PSYCO241 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: The Selfish Gene, Reciprocal Altruism, Empathic Concern

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO241
• Professor: Kathryn Chaffee

Document Summary

What is important is survival of the individual"s genes, not survival of the fittest individual. Kin selection is the tendency to help genetic relatives. Being helpful decreases your chance of survival because you"re putting yourself at risk. Being selfish increases your chances of survival because you"re only watching out for yourself. In order to reproduce, you have to survive long enough to do so. We perhaps prefer our relatives to our non-relatives so we can pass on our genes. Through reciprocal altruism, helping someone else can be in your best interests. Increases the likelihood that you will be helped in return. Increase the likelihood that you"ll help someone because it"s more likely that you"ll be helped. People who do this are more likely to survive in that sense. Ex: when big fish let little fish go in their mouth and eat the parasites but don"t actually eat the little fish helping each other/doing each other a favor.