management, organization and human nature - maslow nidus

Management, Organization and Human Nature

Lıvia Markoczy1

Cranfield U.

+44 1234 751122

[email protected]

Jeff Goldberg2

Cranfield U.

+44 1234 754200

[email protected]

Martin G. Evans

U. of Toronto

+1 416-978-1949

[email protected]

Barbara Pierce

U. of Western Ontario

+1 519-661-3275

[email protected]

Deborah A. Waldron

U. of Auckland

+64-9-3737999

[email protected]

Roderick White

U. of Western Ontario

+1 519-661-3275

[email protected]

Symposium submission to mocig and ob

submission number: 20148

1Co-chair and presenter2Co-chair

Abstract

Evolutionary Psychology and the study of human nature are having an evergrowing influence in fields from anthropology to economics, including cogni-tive and social psychology along the way. Some of those studying manage-ment and organization have been watching and even participating in thismovement. This symposium brings together scholars who are asking (andhelping to answer) two questions: (1) How can the study of our evolvedhuman nature contribute to the study of management and organization,and (2) how can the study of management and organization shed light onour evolved human nature. The presentations in this symposium provideconcrete examples of answers to those two questions.Keywords: Evolutionary Psychology, Human Nature, Human evolution.

Mgmt. Org. & Human Nature 2. Overview

1 Administrivia

This symposium is proposed as a joint symposium of the Managerial andOrganizational Cognition interest group (mocig) and the OrganizationalBehavior division (ob) for the 1999 meeting of the Academy of Management.

The co-chairs are Jeffrey Goldberg and Lıvia Markoczy. Signed originalsof commitment to attend and permission to record documents have beensent to the program chair for mocig, the ob program chair will receivephotocopies of those documents.

Also, as a technical matter, we will need to arrange for a video projectorfor a small part of the symposium.

2 Overview

2.1 Where we come from. . .

Just as “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”(Dobzhansky, 1997) nothing in psychology makes sense except in the lightof evolution. Our brains are an organ like any other organ, and was designedto help our ancestors solve the sorts of problems they faced. The mind/braincan only be understood in terms of its functions, and some of those functionscan only be understood in terms of human pre-history.

Evolutionary Psychology (ep) is, roughly speaking, the view that the s-tudy of the mind or behavior makes no sense unless it is studied in thelight of what it was designed to do and what construction mechanisms wereavailable to its designer, natural selection. But what sort of conclusions doesthis lead us to? Well, we already know, for example, that the mind is ableto help us calculate complex differential equations every time we throw orcatch a ball even though very few of us could hope to make those sorts ofcalculations consciously. Natural selection has equipped us with tools in ourminds for throwing and catching and predicting quickly and automaticallythe trajectory of objects.

The example of mental tools for predicting quickly and automatically thetrajectories of ballistic objects is hardly a revelation. But when we considerthat our minds may largely be a collection of such tools, the point becomesmore interesting. And because for hundreds of thousands of generations thekey to survival and reproductive success has been social relations, we should

Submission ID 20148 mocig & ob symposium Page 1 of 28


expect a rich set of tools dealing with our social world.

Because we know that the human mind is the product of the evo-lutionary process, we know something vitally illuminating: thataside from those properties acquired by chance, the mind con-sists of a set of adaptations. . . . Such a view is uncontroversialto most behavioral scientists when applied to such topics as vi-sion or balance. Yet adaptationist approaches. . . are consideredradical. . . when applied to most other areas of human thoughtand action. . . . Nevertheless, the logic of the adaptationist posi-tion. . . leads to the expectation that humans should have evolveda constellation of cognitive adaptations to social life. Our ances-tors have been members of social groups and engaging in socialinteractions for millions and probably tens of millions of years.To behave adaptively, they not only needed to construct a spa-tial map of the objects disclosed to them by their retinas, buta social map of the persons, relationships, motives, interactions,emotions, and intentions that made up their social world. (Cos-mides and Tooby, 1992, p. 163)

Three of the presentations in this symposium (Evans, Markoczy, andWaldron discussed in sections 6, 7 and 4 respectively) deal with exactly withsome of the evolved tools needed for operating in a social world (cheater de-tection, long term behavior prediction, and status recognition respectively),while a fourth (Pierce [§5]) deals with a related issue (sharing as a functionof resource distribution). (Pierce’s presentation is less from an ep perspec-tive and uses more of a human ethological approach. For the purposes ofthis symposium, the subtleties of the distinctions between the several ap-proaches all covered roughly by notion of “evolved human nature” does notmatter. White’s presentation (§3) will be even more ecumenical while stillfirmly within the evolved human nature scheme.)

2.2 . . . and where we are going

Evolutionary Psychology is already making substantial inroads in cognitivepsychology, social psychology, anthropology, behavioral economics and otherareas that the study of management and organization draws from. Giventhe impact that ep has and will have on cognitive and social psychology –



particularly in the notion of “cognitive adaptations for social exchange” –we are convinced that ep will become ever more present in the working livesof members of both mocig and the ob division.

Management scholars have little option but to take a serious look at ep.Those who embrace ep, including all the members of this panel, those whooppose it, and the majority of management scholars who have yet to haveany contact with it all need to pay attention to its development. That maycall, at some time, for a non-partisan panel to debate and discuss the issues.This is not that panel. Instead, this panel is partisan. Its members havecontributed to ep and have a professional interest in seeing it thrive. Mostimportantly, we believe that it is, on the whole, correct. Our advocacy ofthis approach does not make us blind to its faults, and in fact, makes usmore vigilant in seeing that work in the area is done well. Martin Evanspresentation (§6) highlights some of the design faults in one of the mostcited works in ep.

2.2.1 The proof is in the papers

In advocating an evolutionary approach, we want to focus on results. Sev-eral members of the panel report some cutting edge research into problemsthat are of direct interest to management, but the work is informed by andinforms an evolutionary approach to human nature. The presentation byEvans (§6) reports extensions and refinements of some of the “classic” workin ep. He not only adds to this work, but looks at connections to man-agement contexts. The presentation by Markoczy (§7) looks at ep to helpunravel and make explicit predictions about a long studied cognitive biasaffecting decision making. The presentation by Pierce (§5) examines howthe distribution of resources affects sharing and cooperation. Her work isinformed not only by models of cooperation, but by primate studies. Thepresentation by Waldron (§4) discusses aspects of how status is recognized,and reports on work that she is doing showing that components of statusrecognition are a built in function of our minds.

The two other panelists (Rod White and Jeff Goldberg) have other rolesand presentations. White will present an introduction to the evolutionaryhuman nature approach (see §3), and Goldberg will not have a full presen-tation, but will be on hand to intervene when common misunderstanding ofDarwinism arise (see §8).



2.3 Structure and what we will do

The overall structure is the traditional one for Academy of Managementsymposia, of very short presentations and discussion kept to the end. As al-ways, the amount of material and time constraints precludes discussion witheach presentations. However, we are aiming to make this more interactivethan usual (see section 2.3.1).

The general program is designed with the expectation that a symposiumsession has 80 minutes available to it.

1. Welcoming remarks and introducing individual panelists. To be doneby one of the co-chairs. [30 seconds]

2. Rod White’s presentation. [10 minutes] (§3)

3. Debbie Waldron’s presentation. This will involve a short video clip ofabout 1 minute. [10 minutes] (§4)

4. Barbara Pierce’s presentation. [10 minutes] (§5)

5. Martin Evans’ presentation. [10 minutes] (§6)

6. Lıvia Markoczy’s presentation. [10 minutes] (§7)

7. Jeff Goldberg’s non-presentation. He will explain his role as pointingout misunderstandings of Darwinism [2 minutes] (§8)

8. The remainder of the time will be for discussion. There will probablybe no need for a discussant, but if such a need becomes apparent,then one of the co-chairs will take on that role informally. Particularattention will be paid by the chairs to ensure that discussion is notswamped by “recency effects” of neglecting the earlier presentations.

2.3.1 Something old, something new

Although we are following the traditional panel format and structure inmany respects, we also are actively seeking to make it engaging.

Where feasible, we are designing the presentations to involve those at-tending the symposium. Several things will be done to involve or engagepeople.



• One way of doing that is by presenting the attendees with some of thequestions or information that subjects of some of the experiments de-scribed were exposed to. Some of the results that the panelists reportare so robust that there is often no need to do statistical analysis. Wehave found that this helps the results “sink in” and is also fun.

• Another way of increasing attendee involvement is to distributed “pro-grams”. A one or two sheet “fact sheet” with references to furthermaterial and an introduction to the symposium will be provided.

• Additionally, we will attempt to organize a symposium website, whereeven more information will be available.

Most importantly, the members of the panel are committed to an excitingand cohesive symposium.

2.4 Human universals in a pluralistic world

At first glance, someone might think that this symposium runs counterto the theme of this conference. Doesn’t proposing a symposium whichinvolves the long term constancies of human nature or human universalsfor a meeting with a theme of “Change and Development Journeys Into aPluralistic World” involve a certain degree of chutzpah? Actually, no.

We believe that this symposium fits the theme extremely well. Severalof the misunderstandings discussed in section 8 involve the common miscon-ception that the role of genes and innate structures run counter to humanflexibility. Instead it is our rich innate structure that gives human our flex-ibility, and it is part of our human nature to create and involves ourselvesin distinct cultures. As the co-chairs have stated elsewhere:

[W]e must not forget that variation is not the enemy of universal-s. A snowflake. . . can have a large (practically infinite) number ofshapes and still be “snowflake shaped”. Even if every snowflakeis unique, and there are an (almost) infinite number of possibleshapes they can take, the shape of a snowflake is still highlyconstrained by the nature of how snowflakes are made and thelaws of physics involved. Just as there is a snowflake natureand a human nature, there may well be a culture nature and anorganization nature (Markoczy and Goldberg, 1997).



Or “it is the extra ‘innate’ structure of a computer that gives it far moreflexibility than, say, a toaster, which has far less wired into it” (Markoczyand Goldberg, 1999a).

2.4.1 But bridges not Balkanization

The approach we are advocating is remarkably interdisciplinary. We reg-ularly see anthropologists working with cognitive psychologists, social psy-chologists working with economics, philosophers working with neurophysi-ologists, etc. All of whom are looking at evolved human nature, often witha focus of how people function in relationship to others. We want to seemore management scholars involved in this. If “pluralism” means Balka-nization, factionalizing, and isolation then this symposium does not fit. Butif it embraces true interdisciplinarity and the building of bridges and reallyworking to see things from some others’ perspectives, then our effort is thepromotion of pluralism.


Mgmt. Org. & Human Nature 3. Rod White: Intro

3 Introduction to the human nature approach

Rod White

Unlike the other presentations, this presentation does not report new re-search, but gives an overview of what is intended by a Human Nature ap-proach. It will cover the material discussed in sections 2.1 and 2.2, so thereis no need to repeat that here.

But it will also take a broader approach than what just ep in the strictsense. ep is just one of the several aspects of the biological or evolutionaryview of human behavior. But it is the one to come onto the scene mostrecently. It became known to non-practitioners of ep with the publicaltionof what are now considered a classic collection of papers (Barkow et al.,1992). One way to look at the concepts involved is to take a look at somerecent history of the ideas in question.

Prior to the evolutionary psychologists, a small group of anthropologist-s were challenging the common notion that culture explained culture andthat cultures could vary without limit. They looked at the organization ofcultures in adaptationist and economic terms (e.g., Tiger and Fox 1971),and more recently Brown (1991), Sperber (1996) and Betzig (1997) providereviews and sources for how anthropologists have been moving toward anadaptationist approach.

Ethologists (those who study animal behavior as adaptations) since Kon-rad Lorenz’s pioneering work have long noticed that the behavior they stud-ied in non-humans and the generalizations that they found apply to humans.Gould (1980a) finds an amusing example of Lorenz’s theory about what hu-mans find cute. But most important to the human ethologist is the studyof other primates and chimpanzees.

In addition to the evolutionarily minded anthropologists and the ethol-ogists who considered that humans came under their domain, there wereother strong advocates understanding culture and human activity and bi-ological terms. The original work on sociobiology focused on social insects(Wilson, 1975), but its application to the study of human societies was for-shadowed by Campbell (1965) foresaw this potential when he coined theterm socio-evolutionary theory.

Between human ethology, biological anthropology, human sociobiology,and evolutionary psychology there are a variety of different ways of studying


Mgmt. Org. & Human Nature 3. Rod White: Intro

human behavior, cultures and societies from a human nature perspective.But they all share the same broad idea that an understanding of the scienceof Darwnism is important for the study of humans. Probably the mostrecent (and one of the most ambitious) attempts to unify all of this is therecent work from one of the pioneers in the area, Wilson (1998), under theterm Consilience.


Mgmt. Org. & Human Nature 4. Debbie Waldron: Status

4 Cognitive adaptations for status recognition and

maintenance

Debbie Waldron

It appears that humans are equipped with cognitive mechanisms for deter-mining status differences in a group. In many cases we do it automaticallyand effortlessly. Preliminary results from research I am involved with atthe University of Iowa indicates that some of this ability is associated withthe amygdala, a small group of neural structures mostly dedicated to emo-tional function that lie deep in the center of the brain. The amygdala haspreviously been shown to be important for judging “trustworthy” and “un-trustworthy” faces, and possibly to be involved in the perception of vocalaffect (e.g., Adolphs et al. 1994, 1998).

In the current study patients with damage to the amygdala were testedfor their ability to detect status differentials. This was done by present-ing patients with a film depicting a typical meeting in a large organization.Where people without damage to this region of the brain have no difficultydetermining the relative status of people in the film, there are some inter-esting patterns in the patients with damage to the amygdala. To show howautomatic status judgment is for most of use, a short portion of the film willbe shown.

The second part of this presentation will very briefly outline some of theother evidence bearing on an evolutionary explanation for status behaviors,this is based largely, but not exclusively, on my forthcoming exploration ofthe topic (Waldron, 1999).

Some of the evidence comes from physiological studies, including thoseon the neurotransmitter serotonin, and the hormone testosterone. There aresome fascinating studies on the biochemical contributors to status producingbehaviors in humans and in non-human primates which will be discussed.

Other evidence indicating a biological basis include cross-cultural studiesamong children. For instance, Hold-Cavell (1996) has also shown that Ger-man, Japanese, and the G/wi San pre-school children (the latter children offoraging hunter-gatherers), all formed local status rankings and that eachchild knew one anothers’ rankings within their groups.

Primatological studies have been particularly fruitful. There has been aseries of studies and reviews showing that as one moves through the primate



species, from tree shrews and lemurs toward humans, the important aspectsof human status rank begin to emerge in the series. Other studies have shownthat many status struggles amongst chimpanzees are remarkably human-like.

The debates in anthropology about status tend now to be very sophis-ticated and can barely be touched upon. However, one central issue is theclassic sociocultural argument that status is not universal because some soci-eties are egalitarian. For example, some foraging hunter-gatherers have beendescribed as “fiercely egalitarian”, deliberately discouraging overt displaysof status. Yet while in some foraging hunter-gatherer communities socialmechanisms may be used to deliberately level status – such as down-playingthe value of the catch of successful hunters (Woodburn, 1982) “egalitarian”in these communities does not mean, as one might expect, that all membersof these communities are therefore equal. Rather, egalitarian means thatall members have individual autonomy over their own affairs, are able toachieve prestige, and also that any prestige obtained ought not to be usedto gain power over others (Kelly, 1995). “Fiercely egalitarian” means thatthe egalitarian structures are maintained through considerable and contin-ual pressures in the community – pressures that are necessary to maintainthe structure.

Finally, though no attempt to systematically review the literature onstatus appears to have been undertaken, the author will discuss some of theevidence from management reflecting the depth and variety of literature onthe topic. There are many readily apparent expressions of status withinorganizational and group contexts, ranging from the exclusive use of privateoffices through to the use of job titles, and the persistence of perquisites.

Further, the pervasiveness of status in organizational contexts seemsapparent in numerous surveys of employee motivators. Surveys of whatmotivates employees consistently indicate that the achievement of status isa pervasive concern. The explicit achievement of status typically does notrank as the most important motivator of employees in surveys, but it doesconsistently rank as one of the most important factors. Further, even wherestatus is not directly expressed as a motivator in surveys, it is arguablyapparent within many other factors that do implicitly and explicitly definestatus, such as remuneration.

Some evidence for the pervasiveness of status within organizations has al-



so been provided by equity theory. Vecchio (1984) proposed that employeesmake comparisons between themselves and referent others, and that employ-ees are concerned enough about where they stand relative to referent othersthat any perceived inequities in status rewards would directly impact uponlevels of effort exerted at work. More recently the evolutionary economistRobert Frank (1984, 1985) has developed some theories relating status toincomes among referent others. Frank argues, and has produced empiricalresearch to support the notion, that employees are more concerned withmaximizing the level of income they receive relative to referent others thanwith the apparently more economically rational strategy of maximizing thevalue of the marginal product of their labor. This runs against traditionaleconomic theory, which holds that each employee ought to seek to maximizehis or her income by maximizing the return on his or her marginal productof labor. That is, each employee ought to seek the point where their ownvalue for the last unit of their labor equals the unit’s value to employers.

Status is a pervasive and ubiquitous phenomenon in the workplace yet issurprisingly little discussed in the management literature. There are manyworkplace reforms that seek to reduce its power, such as team-based initia-tives, structural reorganizations, empowerment programs and so forth. Yetif we are to better understand a key phenomenon such as status then it isimportant to investigate why in the first place it is that status is quite soimportant. Effective change programs after-all ought to be built on a solidunderstanding, not misunderstanding, of human behavior.


Mgmt. Org. & Human Nature 5. Barbara Pierce: Social structure

5 Social structure and the resource context

Barbara Pierce

Managers are encouraged to design structures which support strategic goals(Chandler, 1962). However, since the time of Elton Mayo and his studies ofworkers at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works (Roethlisberger and Dick-son, 1939), managers have been aware that even their best designed struc-tures are subject to continual adjustment by the very beings which populatethem. In every organization “social” structures develop which play an im-portant role in determining the day to day behaviour of those who workin the firm. Social structures are self organizing; that is, order emergeswithout the intervention of an external supervising agent (Dalenoort, 1989).Their form and development cannot be directly controlled. If not controlled,then, what accounts for the patterns of social structure exhibited within or-ganizational work groups? Addressing this question requires an even morefundamental consideration; what drives human behavior in social situations?

Socio-biologists suggest that the social behaviour of all animals has deepevolutionary roots. The process of natural selection creates adaptationswhich allow individuals to respond favourably to problems presented by theirenvironment. Social behaviour is viewed as an innate capacity, evolving asit does through natural selection (Segerstrale, 1986). This paper maintainsthat social structures are based on adaptations developed by our ancestorsto respond to the problems of communal living.

Adaptations of the human mind evolved in response to the problemsexperienced by our Pleistocene ancestors. It is accepted practice to look forclues about the social behaviour of pre-history humankind in the present-day behaviour of our closest evolutionary relatives, the non-human primates(Lenski, 1975). Consequently the study of primate groups may be able toinform us about the social structure of early human groups.

A crucial theoretical insight about the nature of social structure occurredwhen Margaret Power (1991) noted inconsistent findings in ethological stud-ies concerning social behaviour in chimpanzee groups. Early 1960’s researchreported gregarious animals who exhibited a natural curiosity about eachother and their surroundings. Later in the decade researchers observed stric-t dominance hierarchies, with aggressive and outwardly hostile social be-haviour. In the early studies, researchers attempted to observe chimpanzees



in their natural habitat. However, naturalistic methods proved difficult andcostly. Some researchers changed their methodology from naturalistic obser-vation to artificial provisioning where food was provided at central feedingsites. Power suggested that artificial provisioning concentrated the foodresources and introduced competition thereby altering natural patterns ofsocial interaction. Altering the environment, that is, specifically changingthe resource context affected emergent social behaviours within the group.

A typology to describe the two configurations of social behaviour asnoted by Power is found in the work of ethologist Michael Chance (1975).

Hedonic Mode The embers of hedonic groups split off in small foraginggroups of shifting composition creating a pattern of periodic separa-tion and cohesion referred to as fission/fusion. When members returnfrom foraging the atmosphere is very social and interactive. Promi-nence, not dominance, is sought. Individuals “compete” for the at-tention of others through display behaviours frequently followed byinter-personal rewards such as mutual grooming or by communal ac-tivities such as food sharing. Little conflict is manifest within thegroup. When danger threatens the group gathers together makingbody contact, slapping and hugging each other. Each member gainsconfidence to attack the predator on its own.

Agonic Mode Members of agonic groups function in stable troops. Thosewho attain dominance do so through of aggression and intimidation.Submissives perform acts of appeasement to ward off attack neverstraying far from the dominants to ensure a full view. Because of theever present possibility of aggressive attack from within, members arein a constant state of high arousal. Most of the troop keep their atten-tion focused on the dominants and show little curiosity about othersin the group or their physical surroundings. When external dangerthreatens, the troop clusters together and looks to the dominant forprotection.

Further, socio-ecologists have identified a link between certain featuresof social organization and certain characteristics of the resource context.The four salient characteristics are: distribution, visibility, predictability, andtiming.



Distribution Resources can be either widely scattered throughout a terri-tory or tightly clustered in identifiable clumps or patches.

Visibility Some resource fields, are very open allowing the animals to easilyobserve each other’s actions over a large area. Other habitats, are lushand overgrown preventing visual contact beyond a few meters.

Predictability In some situations animals can dependably find resourcesat specific sites within their territory or at specific times during theyear. Other resource conditions are not as predictable.

Timing When a resource is acquired it may be consumed immediately orset aside creating a delay between acquisition and consumption.

These studies show that when resources are scattered, unpredictable,hidden and available for immediate consumption, hedonic social structuresemerge. When resources are concentrated, predictable, highly visible andconsumption is delayed the agonic form emerges. Why would different con-figurations of resource context lead to the emergence of different modes ofsocial structure? For an explanation we return to the work of the evolu-tionary psychologists and the adaptive problems of group formation andcohesion.

From a survival standpoint group formation is desirable. When a re-source context is concentrated, predictable, visible and the availability ofresources is delayed, individuals seeking these resources are naturally drawntogether making the resources contestable and establishing conditions whereindividuals compete directly for resources. For a group to form and stay to-gether when it confronts a contestable resource context, a social structure isneeded that ameliorates destructive competition. The agonic mode of socialstructure establishes clear hierarchy and procedures for resource allocationamong individual group members and constrains competition and conflict.

When resources are scattered, unpredictable, less visible to others andavailable for immediate consumption, the resource context is less contest-able. In this context it is most advantageous for individuals to forage sep-arately for resources. However, foraging draws individuals apart therebyhampering group formation. Again, because there is a survival advantagein belonging to a group, a resource context which naturally separates indi-viduals requires a social structure to bring members together. The hedonic



mode of social structure engages group members in interpersonal bondingactivities. In the absence of competitive pressures these social interactionsevoke very positive feelings whic increase the likelihood that individuals willcome together to form stable groups.

Different resource contexts require different resource acquisition tacticsand these tactics (competition or foraging) each create different problems forgroup cohesion. In both cases, social structure is the solution to the adaptiveproblem of group cohesion. The form structure takes however, (agonic orhedonic) is contingent upon how individuals perceive the contestability oftheir resource context. Thus social structures are derived from the operationof deeply embedded psychological mechanisms which are triggered by anindividual’s perception of the contestability of his or her resource context.


Mgmt. Org. & Human Nature 6. Martin Evans: Cheater Detection

6 Explorations of the Cheater Detection Mecha-

nism

Martin Evans

Proponents of the evolutionary perspective of the modular mind suggestthat an important capacity developed during humankind’s evolutionary pe-riod was a mechanism to detect cheats. Only with the development of sucha module, together with a module for person recognition, could stable co-operative arrangements exist.

In this presentation I intend to document the research evidence for thischeater detection module. Much of the work has focused on the use of thepaper and pencil Wason selection task as the paradigm for identifying thecheater detection paradigm. The task has been well defined by Kirby (1994,p. 2):

In Wason’s four card selection task subjects are presented withfour cards that are constrained to have instances from the setsP or not-P on one side and Q or not-Q on the other side. Aconditional statement describes an alleged relation between thefronts and the backs of the cards: if a P is on one side of the card,then a Q is on the other. Subjects’ task is to select which of thecards should be turned over to determine whether the conditionalrelation is true or false. . . subjects are usually considered in errorwhen they fail to select the P or not-Q, or when they select thenot-P or Q cards, which are logically incapable of violating theconditional.

For example, subjects might be given a rule like “If a card has a vowelon one side it must have an odd number on the other side” and then asked“Given the rule and cards marked ‘A’, ‘D’, ‘3’ and ‘8’, indicate exactly whichcards you need to turn over to see whether the rules is upheld.” In this caseP is “marked with a vowel” and Q is “is an odd number”. The correctanswer is the cards that are P and not-Q. That is, the first card (‘A’) andthe fourth card (‘8’).

Thus success on the task for a group of subjects, usually labelled hit rate

is provided by the proportion of the group that identifies both the P cardand the not-Q card and no other card. It is usual to find that few subjects



(hit rate about 10%) solve the problem when the task is represented simplyas a logical syllogism as in the above example.

However, when the task is given the trappings of a familiar situation, hitrates go to about 25%. But this modest increase is often exceeded, and insome situations (e.g., Griggs and Cox (1982) “bar scene”) the hit rate can beas high as 75% or 80%. In the bar scene scenario, four persons are describedas sitting at a table in a bar: one is known to be a drinking beer, one overthe age at which the consumption of alcoholic beverages is permitted, oneis under age, one is drinking a soft drink. The subject is given the role ofbouncer or bar tender and asked which person(s) need further investigationto make sure that the drinking age law is not being broken. People have nodifficulty in identifying the cards representing the beer drinker (P ) and theunder age person (not-Q).

Those talking an evolutionary perspective argue that the reason for thisdramatic increase in hit rate is due to the development of this evolutionaryability of cheater detection. The bar scene and similar scenarios representsocial contracts and people evolved to identify potential violators of thesecontracts.

There are however a number of alternative explanations for people’s a-bilities to perform well on the task when they involve social contracts. Theseinclude, as well as the evolutionary perspective, the arguments of familiarityas well as learning the implications of “ought” and “should” (deontic rea-

soning), as well as information perspectives. It is extraordinarily difficult todesign studies that differentiate between these alternative perspectives. Onepossibility for identifying differences between evolutionary and learning ex-planations focuses on the issue of altruism. According to deontic reasoning,it should be as easy to detect altruism as it is to detect cheating: the samedeontic logic is implicated. However, the evolutionary perspective suggeststhat it will be much easier to detect cheating than to detect altruism. Theargument according to Cosmides and Tooby (1992, p. 193) is that:

The game theoretic models for the evolution of cooperation thatcould be reasonably applied. . . require the existence of some mech-anism for detecting cheaters or otherwise excluding them fromthe benefits of cooperation. This is because the capacity to en-gage in social exchange could not have evolved in the first placeunless the individuals involved could avoid being continually ex-



ploited by cheaters. But most models do not require the exis-tence of a mechanism for detecting “altruists” individuals whofollow the strategy of paying the required cost (thereby benefit-ing the other party), but not accepting from the other party thebenefit to which this act entitles them.

My colleagues and I have undertaken a series of studies to try to testthese differences. The first two are based on the Wason selection task. Inthe first we examine some methodological problems with previous studies.In the second we speculate on conditions under which detection of altruistsmight be evolutionarily selected. In both studies we find support for thelearning explanation (Evans and Chang, 1999). The third study, which isstill in process, steps from pencil and paper testing into the real world ofthe laboratory. In this, we explore the possibility of detecting cheating andaltruism during on going behaviour in a repeated play “commons” task.

Finally, I will discuss the present day implications for the existence ofthe cheater detection module in present day organization settings.


Mgmt. Org. & Human Nature 7. Lıvia Markoczy: Baserate

7 Human nature and the baserate fallacy

Lıvia Markoczy

Work in Evolutionary Psychology has predicted and found certain domainspecificities with respect to perceptual and cognitive processes. The predic-tions and results often show that we have finely tuned cognitive mechanismsfor dealing with people and social life, but these mechanisms do not operateautomatically when applied outside of their particular domains. Logicallyequivalent problems may be easy (almost automatic) or difficult to solvedepending on whether they are stated about humans and social exchange orabout non-humans. (Martin Evans discusses extensively some work on oneof these types of problems, the Wason selection task. See §6)

The Heuristics and Biases program in cognitive psychology makes useof the representativeness heuristic (e.g., Tversky and Kahneman 1974) to ex-plain some systematic probability judgment errors people make. The studiesreported in this presentation were motivated by the idea that representa-tiveness may not be an entirely general heuristic, but that there should be aricher notion of representativeness when applied to “natural kinds” of peo-ple. The way I and my colleagues have explored this is to test whether thedegree to which the base-rate fallacy is committed is domain specific. Theanswer, so far, is a resounding yes.

The base-rate fallacy, itself, has important repercussions on decisionmaking. Whether it is medical diagnosis, hiring decisions, investments orwhatever, a large number of problems that decision makers face are effectedby the base-rate fallacy.

The base-rate fallacy is the systematic failure of people to take intoaccount base-rate (or population characteristics) when given both base-rateinformation and individuating information. Consider the question(s) below.(It is two questions, once presented with a base-rate of 15 percent and inthe other case presented with a base-rate of 85 percent.)

You are an investigator checking out a crime report, and at thispoint you are trying to determine the color of the taxicab asuspect fled in. You know that [15 or 85] percent of the taxicabsin your city are green.

A witness reported seeing the suspect flee in a green taxicabat dusk; you know that witnesses report the color correctly 70



percent of the time for similar conditions, and incorrectly 30percent of the time.

Please give an estimate of the probability that the color of thecab the suspect fled in was green.

When presented with either of these problems, people do not make prop-er use of the base-rate information in forming opinions. This has becomecalled the base-rate fallacy. In the nearly three decades since it was firstreported in the cognitive science literature, the base-rate fallacy has beensubject to intensive investigation. One thing that has made it so attractiveto researchers is that it is a very robust phenomena. What has been ofparticular concern is the under which conditions people do or don’t committhe fallacy. There are ways of stating logically equivalent problems in whichpeople do not commit the fallacy.

In Markoczy and Goldberg (1999b) my co-author and I argued thatsome of the mystery behind when people do or don’t commit the base-ratefallacy can be explained by understanding that people reason differentlyabout probabilities about the behavior of things like taxis than about thingslike people. When a logically equivalent version of the problem above isgiven, but involves classes of people and not taxis, much of the base-ratefallacy disappears. In that paper we conducted a number of experimentswhich support the claim, and we suggest a number of follow-up experimentsto help clarify some points and check alternative mechanisms. Those follow-up experiments are currently being conducted, and preliminary results canbe reported, along with the first results and the theory. The general findingis so robust that will be possible to present those attending the symposiumwith variants of the problem to actively demonstrate the effect.

Why does the base-rate fallacy go away when the base-rate information isgiven about types of people instead of about things like taxis? The hypoth-esis is that the mechanisms we use to predict the behavior and attributes ofpeople are richer and more sophisticated than the mechanisms that we havefor doing it in the general case.

When it comes to people, we can allow for individual variation whilestill maintaining the representativeness of that individual of their perceivedclass. Information about the class doesn’t go away once we have specific in-formation about an individual human. Information we have about the classcan still apply partially to the individual and the two sources of information



can be integrated. But outside of the domain of humans, representative-ness is an all or nothing thing. Either a taxi is representative of its class(taxis in the city) or it isn’t. Once we have some information about theindividual taxi, we are no longer able to bend representativeness to allowinformation about the class to be integrated with individuating information.In this case, representativeness breaks and the information about the classabandoned. Paradoxically, this additional flexibility when making predic-tions about people adds to the effect of stereo-typing instead of reducing itby allowing stereotype information to be used, where it might otherwise beabandoned.

So when the base-rate problem is presented about types of people, ourthinking about it taps into our social cognition. As has been well arguedin the ep literature, our social cognition capacities are often able to solveproblems which leave our rational decision making capacity baffled.


Mgmt. Org. & Human Nature 8. Jeff Goldberg: Misunderstandings

8 Misunderstandings of Darwinism

Jeff Goldberg

“The problem with Darwinism is that everybody thinks they understand it,but few people actually do.” That slogan is repeated often by those who, likeus, wish to have Darwinism discussed by people who are not themselves evo-lutionary biologists. Those working in ep generally suspect that most of theobjections and concerns and fears raised by others are based not on what ep

or a Darwinian approach to human behavior actually say, but to what peoplethink they say. Steven J. Gould remarked about Arthur Koestler’s campaignagainst Darwinian thinking that Koestler was “conducting a campaign a-gainst his own misunderstanding of Darwinism” (Gould, 1980b, p. 34). Theaim of this presentation is to help others avoid the same fate.

From the belief that “selfish genes” must create selfish individual tothe belief because something is in our nature it is justified, discussion ofDarwinism and human behavior is muddled by terrible misunderstandings.

There would not be time – even given a full presentation – to do anythingmore than list the misunderstandings that have come up both in conversa-tion and published on this matters. Instead of having a presentation on themisunderstandings, I will be prepared with a clarifying remark or a slide onmany of the known misunderstandings and will use them as the need arisesduring the discussion. I will make a few remarks describing my role prior tothe discussion period and may give an example or two of a misunderstanding.

That list is taken primarily from the list and discussions provided byMarkoczy and Goldberg (1999a) which itself relies on other sources (e.g.,Dawkins 1979; Symons 1992; Kenrick and Simpson 1997) as well as fromalmost every popular book on the subject (e.g., Pinker 1997; Dennett 1995;Ridley 1996; Wright 1994; Dawkins 1986; Cronin 1991). The fact that somany people have written so much attempting to clear up misunderstandingsis testimony to the need for preparing to address common misunderstand-ings.

Here is a partial list, with very short comments, of some of the misun-derstandings, I will be watching out for.

• The momentum fallacy The belief that evolution has momentumand that a change that is started will continue.

• The teleological fallacy The belief that there is a goal to evolution.



• The “more evolved” fallacy The belief that some contemporaryspecies are more evolved than others.

• The driver-seat fallacy The belief that evolutionists are claimingthat our genes control our thoughts and emotions. In fact, our genes nomore control our thoughts and emotions than pump our blood. Theyhave, however, played a role in building our brains and our hearts, theorgans that really do those jobs.

• The selfish fallacy. The belief that supporters of the selfish gene viewDawkins (1989) believe that selfish genes lead to selfish individuals.Indeed, quite the opposite is true. Selfish gene theory is used to explainhow Darwinism can lead to selfless individuals.

• The levels fallacy This is to confuse the level at which behavior ismanifested with the level of selection. In fact, group oriented behaviordoes not usually imply group level selection.

• For the good of the species The belief that an adaptation evolvedfor the good of the species. This is usually a special case of the levelsfallacy.

• The gene as a vehicle/level fallacy [This fallacy is unlikely tocome up, as it requires a fair amount of background knowledge just tomake it.]

• The time-scale fallacy This is failure to remember that evolutionrequires many thousands of generations, while we are only a few hun-dred generations away from the dawn of civilization. The environmentwe live in now is not the one we are adapted to.

• The happiness fallacy This is the belief that we would be happy ifwe were in the environment we were adapted to. But such a life mightreally be “nasty, brutish and short”.

• The explicit knowledge fallacy This is to assume that if evolutionprovides us with a tool to do something very difficult, that we mustsomehow be able to do it consciously. That is simply not true. A plantcan photo-synthesize without a degree in biochemistry.



• All “Just So Stories” The belief that all evolutionary accounts ofhuman behavior are unfalsifiable “Just So” stories. The presentationsin this symposium should help correct that misapprehension. Theymake falsifiable claims, and Martin Evans (§sec:martin) even engagesin falsification.

• The deterministic fallacy The belief that if there is substantial roleto genes or natural selection to our behavior, free will is challenged. Infact, free will is under no more threat from “biological determinism”then it is from the belief that we are the products of our histories,upbringings, cultures and societies. If there are causes for behaviorthe problem of free will is the same. There is nothing special aboutgenes in this question.

Additionally, this can be the belief that if the evolutionary view ischallenged by human diversity and flexibility. This point has alreadybeen address in section 2.4.

• The Naturalistic Fallacy The belief (usually tacit) that if somethingis natural than it is good in one way to put this fallacy. Alternatively,it is the idea that something being natural can justify it. Because thisfallacy is usually tacit (while being explicitly denied), it comes up insome very subtle forms.

This fallacy is so subtle and pernicious that special attention will bepaid to it.

• The Perfection Fallacy Sometimes called the Panglossian fallacy,this is the belief that adaptations are perfect. This shows up subtlywith respect to how people think about the mind.

• The nature versus nurture fallacy To think of a tug-of-war be-tween nature and nurture is hopelessly naıve. Also to dismiss suchquestions with the catch phrase “it’s a complex interaction of the t-wo” is almost as bad. There are ways to actually think about thecomplex interactions.


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