Evolution of emotion

The brain is a product of evolution.

• Smiles are social

Kinship

Kin Selection: a gene will spread in a population if either:

• It increases the chance that the bearer of that gene will survive
• Or it increases the chance that other individuals who also possess that gene will survive (i.e. genetic relatives)

Attachment

Animals have evolved to be nice to kin.

Parent’s attachment to child; Child’s attachment to parent;

Prisoner’s delimma

Coorporate or Defect

The winning program: Tit-For-Tat

1. The first time you meet a new program, coorperate
2. After that, do on each trial what the other program did on the previous trial

Niceness to niceness, meanness to meanness.

Irrationality and culture

The ultimatum game.

Social

The self-serving bias: positives are a result of ourselves; Negatives are result of external factors;

Cognitive dissonance theory: waht we do makes sense.

1. Avoiding inconsistent information - confirmation bias
2. Insufficient justification effect

Attribution theory:

• A claim about cause of someone’s behavior
• seeking a reason for the occurrence of events/behaviors

Heider: we intuitively attribute other’s actions to personality characteristics. - person bias; fundamental attribution error.

Why do we like other perople?

• Familiarity
• Similarity
• Attractiveness

(credit to Coursera)