Ermer , Cosmides , Tooby By: Breana & Bryan

Relative status regulates risky decision making about resources in men:evidence for the co-evolution of motivation and cognition Ermer, Cosmides, Tooby By: Breana & Bryan

The Evolution of Decision Making • While many decisions that humans or other organisms make may be mathematically irrational, they can be ecologically rational • E.g. ambiguity aversion can be easily reversed by shifting the context • Authors primarily explore two concepts • If decision-making is fractured into separate systems governing separate domains • If it is domain-specific, whether this has implications on a separation of motivation and cognition within domains

Resource and Intrasexual Competition • Resources important to male-male but not female-female competition. • A motivational system should regulate males’ willingness to take risks in a competitive environment • Presence of peers encourages men, but not women, to prefer high risk/high reward options (Daly & Wilson, 2001) • Not only the presence of peers should matter, but also the sex and status of those peers • This should only apply to problems involving status-relevent resources

Risk-Sensitive Foraging Theory • Willingness to take a risk is regulated by an organisms need • i.e. if safer choice doesn’t meet organism’s needs, risky choice seems more viable • Has successfully predicted both animal foraging behavior (Real & Caraco, 1986) and human risky decision making (Rode et al., 1999) • This theory becomes somewhat more complicated when applied to this research

Risk-Sensitive Foraging Theory • Resource of interest: Social Status • Social status is always relative to who is being compared • Everyone aspires to be high-status • High-status individuals should seek the low risk/low reward choice • Equal or lower-status individuals should seek the high risk/high reward choice

Dominance Theory • Motivation to risk injury is regulated by the value of a resource to an individual, and by the risk of a competitor causing injury in pursuit of that resource. • Individuals should be less willing to ‘challenge’ higher status individuals, but should be motivated to ‘challenge’ equal status individuals.

Risk-Sensitive Foraging Theory vs Dominance Theory • Both theories predict a high level of risk-taking when dealing with equal status individuals • Dominance theory predicts less risk-taking in the presence of higher status individuals, and more risk-taking with lower status individuals

Predictions • Relative social status will regulate men’s risky decision making about resources • The presence of both resource opportunities and status rivals will result in one of two patterns • Higher status competitors will increase risk-taking motivation • Only equal status competitors will increase risk-taking motivation • Relative status should only regulate decisions within the domain of intrasexual competition • Previous predictions will only apply to men

Study 1 - Methods • Subjects – 94 (42 male) Psych students • Presented with both a resource loss problem and a medical loss problem • Both contained a sure option and a risky option • Subjects told the experimenter was interested in perceptions of others’ decisions • Competitors-the ones observing the videos • Competitor status based on the college they were from (e.g. Princeton-high status)

Study 1- Results • Relative social status significantly affected how often men chose the risky option on the resource loss problem • Dominance theory supported-men who thought they were being evaluated by status equals chose the high-risk/highgain option for acquiring resources significantly more often than men who thought their own status was lower or higher than that of their evaluators

Study 1- Results *proportions of men choosing the risky option in the lower and higher status conditions did not differ significantly from one another

Study 1- Results • Relative status had no effect on how often men chose the risky option on the control problem (medical treatments for preventing loss of life) L=64%, E=50%, H=57% • Social status did not significantly affect how often women chose the risky option on either problem resource loss: L=35%, E=29%, H=33% medical loss: L=53%, E=47%, H=39%

Study 2 - Methods • Subjects - 159 (101 male) Psych 101 students • Presented with a similar resource gain problem and a medical gain problem, but also with two problems to explore the effect of personal involvement in the problem • Competitor status again based on college prestige • Virtually identical procedure

Study 2-Results relative status significantly affected how often men chose the risky option on the resource loss problem

Study 2- Results • Status had no effect on men's choices in response to the control (medical loss) problem L=41%, E=65%, H=45% • Status had no significant effect on men's choices on the medical gain problem L=50%, E=46%, H=74% • Dominance theory supported-men chose the risky option more often in the equal status condition than in the lower or higher status conditions

Study 2-Results • Relative status had no effect on men's choices on the resource gain problem L=55%, E=52%, H=48% • Difference between resource loss and gain problems is expected • cues of impending competition are necessary to activate a motivational system regulating competitive inclinations, and it is this system that uses relative status to regulate men's risky decision making

Study 2- Results • Status effects for women were present in Experiment 2 (although not in Experiment 1) • Does not fit any theory

Study 2- Results • Status did not significantly affect women's choices on the resource gain problem L=61%, E=25%, H=35% • Social status did not significantly affect women's choices on either medical problems framed in terms of loss of life: L=63%, E=40%, H=42% framed in terms of gains in longevity L=63%, E=50%, H=41%

Follow-Up Studies • 2A • Women from study 2 given the resource gain/loss problems • Also given an identical medical loss problem, but where friends’ lives were at stake • 2B • Men given the medical loss with friends problem and a variant of the resource gain problem • Also given a third, dummy problem

2A- Results Results suggest that experiment 2 represented noise rather than a real difference between populations

2A-Results • Relative status did not affect women's risky choices on the medical friends problem L=62%, E=46%, H=69%

2B- Results • Men's relative status did not affect their choices on the medical treatment problem L=58%, E=56%, H=33% • The resource gain problem found no status effects L=50%, E=44%, H=56%:

Conclusions • Supports hypothesis that relative social status will regulate men’s risky decision making about resources • Supports hypothesis that equal status competitors will increase risk-taking motivation -losing one’s resources would result in challenge by equal status competitors • Supports hypothesis that relative status should only regulate decisions within the domain of intrasexual competition - men's responses were produced by a motivational system specialized for regulating competitive interactions, which is equipped with its own, proprietary decision rules (this is cue regulated) • Supports hypothesis that the previous predictions will only apply to men

Discussion • Problems with study • Imagined situations • Results for women on Study 2 • Questions?

Ermer , Cosmides , Tooby By: Breana & Bryan