Group Display as an Adaptive Response

Group Display as an Adaptive Response

1. Sports

   • Xenophobia
     • Wilson claims that xenophobia has been documented in 'virtually every group of animals displaying higher forms of social organisation'. Natural selection, it appears, has favoured those genes that caused human beings to be altruistic toward members of their own group but intolerant towards outsiders. SHAW and WONG argue that the mechanisms that prompt suspicion towards strangers would have been favoured by natural selection. This would have enabled our ancestors to avoid attack, and so leave behind more offspring. MAC DONALD suggests that from an evolutionary perspective, it is adaptive to exaggerate negative stereotypes about outsiders, as the over perception of threat is less costly than its underperception.
     • Xenophobic displays on the terraces - PODALIRI & BALESTRI have found evidence of xenophobic tendencies in their analysis of the group displays of Italian football crowds. In the 1980s, xenophobic political organisations such as the northern league led to the growth of extreme right wing movements characterised by racist chants and openly anti-semitic banners. In april 2005, during a Serie A match between Lazio and Livorno, Paolo Di Canio performed the 'Roman salute' in the direction of Lazio's extremist fans, the irriducibili. This gesture, originally associated with the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, was intended as an expression of solidarity wit the far right attitude of the Lazio fans, and as a provocative gesture toward the Livorno fans, known for their extreme left wing political attitudes.
   • Territorislity
     • Threat displays - another explanation for the evolution of group displays in sport is based on territoriality, the protective response to an invasion of ones territory. Territorial behaviour is common in many animal species, which typically show threat displays toward outsiders and attack with grater vigour when defending a home territory (HUNTINGFORD & TURNER). This form of territorial display has its human equivalent in the aggressive displays of sports teams prior to a match. For example, SAMOA adopted the manu siva tau war chant before the 1991 Rugby world cup. These displays intimidate opponents and make the home team more aggressive towards them. Aggressive displays would have been adaptive for our distant ancestors because they allowed groups to defend valuable resources associated with their territory.
     • Testosterone and territorial behaviour - animals display more aggression when they have higher testosterone levels. Might sports teams also display more collective aggression when defending home 'territory' and do they have higher testosterone levels when doing so? NEAVE & WOLFON found that football teams playing at home were far more likely to win than the visiting team partly because players have the benefit pf a huge surge in testosterone before a match. They believed that this could be due to an evolved drive to defend home territory, which led to more aggressive displays when playing at home. This increase in testosterone levels before home games (compared with levels before training) did not occur before away games. Team members who subjectively felt that the burden of 'defending the territory' lay with them (e.g goalkeepers) had higher levels of testosterone compared to other players.
   • Evaluation
     • Research support for xenophobic displays - FOLDESI provides evidence to support the link between xenophobia and violent displays among Hungarian football crowds. He found that the racist conduct of a core of extremist supporters led to an increase of spectators' violence in general and xenophobic outburst in particular. Violent incidents based on racist or xenophobic attitudes were observed at all stadia, with gypsies, Jews and Russians the usual targets.
     • Territoriality - LEWIS et al found that among football fans, crowd support was rated as the most significant factor contributing to a home advantage. Through their displays of support, fans felt responsible for inspiring their team to victory and took credit for distracting opponents. However, the precise way in which displays of support have an effect has been difficult to pinpoint. For example the relationship with crowd size is unclear as the advantage has been shown to operate even with very small crowds (POLLARD & POLLARD). Likewise, it is not known whether the primary effect of crowd displays is to 'psych up' the home team or distract the away team, all of which suggests that the original adaptive function of such displays may no longer be relevant.
     • Does a home advantage really exist? A study by MOORE & BRYLINSKY challenges the claim that home crowd displays provide a territorial advantage. A measles epidemic resulted in a quarantine that caused 11 American basketball games for two teams to be played in the absence of spectators. For one team, the siena saints from New York, nine away games were analysed. Five were played with spectators present and four with no spectators present and four with no spectators. For the other team, the Hartford Hawks from Connecticut, 11 home games were used, four with no spectators and seven with spectators. Siena scored an average of 76.25 points when playing in front of spectators and 86.20 in the absence of spectators. Likewise, HARTFORD, scored an average of 64.29 in front of spectators yet 71.25 without spectators, suggesting that the displays of support from home crowds did not increase the performance of the teams.

2. Warefare

   • Benefits of aggressive displays
     • Sexual Selection
       • In societies that experience frequent warfare, males are far more likely to escape infanticide than females because of their potential usefulness in battle. As a result, since there are relatively few women compared to men in these societies, men must compete with each other for mates, with those who do well in battle being 'rewarded' by access to female mates (DIVALE & HARRIS). Displays of aggressiveness and bravery are attracted to females and their absence reduced the attractiveness of individual males.. For example, male warriors in traditional societies tend to have more sexual partners and more children suggesting a direct reproductive benefit (CHAGNON).
     • Acquisition of status within the group - Displays of ferocity and aggressiveness by individual warriors would also lead peers to respect them more and so strengthen the bond between them and other males in the group. Because cooperation between males is so important to an individuals status in the group, phlegm from battle would make an individual appear to a 'coward', thus losing the respect of their peers. According to this perspective, therefore displays of aggressiveness and bravery in battle means that individuals are more likely to share the benefits associated with status, which in turn would increase their reproductive fitness.
   • Costly displays signal commitment
     • Signals of commitment - Anthropologists suggests that one of the primary functions of ritual displays is the promotion of group solidarity, particularly in times of collective action. IRONS claims that the costliness of permanent displays such as scars and mutilation means that they serve as honest signals of commitment to the group and so can benefit from the profits of warfare against another group.
     • Minimising the likelihood of defection - During battle, each individual has an incentive to keep himself out of harms way which, as a result, exposes others to a greater risk of injury or death. Therefore, in groups where war against other groups is relatively frequent, displays such as permanent scars or piercings would be important for the survival of the group. This is because such permanent displays minimise the ability of males to abscond to another group and increase their commitment to the group of which they are a member (THORPE)
   • Evaluation
     • Sexual selection
       • Research has provided support for the importance of aggressive displays in determining the sexual attractiveness of male warriors. PALMER & TILEY found that male youth street gang members have more sexual partners than ordinary young males. LEUNISSEN & VAN VUGT also found that military men have greater sex appeal but only if they have been observed showing bravery in combat.
     • Limitations of an evolutionary explanation of warfare
       • Explanations of displays of aggression that are based on mating success, status pr commitment fail to explain the astonishing levels of cruelty that are often found in human wars yet not among non human species. For example, why do humans torture or mutilate their opponents when they have already been defeated and no longer pose a threat? Anthropological evidence suggests this may be more a consequence of deindividuation effect than of evolutionary adaptations.
     • War is not 'in the genes'
       • war emerged when humans shifted from a nomadic existence to a settled one and were tied to agriculture or fishing sites. Because of this, people could no longer walk away from trouble and had far more to lose and to fight over than their hunter gatherer forebears. So rather than being an evolved adaptation, it looks as if warfare emerged as a rational response to a changing lifestyle. This suggests that warfare and the aggressive displays associated with warfare are not biological compulsions but are a consequence of environmental changes,, such as rising populations and winding food supplies (LEBLANC & REGISTER).

3. IDA's

   • Real world application
     • The power of xenophobia to invoke violence has motivated football clubs to take steps to minimise its influence. In Germany, in december 1992, all the teams in the Bundersleague played in shirts displaying the slogan: 'Mein Freund list Auslander' (my friend is a foreigner). In socotland, a century of sectarian bigotry has been addressed by the two Glasgow teams. Celtic have introduced the Byoys against bigotry campaign and Rangers have finally abandoned their long standing tradition against the signing of Catholic players. In England, initiative such as Sheffield United 'football unites racism divides' have attempted to forge stronger links with local ethnic communities. In 2012, the UK government pledged £200,000 to anti - racism football charity Show Racism the Red Card, to counter the influence of groups like the English Defence League and the British National Party in british football.
   • Gender Bias in explanations of warfare
     • Evolutionary explanation for warfare may demonstrate a gender bias as they do not adequately reflect the behaviour of women in this process. Adams claimed that the idea of the women warrior is almost unheard of within most societies. Even within those societies. Even within those societies that allow women to participate in war, they are always the rare exception. Women would have considerably less to gain from fighting in near certain-death situation and considerably more to lose (in terms of loss of their reproductive capacity). This is fundamental to women exclusion from warfare, as women simply do not increase their fitness nearly as much as men do. Our understanding of the displays typically found in warfare, therefore, is limited to the behaviour of males rather than females.