological systems and across taxa to increase decision accuracy, centers upon the following critical fact: the probability that an individual will adopt a particular behavior is a nonlinear function of the number of other animals in the group who also adopt this behavior (Kurvers et al., 2013). In other words, once enough members of the group have initiated a behavior, an individual will reach a ‘tipping point’ beyond which he/she, too, will adopt the same behavior. This tipping point is known as the quorum threshold (QT).
As we know, social living affords organisms many benefits, not the least of which is safety (in numbers) and access to shared social information (by stationing a number of ‘sentinels’ across their territory to watch for predators and signal danger, prairie dogs living in colonies enjoy relative security). Using social information, individual members of a group can increase their decision accuracy and enhance the speed of their decision-making (Kurvers et al., 2013). Many decisions made by social-living organisms – including humans - are based on quorum responses, a key aspect of which is the QT itself. Survival success dictates that individual organisms in a dynamic environment should (a) be able to flexibly adjust their quorum thresholds and (b) that individuals should adjust their QT to the unique circumstances and contexts of any situation
requiring a decision about whether or not to act. Without such plasticity, quorum sensing would be a poor survival tactic, and likely would have faded long ago as a behavioral phenotype.
time, and this holds true for any animal. In many contexts, decision-accuracy is checked by the ever present trade-off between true positives (ex. the lion is really there, guys, RUN!) and false positives (I signaled ‘flee!’…but it was just a shadow. Whoops.): an
increase in true positives can only occur at the cost of increased false positives (and vice versa) (Kurvers et al., 2013). However, this trade-off can be overcome by obeying what the authors call the “Two-step quorum decision rule”, which goes as follows:
Step #1 : the instant you decide to take action based on your personal information, SPREAD THE WORD
Step #2 : take action when at least _x_ % of your fellow group members decide to take action (i.e. once the QT has been reached)
(Kurvers et al., 2013)
Quorum sensing effectively explains why many people are reluctant to take significant and/or potentially risky actions by themselves, and why individuals in group settings are often convinced to do or say things that may in fact run counter to their true beliefs. Without adequate ‘backup’ from a requisite percentage of one’s peer population, a single person may exhibit reluctance to act in a certain way, for the simple reason that it is inadvisable to do so from an adaptive standpoint. Communal-living species –
Predicting the Unpredictable: Protean Behavior in Prey Populations
One of the most interesting aspects of predator-avoidance behavior in prey animal models can be observed not only in terrestrial environments but in marine as well. Bait fish that occupy the lower rungs of the food-chain ladder, such as anchovies, sardine, and herring tend to congregate in massive numbers and school in shoals. In the absence of a threat, the shoals maintain a uniform pattern of movement, with each individual fish swimming at a set distance from others / at the same speed / in the same trajectory. Uniformity and conformity rule…until a shark shows up.
Once a threat has been detected, large groups of prey animals tend to scatter, each individual selecting its own path in a seemingly random fashion. Oftentimes, escape paths themselves are chaotic: bait fish dart every which way to avoid sharks, rabbits sprint in a zigzag pattern away from stooping falcons, and deer dart, corner and weave haphazardly to evade incoming coyote. Such chaotic avoidance behavior can be seen in humans, too; one has but to watch the tragic and heart-wrenching footage of the attacks of 9/11 to see that when humans panic, systematic and norm-conditioned conduct is replaced by anarchic frenzy. Why this unpredictability? What purpose does protean behavior serve in prey animal populations?
(successful evasion/escape); “thus what is optimal for one type of individual may be different to that for other behavioral types” (Jones et al., 2011, p. 831).
Variance has always been a vital element in theories of predator-prey interactions, and provided a conceptual explanation for the perpetuation of certain behavioral
phenotypes and/or emergence of novel phenotypes within a population. According to their 1988 treatise, Dover and Humphries posit that protean behavior (i.e. acting unpredictably in predation/avoidance situations to maximize success) is a highly functional adaptive strategy: prey that act in the same manner every time / all the time will be quickly decimated by predators who learn this static behavior and adopt their own behavioral counter-measures (turtles hide in their shells, yes, which at one point probably flummoxed any predators seeking to eat them; however, somewhere in the scheme of things, certain raptors learned that by dropping the turtles from a great height, they could crack the reptiles’ protective shells). If, on the other hand, there is a high degree of behavioral variance within a prey population, predators will have a very hard time predicting what prey will do next, and will therefore experience a reduced rate of successful capture (Jones et al., 2011). The frenzied zigzag escape pattern employed by hares and jackrabbits is an example of protean behavior, as is the ‘abstract scatter and flee’ tactic of a herd of elk who have been ambushed by wolves; by running in
unpredictable trajectories, prey animals up their chances of escaping predation successfully and avoid being initially targeted by the predators in the first place.
This inclusion and acknowledgement of individual behavioral variance as being a factor in the predator-prey model is unique, and one could feasibly go so far as to take the concept of behavioral variance and re-define it as personality… In other words,
personality traits unique to every individual within a prey population may impact a) how often an individual employs protean tactics as a means to escape ‘predation,’ b) how often/successfully other individuals within the same population employ protean tactics, as (per the social learning theory), behavior is often disseminated through modeling, and c) whether ‘prey individual’ personality traits such as assertiveness or passivity, shyness or aggression affect the outcomes of a predator-prey interaction in which said individual is part. If protean behavior is selected FOR by nature – as extant animal populations emphatically demonstrate - then it may explain why there is such a high degree of variability in human reactions to stressful situations.
Consider this scenario:
With Fourth of July celebrations but a week away and thousands of fireworks enthusiasts set to swarm the Esplanade, the Boston PD organizes a task force to assess current safety protocol and come up with contingency procedures in the event of a crisis. One hypothetical scenario they are faced with is that of a pyrotechnic misfire, i.e. a rogue firework shoots into the crowds and starts a park blaze. The officers brainstorm, sharing with each other everything they have learned and seen about human panic behavior, and devise a plan by which such an unlikely scenario could be effectively controlled: officers stationed across the Esplanade on horseback will converge on the scene, form a row, and direct pedestrians to safety. People, they agree, always respect the presence of officers on horseback – horses are large and imposing, and people will move as directed when faced with mounted police forces.
The 4th rolls around, and the unthinkable happens: a large firework
their devised strategy, the cops signal for the officers on horseback to form a line, and about 99% of the frightened citizens obey as predicted, and heed the mounted officers’ instructions. 1%, however, do not act as planned, and several people make a mad dash towards, over, and even under the police horses to escape the throng…spooking the horses, who rear and throw several officers to the ground.
The Power of Yang: Predatory Instincts of “Man the Hunter”
As I have discussed in earlier sections of this work, anthropological evidence from fossilized hominid remains and observed behavior in extant populations of nonhuman primates strongly supports the theory that ancient hominids developed both the physiological and behavioral capacity for predation prior to becoming permanent land-dwellers. It is possible that meat-eating became a prevalent behavior as early as the time of Orrorin tugenensis – we may never know for sure, but what is certain is that archaeological evidence leaves us in little doubt that by the time of Homo erectus (origin ~ 1.98mya) and Homo neanderthalensis (origin ~200,000 years ago), proto-humans had definitively incorporated hunting into their repertoires of survival behavior, and were consuming meat on a regular basis (Tuttle, 2014). Somewhere between – perhaps because of – the hominids’ descent from the trees and the rise of the first true Homo sapiens (~10,000 years ago), our ancestors donned a new behavioral aegis and leapt into a new evolutionary niche: that of a hunter.
As our predatory behaviors are relatively new as compared to our prey instincts, it is somewhat more difficult to discern vestiges of our hunting past in modern human social behavior. Humans have been predated-upon social primates for millennia; it is no surprise, therefore, that behaviors inspired by our prey-animal past tend to rule,
companions may reveal themselves to be shy and timid when solo. A nighttime walk in the dark to the local pharmacy may not seem daunting…if we have a friend with us; remove that friend, however, and we may find ourselves experiencing the heightened physical arousal and anxiety associated with imminent predation/threat. Alone, we are vulnerable, something our hominid ancestors learned a very long time ago. But when we learned to stand upright, to walk on two legs, and to conceive of new ideas by which we could master the outside world and turn information into adaptive advantage, we created a pack-hunter behavioral paradigm that manifests in social situations today.
Assessment by Odds: Prey Targeting
I have always been a petite person. A gymnast since age 5, by middle school I had earned the title of “2nd shortest girl in [my] entire class,” an accolade that stuck until
A behavioral theory that goes hand-in-hand with protean behavior theory, the oddity effect posits that predators do not target randomly, but rather select their target prey preferentially, zeroing in on those individuals who stand out from the crowd in some way (Jones et al., 2011). This theory applies not only to lone predators but also those that coordinate hunts in packs. A tiger stalking a herd of deer will be more likely to target the young calf straggling at his mother’s side than the similar-looking adults; likewise, wolves are more apt to single out the elk with the deformed leg than the robustly-built others. Being different in the animal kingdom may come at a price, and for prey animals, that price is increased “visibility” and “appeal” to predatory eyes.
The oddity effect theory readily explains why I was pelted the most in those old dodgeball games; it also explains why bullies tend to pick on the small, the weak, the ‘different.’ For a young girl in middle school, dressing differently or listening to
‘unpopular music’ may be all it takes to draw the attentions of the reigning social clique who, in their group-inspired predatory state, are all too happy to ‘attack.’
Strength in Numbers vs. the Power of One
ancient hominids of the Upper Paleolithic predated upon large vertebrates (Fahy et al., 2013; Tuttle, 2014).
There are examples of modern humans engaging in individual conspecific
predation; most notoriously, serial killers. While the ramifications of serial homicide are both shocking and homicide events well-publicized, the ‘solo hunter’ paradigm is
actually quite rare within contemporary society, and those who engage in such behaviors are frequently linked with some underlying psychopathology. Much more common is the paradigm of ‘man the pack hunter,’ wherein groups of like-minded individuals predate upon the small, weak, and/or vulnerable. It is only through group effort that later hominids were able to bring down such large quarry as the wooly mammoth or auroch, and the highly evolved cognitive machinery they wielded allowed for complex
stratagems to be envisioned, then enacted. Moving about in the ancient savannah was a far safer task when group members banded together, and the involvement of multiple hunters meant a drastically increased likelihood of hunting success. Togetherness, to our ancient ancestors, meant survival, and it is not surprising that we observe some of the most overtly predatory behavior from today’s Homo sapiens when they are in groups.
Consider the following scenario:
One Monday afternoon Laura finds herself walking down the hall in-between classes, and notices Abby at her locker off to the distance. She thinks of a few juicy insults to sling Abby’s way, but for whatever reason, her desire to yell at the new girl is not that strong. Laura passes by Abby without a word, and thinks no more of it.
On Tuesday, Laura is roaming the halls with her pals; the Fearsome Foursome is at large and in charge, and Laura feels powerful. Amidst her friends, Laura suddenly recalls the events of yesterday, and tells everyone about the nasty things she was thinking about saying to Abby. “Let’s go find her, and give that weirdo the scare of her life!” one of the girls exclaims. Even though Abby is nowhere in sight, Laura suddenly feels an overwhelming urge to hunt her down and give her what she deserves. She leads her friends off in a search for Abby, who doesn’t know what’s coming to her.
Personality: The X-Factor of Predator/Prey Interactions
The essential tenets of the evolutionary theory of social psychology, as well as the prey/predator theory currently being formulated in the present work, are large, over-arching, and general. The ‘rules’ that govern the patterns and outcomes of prey behavior and predatory instinct are meant to apply in a broad sense, and are derived from
‘universal’ laws of natural selection and evolutionary development. One thing they do not necessarily account for in a systematic way, however, is individual behavioral variance…in other words, personality.
2011; Fogarty et al., 2011; DiRienzo et al., 2013). While fascinating, the persistence and apparent selection-based maintenance of different behavioral phenotypes presents the scientific community with a puzzle: if nature selected either strongly for or strongly against one personality type, the degree of personality variation within a given population should, in theory, decrease. This is clearly not the case, with differential personalities being noted in species from cetaceans to rodents to arachnids (DiRienzo et al., 2013).
A possible explanation for this phenomenon derives from the notion of
intraspecific variation, wherein the emergence of certain characteristics in one species may depend on or be caused by characteristics in interacting heterospecifics (an example: certain species of angelfish have developed tailfin color patterns that feature a dark ‘spot’ that resembles an eye; per the theory of intraspecific variation, this eyespot did not develop from pressures within the angelfish population itself, but rather as a result of the behaviors of the predator animals that hunt them. Predators such as dogfish tend to target their strikes based on where they observe the prey’s eye to be; by mimicking an eye in their tailfins, the angelfish are more likely to survive what will end up being a nonlethal attack to their posterior fins). The resultant context-dependent performance trade-offs have the potential to maintain variation in multiple interaction populations by ensuring that no one behavioral type will consistently yield better performance than another (DiRienzo et al., 2013).
maintaining phenotypic variation. The authors’ hypothesis was based on the ‘best fit’ model of natural selection, which posits that the success of predator foraging efforts and the success of prey survival efforts depend on the combined behavioral tendencies of both predator and prey in a predator-prey interaction. Put another way, that when a predator encounters a prey, the individual personalities of both organisms will interact to predict the outcome of the encounter. DiRienzo et al. set out to explore this phenomenon using crickets and black widow spiders (the crickets’ natural predator), divided into two categories according to ‘personality’: shy vs. bold. They predicted that bold crickets would have a lower frequency of survivorship (in a staged interaction with the black widows), that bold spiders would have greater foraging success than shy spiders, and that bold crickets paired with a shy spider would survive / shy crickets paired with bold spiders would be killed. The results of the DiRienzo study were fascinating: in short, the authors found that the survivorship of the crickets depended on the behavioral tendencies of the spiders.
So what does this mean for a predator/prey theory of social psychology? Current theories in social psychology already acknowledge the influence of personality upon the outcomes of human social interactions; the work done by DiRienzo et al. adds an
intriguing ‘facet’ to the existing body of psychosocial theory: Social interactions involving both aggressive/bold and passive/shy individuals may take on a distinctly ‘predator/prey’-like character, with outcomes mediated by the degree of boldness of the “predator” in the given situation.
Consider the following scenario:
assumes the role of ‘predator,’ while the driver who has been pulled over fills the role of ‘prey.’ According to DiRienzo et al.’s data, we may assume that: if the trooper is bold and the driver is bold, chances are the driver is getting a ticket / if the trooper is shy and the driver is bold, the driver likely won’t get a ticket / if the trooper is bold and the driver is shy, the driver probably won’t get a ticket (as DiRienzo et al. found that individuals paired with a similar personality type had a lower chance of survival, while those paired with a different personality type had a better chance of survival… “Survival,’ in this case, meaning “not getting a ticket”).
Putting it All Together: The Predator/Prey Theory of Social Psychology
Much of the human behavior is driven by instinct, and the sum of human instinct is derived from hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. Half of this instinct has been inherited from our former incarnations as prey animals, foragers and gatherers who sat low on the food chain and adapted their behaviors accordingly so as to survive. The other half comes from our more recent past as group hunters, wherein we flexibly
Key Points: An Individual Acting As Prey Will…
Exercise caution and careful situational assessment tendencies Avoid sudden movements/behaviors that might draw attention to
himself/herself
Possess a heightened level of awareness and arousal (ex. faster heart rate, elevated brain potential, etc.) indicative of physical mobilization
Be more inclined to act in accordance with the ‘status quo,’ i.e. adhere to accepted social protocols (so as not to stand out).
Demonstrate erratic and unpredictable behavior in a crisis or in the presence of a perceived threat
Act in an opportunistic manner insofar as goals and acquisition of resources are concerned
Key Points: An Individual Acting As Predator Will…
Act in a more assertive, confident, proactive, and aggressive manner when in the presence of peers
Make choices in a more strategic manner, and be less prone to spontaneous decisions
Model his/her behavior according to the behavior of the group majority, even if the group majority acts in such a manner as runs counter to the individual’s own inclinations
While it may seem that this theory is derived exclusively from the evolutionary perspective of social psychology, it is, in actuality, the product of consideration of all four of the social theories I highlighted in previous sections as being those which resonate with me the most (as well as the product of an intensive exploration of human evolution, ecology, and principles of natural selection). The way I see it is this: it is impossible to separate the sociocultural perspective from any consideration of modern human behavior, just as it is impossible to remove rational choice from any social equation. That humans learn by modeling, that social context (i.e. culture) is hugely influential in human
behavior, that all organisms go through life motivated – even on a subconscious level – by considerations of risk/reward or cost/benefit…all of this, to me, is a given. As I write about evolutionary theory and the behavioral manifestations of prey and predator
instincts in people today, I am writing with these social theories already in mind.
Theory Limitations: the X-Factor of Behavioral Variance
I have demonstrated through the various scenarios described above the utility the predator/prey theory of human social interaction can explain behavioral tendencies, particularly those in individual or group contexts. As wont as most people are to believe that humans are so far removed from any of our animal relatives/companions/neighbors that considerations of instinct and principles mediating predator/prey interactions don’t even apply to us, the truth is that we are creatures of deeply-held emotion and instinct, and the instincts we all possess did not arise yesterday. Our innate behavioral
observe in crisis situations, or stressful situations, or situations involving intensive confrontations, the ones even the most cutting-edge psychological science can’t fully explain. Sometimes the key to human behavior cannot be found within the complexities of our new cognitive machinery; sometimes, we must delve deeper into the recesses of our reptilian brain and instinct-generating neurological mechanisms to unlock the secrets of certain behaviors.
It is worth mentioning, however, that the primordial basis of prey and/or predator human instinctive behavior represents one of this theory’s most significant limitations: the predator/prey theory cannot be used to accurately predict the outcome of individual behaviors derived from personality. While it accounts for personality, even to the extent of incorporating personality into the assessment of phenotypic variation, it does not and cannot make predictions of the effects of individual personality in all possible
circumstances.
Suppose you select a group of 10 pre-teen girls for a social experiment. All ten are the exact same age, from the exact same conservative, religious town, and all attend the same grade at the same school. It is almost Halloween, and you instruct the girls to take a haunted hayride through the town forest at midnight. Per your arrangement, as soon as the hay wagon reaches a certain fork in the road, a machete-brandishing actor in a hockey mask charges out of the brush and sprints towards your subjects. Given the environment (dark, open, threatening) and the age of the girls (young, vulnerable), you expect all of them to have a full-fledged prey reaction (i.e. total panic) per the
smirking to themselves and giggling as they poke at the bewildered actor’s cardboard machete.
<What happened!?>
What happened – and what the predator/prey theory cannot systematically
account for - is personality. The 2 girls who stayed on the wagon and displayed little-to-no fear possess very bold personalities, enjoy adventure, appreciate a little adrenaline, and adore Friday the 13th movies. This is not to say they weren’t scared –perhaps they were – but the prey/predator theory is limited in a fundamental way, by virtue of the fact that instincts can be overridden. Through conscientious practice such as visualization and meditation, or through the effects of strong personality characteristics, individuals are capable of ‘ignoring’ their innate programming and re-writing behavioral instructions within their minds.
Achieving such self-directed control is not easy, and neurological science has demonstrated that while people do have the ability to override certain automatic, instinctive responses, they can only be successful if they have the requisite amount of “disk space” available in their brains at the given moment (Nier, 2013). A person whose focus is being pulled in ten different directions will probably not be able to overcome his instinct to scream when his buddy jumps out from behind a sofa, while a person whose mind is calm may be able to successfully squelch the urge to panic.
Ethical Implications and Theory Utility
selection to humankind. Like most scientific theories, I anticipate that the predator/prey theory will not be universally-embraced, and may inadvertently offend those adherent to orthodox religious belief.
With regards to the ethicality of the application of this theory, it is also possible that some may view my attempt at explaining certain more ‘shocking’ human behaviors – such as murder, genocide, bullying, etc. – per humans’ dual instinctive inheritances as being my trying to justify those behaviors. Readers should be aware that the
predator/prey theory in no way condones immoral or unethical action; it simply provides a conceptual forum wherein such behaviors may be explained. It bears consideration, too, that in so many instances, as we have discussed, knowledge is power; any deepened understanding of unpleasant human behavioral phenomenon provided by the
predator/prey theory may ultimately provide the keys to a solution. Consider the following scenario:
could potentially assist the students in overcoming a predatory group behavior enacted by their peers.
Conclusion
In this paper I have explored the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens from both a neurophysiological and behavioral perspective, and pieced together a social
psychological theory based on man’s uniquely dyadic behavioral inheritance as both prey and predator. As humans have occupied both niches at different stages in our evolution, it stands to reason that consistent trends in human social behavior arise from phenotypic programming once designed to inspire predator avoidance…and predation success. I believe humans both possess and manifest vestiges of primordial survival patterns of social behavior, and that many of the laws that govern the interactions and interaction outcomes of all predators and prey in the animal kingdom can be used to predict and explain some of modern man’s more complex social inclinations. The predator/prey theory accomplishes just this, placing modern human social behavior within the conceptual framework of adaptive response per natural selection.
Personal Insights
Conducting the research for this project has been a fascinating undertaking, and one far from complete (if one considers the vastness of evolutionary history). My knowledge of human anthropology, evolution, and ecology is certainly not at any level approaching “expert,” this – coupled with the fact that science is continuously forcing us to reevaluate our notions of hominid behavior and evolution in light of new
order to stay current! Increasingly advanced forensic technology is revealing a
progressively more detailed picture of hominid life and activity, and I predict this is not likely to abate anytime soon. Some may disparage this fact, but I myself welcome it, knowing that the ultimate applicability, utility, generalizability, and accuracy of my predator/prey theory will only be enhanced with knowledge gleaned from future discoveries.
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