Altruism as an Adaptive Behavior - Essay Example

? Altruism as an Adaptive Behavior Altruism as an Adaptive Behavior Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach that explains psychological traits in terms of changes in memory, cognition or language as adaptations. Biology mechanism plays role to bring the functional manner of cognitive approaches through the process of evolution. Evolutionary psychology also focuses on the fact that how evolution is responsible for reshaping mind and behavior particularly. This paper aims to discuss the biological process of evolution and how evolutionary psychologists have presented their view on altruism as an adaptive behavior. Evolution refers to change that occur in allele frequency over time and generate characteristics in living things as an outcome of the evolution process, including complexity, functional adaptation and diversity. There are four mechanisms that explain the process of evolution such as, selection (the organizing force), mutation (the source of new alleles), genetic drift (accidental changes in allele frequency) and isolation and gene flow (presence or absence of barriers to breeding). Natural selection is a differential reproduction introduced by Charles Darwin when he had received letter from British naturalist named Alfred Wallace, who also had the same explanation of evolution through natural selection. According to Darwin' theory of evolution through natural selection, reproduction takes place when some individuals contribute more gamete to future generation. When children get phonotype characteristics from their parents that is responsible for greater fecundity and fertility then they enjoy reproductive advantage within a stable environment. Thus, when those phenotype characters are passed on to third generation fecundity and fertility increases further (Nardo, 2001). Fertile phenotype is also described as fit referring fitness to an ability of reproducing offspring abundantly and surviving in the environment. This phenomenon was latter popularized as "survival of the fittest". A famous example of selection natural by Darwin is HBD Kettle well’s 1955 explanation of selective advantage. Researcher has explained that in peppered moth have two colored phenotype i.e. light and dark, while dark moths were less in number. In Great Britain trunks of trees are usually light colored that were darkened by soot and it was noticed that both phenotype moths used to sit on the tree trunks. As light colored moths were easily visible, thus those were eaten by birds during the day time. Consequently, dark-colored phenotype kept on reproducing and formed a larger population, while light-colored kept on vanishing and became rare species (Nardo, 2001). Mutation generates change among living organisms through alteration in DNA. DNA molecules are accurately duplicated in each homologous chain, but if a chain damages they are repaired by repairing based enzymes. However, mutation takes place when these codes escape the repairing procedure and function of imperfect repairing ended up with DNA slightly different from the original one. Moreover, genetic drift is another process of evolution that refers to the change, which takes place accidently in gene allele frequencies. Genetic drift creates more dramatic changes in smaller population over the time. For example, if a small number of people moves to island from the continent to start a new generation then that new generation will have a genetic diversity of continental population (Nardo, 2001). Isolation is a process of evolution, which brings about the change in organisms of same species when they are separated due to natural incidents. When one group of organism is separated and moved to new environment respectively, each group has to adapt environmental changes accordingly. As these two groups become unable to reproduce together and experience life in totally different environments, thus evolve and adapt differently to survive and eventually become different species (Nardo, 2001). The above mentioned are biological processes of evolution, however, psychologists have also contributed to study brain, process of information and mind programs that generate behavior. Altruism or altruistic behavior refers to a cooperative behavior, organisms show to help others to their own disadvantage. Notions like competition for struggle and survival of the fittest are strong evidence of natural selection; behaviors like cooperation, pro-social behavior and particularly altruism are opposed to these conceptions. In sociobiology, cooperative behavior is studied as inclusive of fitness based on gene selection, while pro-social behavior is referred to reciprocity based in game theory. These explanations might be enough to describe altruism as adaptive behavior in animals, but altruism in human still needs detailed psychologists' explanations (Vannelli, 2001). Psychologists have explained that concept of altruism has developed among humans from pro-sociality through evolution to help humans love their friends and family. However, idealistic behaviors like loving commands of Jesus seems to go beyond biological mechanisms as they lead to personal and genetic sacrifice. People are more attracted to altruistic individuals because as a human nature people want to get benefits from others. At this point, two type of people come forward, one those are selfless and other who are selfish. In this situation, two concepts can be preferably included to under altruism in a profound manner one is prisoner's dilemma and reciprocal altruism, both these concepts mostly support each other (Vannelli, 2001). Prisoner's dilemma is a game (way) of studying people, how do they behave in different situations. This game include a recipient and a donor, both of them should know that cost is small as compare to benefits, they recognize each other and they often exchange role in order to avoid cheating on each other. If one partner does not follow these pre-condition, it means he cheats on another partner. Prisoner's dilemma is supported by reciprocal altruism because it is also a case of helping another person unconditionally, but expecting help later at the hour of need (Vannelli, 2001). Psychological studies have shown that perceptions and priorities vary in human beings and mainly depend upon the personal interest level of people. Thus, primary function of altruism is still confusing because at one side it is believed that altruism is a simple formula of gaining and sharing cooperation, while on the other hand it is taken as an approach to gain more sex partners. From human nature, viewpoint both functions are possible, as indirect reciprocity can be also take place for both types of motives. Moreover, it should be noted that reputation allows evolution of cooperation by indirect reciprocity as studies have evidenced that people who are helpful are more likely to receive help (Vannelli, 2001). Social organizations present in the environment have a prominent influence on the evolutionary processes of human beings. It is because social organizations allow people of different cultures, thoughts and brought up back grounds to work study or interact through either ways. As a result, people get influenced from diverse nature of interaction so they adopt changes in behavior and often passed on to the next generation. Nonetheless, researchers have explored three main adaptive problems in human evolution such as survival including, finding, choosing and feeding proper food, escaping predators, combating pathogens; secondly, reproduction, which involves, wooing appropriate mates, competing with same-sex rivals, scheduling births and caring for children, and thirdly, avoiding exploitation, sharing information and political alliance between conflict groups (Vannelli, 2001). Reference List Nardo, D. (2001). Origin of species: Darwin's Theory of Evolution. London: Lucent Books. Vannelli, R. (2001). Evolutionary Theory And Human Nature. Norwell: Springer. Read More