We explore how altruistic behavior can evolve and be maintained in a society where it coexists with selfish behavior. Using the altruistic behavior exhibited by a class in preparation for an athletic competition, we explore how the “eusocial species hypothesis” explains the survival and evolution of altruistic behavior.
Have you ever helped someone else at your own expense, or have you ever had someone graciously do a favor for you that would not benefit you in any way? These experiences demonstrate the importance of altruistic behavior. The reason we are cautious about asking for help is because we are worried about embarrassing the other person. If you help someone with something you consider an embarrassment and they don’t ask for anything in return, you’ve been altruistic. In a world where altruistic and selfish behavior coexist, altruistic behavior is not evolutionarily stable. Altruistic behavior is not evolutionarily stable because selfish behavior will eventually survive. However, altruistic behavior still exists, and in this article, we’ll use the “eusocial species hypothesis” to explain how it has been able to survive and evolve. We’ll look at the process of how classmates come together to prepare for a sports competition and the outcome of the “group” to see why altruistic behavior has survived.
The dictionary meaning of ‘conspecifics’ is ‘following and following each other in the same group’ and ‘gathering and socializing in a group with the same personality or character’. You can express eusociality by saying, ‘Crayfish are on the side of crabs’ or ‘To know a person, look at his friends. Altruistic and selfish behaviors can also be eusocial, and a great example of this can be found in school. During school events, athletic competitions can be one of the best opportunities for a class to come together, or they can cause big fights between friends. The difference between a united class and a divided class is determined by the behavior of the class members in the run-up to the competition. In the context of preparing for a sporting event, altruistic behavior can be seen as doing your part and helping other friends. Selfish behavior is when you don’t do your part and cause others to do their share of the work. There are always going to be people in a class who don’t participate in class work and take on extra work while the class is led by the class president or vice president.
The point here is that selfless behavior goes beyond just fulfilling a role and contributes to teamwork. Preparing for an athletic competition is more than just a division of labor; it’s an opportunity to build a sense of community and mutual trust. Many of the things that are prepared for a pep rally, such as banners, class chants, cheers, and signs, are ultimately used by everyone in the class. If you don’t participate in the preparation process, you’ll just be using what your classmates have put time and effort into. If everyone in the class is selfish, there will be no harmony, no disagreements, and no preparation for the competition. As a result, it is the altruistic friends who are involved in the preparation for the competition, and the next time there is an event, there will be a spillover from the competition experience.
The altruistic students will work together and exclude the selfish students, and the event will be organized in a cooperative and harmonious atmosphere. The same situation will apply to next year’s athletic meet or other events. If you ask B, who was in A’s class last year, about his newly assigned classmate A, you can find out whether A is selfless or selfish. Based on this, students who are rated as altruistic and cooperative by their peers are more likely to stick together. This clustering of altruistic behaviors drives selfish behaviors out of the group and eventually creates the conditions for the evolution of cooperative or altruistic behaviors, which is what the speciation hypothesis refers to.
This process also creates an environment where altruistic behavior is socially recognized and rewarded, meaning that it becomes more than just an individual’s inclination, but a social norm. This creates an environment where altruistic behaviors are socially recognized and rewarded.
As discussed above, the “eusocial species hypothesis” explains why altruistic cooperative behavior has been maintained and evolved since the emergence of altruistic humans. The kin selection hypothesis and the recurrence-reciprocity hypothesis were proposed before the speciation hypothesis, but the altruistic behaviors explained by both hypotheses are based on the self-interest of the actors. They are also limited in their ability to explain all of the cooperative behavior in broader human societies. The significance of the eusocial hypothesis is that it can explain why genuinely altruistic behavior can occur even when people are not related by blood and have not had countless repetitive interactions, such as our classmates.
The title of this article, “The Consequences of ‘Betweenness’,” is ultimately consistent with the Eusocial Hypothesis. First, when altruistic behavior is coupled with altruistic behavior, altruistic and cooperative outcomes can be repeated. Second, selfish behaviors that are driven out of altruistic behaviors cluster with selfish behaviors to produce evolutionarily disadvantageous outcomes. In other words, altruistic humans survive in this world because it is evolutionarily advantageous to be altruistic. However, the “eusocial species hypothesis” does not explain the evolution of altruistic behavior. As a partial example, when selfish behavior becomes dominant, people will choose altruistic behavior over another selfish behavior. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the person in the position of betrayal (selfish behavior) can get a higher payoff when the other person chooses to cooperate (altruistic behavior). In order to explain the evolution of altruistic behavior despite the existence of non-traditional cases, we need a hypothesis that can encompass more cases.
