title: Spectacular pehnomena and limits to rationality in genetic and cultural evolution
creator: Enquist, Magnus
creator: Arak, Anthony
creator: Ghirlanda, Stefano
creator: Wachtmeister, Carl-Adam
subject: Ethology
subject: Animal Cognition
subject: Sociobiology
subject: Evolution
subject: Neural Nets
subject: Theoretical Biology
subject: Animal Behavior
description: In studies of both animal and human behaviour, game theory is used as a tool for understanding strategies that appear in interactions between individuals. Game theory focuses on adaptive behaviour, which can be attained only at evolutionary equilibrium. Here we suggest that behaviour appearing during interactions is often outside the scope of such analysis. In many types of interaction, conflicts of interest exist between players, fueling the evolution of manipulative strategies. Such strategies evolve out of equilibrium, commonly appearing as spectacular morphology or behaviour with obscure meaning, to which other players may react in non-adaptive, irrational way approach, and outline the conditions in which evolutionary equilibria cannot be maintained. Evidence from studies of biological interactions seems to support the view that behaviour is often not at equilibrium. This also appears to be the case for many human cultural traits, which have spread rapidly despite the fact that they have a negative influence on reproduction.
date: 2002
type: Journal (Paginated)
type: PeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: http://cogprints.org/5277/1/enquist_arak_ghirlanda_wachtmeister2002.pdf
identifier:   Enquist, Magnus and Arak, Anthony and Ghirlanda, Stefano and Wachtmeister, Carl-Adam  (2002) Spectacular pehnomena and limits to rationality in genetic and cultural evolution.  [Journal (Paginated)]     
relation: http://cogprints.org/5277/