Question

Question 16 Not yet answered Marked out of 10.00 Flag question Spite is rare among non-human animals. Using the economics of territories, explain why this should be so.

Answer 1

The costs of altruism(disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others) are either neutralized by kinship or by the prospects of a reciprocally altruistic relationship. As well as this theoretical perspective works, it largely fails to account for the virtual absence among social vertebrates of reciprocal altruism and spite. consideration of proximate and ultimate factors leads to the prediction that reciprocity and spite (both genetic and psychological) should be rare or absent in non-human animal populations.

In particular, non-human animals do not live in the kinds of societies that would create strong pressure on individuals to require reciprocity to obtain help given that the density of kin is high, and thus, the probability of interacting with them is high as well; in other words, individuals can rely on their kin in times of need. Similar, ultimate level arguments apply to spite. That is, in most cases where an individual does something to impose costs on another, the underlying motivation for such behaviour is selfish. Given that there are many other ways other than spite to increase one's relative fitness, the costs of spite will very rarely be favoured.