Vol 4, no
Conspecific comparison - a reply to Paul
Gilbert
Paul is right. I should simply have presented
the theory (that depressive
states evolved as part of the yielding component of agonistic
behaviour), rather than confuse everyone
with trying to rebut an objection (that
depression is essentially yielding behaviour but depressives sometimes
seem adept at getting their own way).
Also, the title should have been "Metaphors of Yielding", a
term which encompasses both voluntary submission and depressive yielding.
In his
distinction between social comparison by intimidation and social comparison by attraction I think Paul
has made a very fundamental point - one
that has certainly clarified things for me. This thinking about social comparison in an evolutionary context starts
with Darwin's idea of sexual selection,
and then there is Ginsberg's view of social organisation as providing an arena for social comparison, and
then Wynne-Edwards idea of conventional
competition for conventional goals; but
I cannot recall anyone getting anywhere
near Paul's analysis. We can now see ritual agonistic behaviour as one form of
social comparison which is one form of
the social competition which subserves intrasexual selection. Since this is all very new,
I think it might be helpful if I just reflect back to Paul my current thinking about the evolution of
social competition as it has been
affected by his contribution.
The
evolution of human social life can be seen as the evolution of ever more
sophisticated and effective methods of sexual selection, and it might be helpful to enumerate some of the possible
stages, concentrating mainly on the
intrasexual component of sexual selection:
1. Unritualised social competition
Many insects kill members of the same sex, some
worms plug each other's
sexual orifices, some beetles spray each other with
anti-aphrodisiac gas; this category includes any action to reduce the other's
viability or fertility over which the
victim has no role in "consenting". Possibly the suppression of sexual development by
pheromones in some rodents and new world
monkeys comes into the category, otherwise it does not occur in vertebrates.
2. Ritual agonistic behaviour
In ritual agonistic behaviour the loser, being
unharmed, must consent to
lose. He has the option (at an unconscious level) of not
consenting, and can
be said to choose between consenting and non-consenting strategies.
In
evolutionary terms, ritual agonistic behaviour seems to be performing two rather separate functions. To the
extent that it takes the form of intergenerational conflict, it serves
to delay reproduction until later in the
life span. To the extent that it is intragenerational conflict, it serves to create
lifelong variation in fertility within a socially interacting cohort of cconspecifics. It is
this second function which
subserves intrasexual selection, and which concerns us here.
According to the simplest view, each individual has to choose between two
strategies, a dominant strategy in which he reproduces more and a subordinate strategy in which he reproduces
less. The dominant strategy is designed to maximise his own
reproduction, the subordinate strategy is
designed to maximise the reproduction of his close kin (and depends for
its selection on the "kin
selection" component of inclusive fitness). For individuals in this system, the
overall strategy is similar to Maynard
Smith's "assessor" strategy;
on at least one occasion in their ontogeny they have to assess their chances and choose
between the dominant or "hawk"
substrategy on the one hand, and the subordinate or "dove"
substrategy on the other.
How does they make this choice?
There are a number of possibilities which have not in fact evolved. They
could leave it entirely to the opposite sex and adopt the strategy
"If chosen as a mate, adopt dominant
strategy; if not chosen, adopt
subordinate strategy", thus relying
entirely on the intersexual component of sexual selection and
eliminating the intrasexual component.
Or, they could do it by counting heads, such
as, "If the
home/nest contains more than x individuals when you reach age y, adopt subordinate strategy, otherwise
adopt dominant strategy." What has in fact
evolved is a form of social comparison, which bears a certain resemblance to co-consultation. We can
imagine a primitive vertebrate, scratching its head and wondering
whether to adopt a dominant or
subordinate strategy, so it chooses a consultant, and says, please help
me make up my mind. The consultant says,
use me as a yardstick, if you find yourself superior to me, your chances
are good and you should adopt the
dominant strategy; otherwise you
should play safe and adopt the subordinate strategy. The consultation takes the
form of a fight in which
our indecisive individual uses the strength of the consultant as
a yardstick to estimate his own
strength, and after the consultation he
either says to himself "I am a strong person" and adopts a
dominant strategy, or "I am a weak
person" and adopts a subordinate strategy. Of course the interaction is symmetrical
and the "consultant" is making a
similar decision (it is a co-consultation). This could be called dyadic comparison
because, in each comparative episode, each individual compares himself with one other. It is the main form
of vertebrate social
comparison and is called ritual agonistic behaviour.
As
Paul points out, group living provides the opportunity for more sophisticated social comparison, and probably
the selection mediated by ritual
agonistic behaviour in groups is more effective than occurs in territorial species. The opportunities for
effective comparison in a
single fight are limited, but if animals live in groups they have
extended time in which to evaluate each
other's strengths. Fights can follow a long period of mutual assessment, can be
protracted, and be divided into bouts.
As a
result, the rank order in a group should reflect small differences in strength, skill, intelligence and
courage (the components of RHP). Ritual agonistic behaviour amplifies these
small differences into gross
social disparity.
3. External mediation of intrasexual
selection
In human evolution there has been a major
change in ranking behaviour. Instead of two rivals A and B fighting it out
between themselves, the
choice between A and B is made by C, D, E etc. This is the change
which Paul has
pointed out as so important. In order to achieve social succcess, A has to make
himself attractive to C,D and E rather than make himself intimidating to B. Selection is now by
external judges rather than by
interaction between the rivals
themselves. The scope for greater efficiency of selection, and for
cultural variation in the criteria of
selection, opens up an entirely new "ball game" of the sexual
selection process. In fact, this
development must have been about as important as the development of sexual selection
itself. To distinguish it from the dyadic comparison which occurs in
ritual agonistic behaviour, the evaluation
of A and B by C,D and E etc could be called polyadic comparison. Of
course it is seldom as simple as that, and in most cases everyone is evaluating
everyone else.
Does
this kind of sexual selection occur in animals as well as man? In macaques, baboons and chimpanzees the
outcome of ritual agonistic behaviour is
affected by alliances with same-sexed conspecifics, so that the capacity for alliance formation is being selected for
as well as fighting ability. The choice between two potential allies offers a
primordium of polyadic
comparison, in that the criterion of choice is not so much
"Does he intimidate me?" as
"Is he likely to intimidate the other fellow (and, if so, is he likely to favour me)?"; this is still some way from, "Which
of the two is more attractive?",
but it as a major advance from the evaluation
of others entirely in terms of dyadic comparison. In chimpanzees,
in addition, the influence of female
group members affects the rank order in
males, and this is a further step towards intrasexual polyadic
comparison; in fact, it is similar to
the situation in at least one tribe of American
Indians in which only males are allowed to run for office and only
females are allowed to vote.
In
human society polyadic comparison has been enormously increased in importance,
particularly due to language and the opportunity this gives for the comparers to discuss those being
compared, and for the careful allocation
of prestige; it also gives the group
members the opportunity to discuss the
criteria for the allocation of prestige. But it has not replaced the other forms of social
competition, and so we see them
operating side by side.
Some consequences of polyadic comparison
1. Proscription of agonistic behaviour by
society. Groups practising polyadic comparison would have an
enormous advantage over groups still
limited to dyadic comparison (agonistic behaviour). Culturally they would be at an
advantage because their leaders would have those characteristics which are the
criteria for the allocation of prestige, and in most human groups these appear to be a combination of
competence and dedication to the
interests of the group. Groups with such leaders should outperform groups whose leaders
were selected for power to intimidate. Genetically, the polyadic groups would tend to have
more members with qualities of
competence and unselfishness because there is a correlation in most
human groups between prestige and
reproduction; therefore we have
probably experienced a gene/culture
co-evolution for competence and group loyalty.
Among
those groups practising polyadic comparison, there would be an advantage to those groups in whom
selection was entirely by polyadic
comparison, and therefore there would be an advantage in preventing agonistic behaviour as much as possible.
Therefore we can expect ritual agonistic behaviour to be proscribed
by groups, both in their childrearing
practices and in their code of behaviour for adults. In childhood there
is an enormous parental influence
towards non-intimidatory behaviour, see for
instance the life histories described by Vaillant in his Adaptation
to Life, in which a cohort of
American college men report severe sanctions on
aggressive behaviour during their childhoods. The proximate reason
for parents stopping their children from
quarelling may well be that they find
the noise irksome, or that they consider it bad manners, or that they
think the children should spend the time
improving themselves in some way;
but the ultimate, evolutionary
reason may be that they want to decide the
children's rank order themselves by the giving and withholding of
praise and criticism, and so they do not
want the rank order decided by the
chidren themselves in the course of quarelling (ritual agonistic behaviour). Also they want to develop in
their children the mentality that looks for SAHP in the form of praise
rather than RHP in the form of the
submission of others, so that when they leave home they will still
be oriented towards polyadic comparison.
The widespread existence of bullying in school playgrounds (1) might seem
to gainsay this thesis, but it is
probably due to the fact that there were no schools in our 'environment
of evolutionary adaptedness'. Glanz and
Pearce (2) have pointed out that in hunter/gatherer society children
seldom interact with each other in the
absence of adults.
In
adult life, fighting between same-sexed adults is also proscribed. Duelling was forbidden by monarchs, not
because of the fear of loss of life (which was slight), but because the
king wanted prestige to go to people he
approved of rather than to those who were skilled with the sword or
pistol. What dyadic competition is allowed between adults is governed by
society's rules
rather than by nature's. Fine differences in ability can be assessed by pitting individuals against each
other in sport and in intellectual
tests. But these are polyadically controlled dyadic comparisons. Prestige is allocated
not only for performance but also for sportsmanship, and bad marks are allocated to those who are seen to
cheat or who do not accept the decision
of the referee.
Because of this proscription, ritual agonistic behaviour is only seen in
situations over which society has little control: in prisons, on street corners, in the school playground, in
the family and in situations in which
master and servant are alone together. Also, society does not proscribe ritual
agonistic behaviour in marriage; in
fact, sayings abound to the effect of
"Never interfere between husband and wife". This may well be because the rank order within marriage does
not affect the rank order in the group
as a whole, and therefore it affects neither the choice of leaders nor the correlation between prestige
and reproduction.
One or
two contributors to this debate in ASCAP have questioned the idea that ritual agonistic behaviour does
not occur in everyday human social
interaction. It may indeed occur in subtle forms (such as damning with faint praise in
committee meetings) but I very much doubt whether the mild forms that may occur contribute to rank
order.
2. Development of latency period.
Students of baboon social life have pointed out that the brief period of
immaturity before the adolescents join
the adult dominance hierarchy is a time in which they evaluate each
other, and each group of peers has
worked out its rank order by the time the
canine teeth have developed. The human latency period allows a much extended time of
mutual evaluation by the peer group. It also allows the previous generation to play an
important part in the evaluation, and of
course in human life we see a whole professional class of
evaluators ranking our adolescents
according to adult standards. Therefore, whereas the accepted function of the latency
period is to allow more learning, we can
add the additional function of allowing ranking according to ability to learn and according to other attributes which
are manifested at this stage of
development.
3. Religion and war as projective tests.
Society wants individuals who are assertive and capable and yet have the
capacity for submission of their individual goals to those of the
group. The induction of children into religious practices allows an
evaluation of this capacity for submission,
and also provides a test of memorising capacity by requiring the child
to learn scripture and ritual.
The
wars of primitive man are ritualised and the death rate is low. There is much
observation of individual fighting attributes. In this way society can allocate prestige to those
who will risk their lives for the sake
of the group. This is a possible explanation for the universality of religion
and war in human groups: those groups
that lacked these aids to
polyadic comparison did not survive.
4. Why people are nice. On the whole
society allocates prestige to people who are nice. Nice means that they are
decent, honest, reasonable,
cooperative people who put the good of the group before their own
selfish interests; they are also likeable and interested in
their fellow human beings. Thanks to
polyadic comparison human goups have been selecting for niceness for millions of years, and we
have become very good at it. Therefore we have to some extent overcome the
legacy of dyadic comparison
which is to select for intimidating, selfish bullies. The genes
may be selfish,
but the people are unselfish, and it is the people we have to interact with, not the genes. I think in this
sense the message of
evolutionary biology is an encouraging one. We are nice because,
for a very long
time, we have selected each other to be nice.
Hedonic dyadic comparison
Of course in the hedonic mode there is a lot of
comparison of social
attention-holding power (SAHP) on a dyadic basis. This takes two main forms. There is
furtive comparison, in which, for instance, a woman will look round a room she enters to make sure she
is the most attractive woman present; this involves a comparison of herself with
each other woman separately. Then there
is the episode of mutual appraisal when two people meet. This is similar to the
assessment stage of ritual agonistic behaviour; the differences are that it is SAHP rather
than RHP that is being compared, and
that evaluations of favourable relative SAHP are not signalled in the form of catathetic
signals; in fact, politeness often directs the dyad into an exchange of
anathetic signals (compliments) whatever
the result of the evaluation. This helps to prevent a switch to the agonic mode, because inappropriate
signals of favourable relative RHP lead
to loss of face (loss of SAHP). It seems likely that dyadic evaluations of unfavourable relative
SAHP, either furtive or mutual, may
cause social anxiety or possibly even depression (fall of SAHP) but this
is a matter for future empirical study.
Use of same mechanisms
It is likely that the SAHP system of hedonic
polyadic competition developed out of the RHP ritual agonistic
behaviour system, rather than starting from
scratch. Thus in the RHP system we have catathetic signals in the form
of threat and attack causing a fall in
RHP which triggers a further fall in RHP
which is the core element of depression. And in the SAHP system we have catathetic
signals in the form of disapprobation causing a fall in SAHP which triggers a further fall in SAHP
which is experienced as depression.
Although the nature of the catathetic signals is different, it seems likely that the mechanism for
receiving the catathetic signals is the
same, also the mechanism that converts receipt of catathetic signals
into fall of RHP, and also the hardware
that calculates whether a fall in RHP is
sufficient to trigger the depressive "devaluation" of RHP that
takes the form of depression. And in the
SAHP system, as in the RHP system, the withdrawal of an anathetic signal has
the same effect as a catathetic signal.
The main difference in the SAHP system is that catathetic signals are no longer signals of favourable
relative RHP; in fact they have no
comparative component; instead of
signalling "I am better than you" they signal "You are no good." Likewise, anathetic signals are no longer signals of
unfavourable relative RHP, signalling, "You are better than me"; instead, they signal "You are
good", without any implication as to the SAHP of the speaker. This may be one reason why
there has been such an enormous developmemt of anathetic signalling in
the polyadic system.
SAHP
and RHP are components of human self-esteem, and the evolutionary sequence RHP --- SAHP --- self-esteem goes a
long way to explaining why there is such
a wide variation in human self-esteem, why there is "global" self-esteem rather than separate self-esteem for
each characteristic, and
why depression is
associated with a global fall in self-esteem rather than just the component which is relevant to the
social situation.
In
summary, I think Paul's development of the SAHP/polyadic comparison system has made it possible to relate
the yielding hypothesis to actual human
behaviour, to integrate it with all the current psychological work on social comparison (particularly concerning
social anxiety, shame and guilt) and to
relate both the above to evolutionary biology. Keep going, Paul.
1. Tattum, D.P. (1989) Violence and aggression
in schools. In Bullying in
Schools, ed D.P.Tattum & D.A.Lane.
2. Glantz, K & Pearce, J.K. (1989) Exiles
from