[extropy-chat] Human Evolution is Still Going Strong Today

[Lee Corbin]

Anders writes

> Lee Corbin wrote:
>>
>>> Take the trait behind capture bonding (Stockholm syndrome).  Why should
>>> that go away?
>>
>> Good example, though I wonder if my rationale is the same as [whoever
>> wrote that].
>>
>> I would suggest that [the] EP purpose of the Stockholm
>> syndrome is that since women still "want" in the evolutionary
>> sense to keep on having children, then the genes resisting
>> such uncompromising situations (as in the legend of the
>> Sabine women), would tend to die out in women.
> 
> Do you need to assume this kind of adaptive explanation? A simpler one
> might be that the combination of a very stressful situation (releasing
> learning-inducing catecholamines) and isolation with a highly salient
> person  would lead to imprinting.

As you hint next, a key question is, "does this happen to men also?".

> It might be possible to check this, since this accidental imprinting
> model doesn't tell whether the emotional valence would be positive
> or negative.

You mean that the captives may come to *hate* their captors even
more over time, rather than gradually come to sympathize with them?
Well   :-)   that too would have a lot of simpler explanations!

Lee

> It should just be intense. If capture bonding is going on it should
> just be positive and gender specific, I guess.
> 
> Lima syndrome (where captors become sympathetic to their hostages) appears
> to be hard to explain using capture bonding. Maybe it is just the ordinary
> group dynamics of becoming a "we" group together with a lot of extra
> stress that produces the syndromes.