Robert Trivers is an American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist, who is also a
Professor at Rutgers University. He studied at Harvard University and wrote the thesis of
“Natural Selection and Social Behaviour”. He is best known for his work on social theory based on natural selection, which includes deception and self-deception. His influences are specially from Charles Darwin and Hamilton. Trivers also proposed the following theories: reciprocal altruism, parental investment, facultative sex ratio determination and parent-offspring conflict, and I will explain some of them down below.
Natural selection is considered a phenomenon of evolution that is defined as the differential reproduction of genotypes (Genetic information that possesses …show more content…
In this way, conscious mind has a false image of what is the truth and no one else can detect it.
By the way, mind is divided in the different types of conscience. We can deny reality, and then deny the last negation, and this keeps happening like a vicious circle.
Reciprocal altruism: Trivers presents this idea inspired by the theory of games. The strategy known as the “give-and-take”, consists on the cooperation of one individual (altruistic) in the first play, but in the next iteration of the game, he will do the same thing that his peer did in the previous iteration. Clearly, the “given-and-take” game implies reciprocity. In conclusion, we can talk about reciprocal altruism when a person cooperates with the hope that the other one will do the same.
Parental investment: Trivers theory about mother investment predicts that sexes which invest more in lactation, nutrition and protection of babies, will be more perspicacious in the matching, and sexes which invest less will compete for getting a higher sexual investment.
The parental investment can be provided by the mother (unilateral mother care), the father
(unilateral paternal care) or by both (bilateral care). Parents are selected by natural …show more content…
This produces negative effects in the rate of demographic growth, because human beings find big difficulties to marry.
Parent-offspring conflict (POC): Is an expression coined in 1974 by Trivers. It is used to describe the evolutionary conflict that provides from the differences of the optimal parental investment (PI) to an offspring (descendant) from the perspective of the descendant and the parent. PI investment here is the investment of a parent in one individual offspring, taking place to the decreasement of the same parent to invest in other descendants, so on the kid selected has more chances of surviving. Both parents are equally related to their kids and are expected to equalize their investment in all of them, while brothers and sisters are related between them the half per cent, so each of them tries to get all of the PI that they can.
By the way, if any sibling obtains more PI than the other, this decreases the chances of surviving of the ones who do not obtain it.
In conclusion, in these theories like I said in the title, we are VICTIMS. In the case of Natural
Selection, we become victims of the liar; in Reciprocal Altruism we can be it if we do not
Professor at Rutgers University. He studied at Harvard University and wrote the thesis of
“Natural Selection and Social Behaviour”. He is best known for his work on social theory based on natural selection, which includes deception and self-deception. His influences are specially from Charles Darwin and Hamilton. Trivers also proposed the following theories: reciprocal altruism, parental investment, facultative sex ratio determination and parent-offspring conflict, and I will explain some of them down below.
Natural selection is considered a phenomenon of evolution that is defined as the differential reproduction of genotypes (Genetic information that possesses …show more content…
In this way, conscious mind has a false image of what is the truth and no one else can detect it.
By the way, mind is divided in the different types of conscience. We can deny reality, and then deny the last negation, and this keeps happening like a vicious circle.
Reciprocal altruism: Trivers presents this idea inspired by the theory of games. The strategy known as the “give-and-take”, consists on the cooperation of one individual (altruistic) in the first play, but in the next iteration of the game, he will do the same thing that his peer did in the previous iteration. Clearly, the “given-and-take” game implies reciprocity. In conclusion, we can talk about reciprocal altruism when a person cooperates with the hope that the other one will do the same.
Parental investment: Trivers theory about mother investment predicts that sexes which invest more in lactation, nutrition and protection of babies, will be more perspicacious in the matching, and sexes which invest less will compete for getting a higher sexual investment.
The parental investment can be provided by the mother (unilateral mother care), the father
(unilateral paternal care) or by both (bilateral care). Parents are selected by natural …show more content…
This produces negative effects in the rate of demographic growth, because human beings find big difficulties to marry.
Parent-offspring conflict (POC): Is an expression coined in 1974 by Trivers. It is used to describe the evolutionary conflict that provides from the differences of the optimal parental investment (PI) to an offspring (descendant) from the perspective of the descendant and the parent. PI investment here is the investment of a parent in one individual offspring, taking place to the decreasement of the same parent to invest in other descendants, so on the kid selected has more chances of surviving. Both parents are equally related to their kids and are expected to equalize their investment in all of them, while brothers and sisters are related between them the half per cent, so each of them tries to get all of the PI that they can.
By the way, if any sibling obtains more PI than the other, this decreases the chances of surviving of the ones who do not obtain it.
In conclusion, in these theories like I said in the title, we are VICTIMS. In the case of Natural
Selection, we become victims of the liar; in Reciprocal Altruism we can be it if we do not