<div dir="ltr">Hi Bill-<div><br></div><div>I'd be interested in your thoughts, but I had in mind something like the reciprocity principle as an example of one of those psychological heuerstics:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(social_psychology)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(social_psychology)</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>or as another example, the contrast principle : Two different things presented together or sequentially will feel more
different than they really are. Hence sell the expensive item first, as the other items will seem
cheap after that. </div><div><br></div><div>I've been reading the book Influence by Cialadini which looks at how sales folks exploit a number of these heuristics. </div><div><br></div><div>I would imagine there are others. It's hard to believe we have escaped the general concept of fixed action patterns that impact a large number of species that use them to exploit the fact that they are almost always a good behavioral shortcut. Of course, throughout nature, mimics and others have found various ways to exploit these same hard coded behaviors:</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_action_pattern">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_action_pattern</a><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 7:10 PM, William Flynn Wallace <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com" target="_blank">foozler83@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:19.2px">There are likely a large number of heuristic short cuts programmed into all animals including us, but most of ours are probably<b><i> psychological </i></b>at this point. dylan</span><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:19.2px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:19.2px">Yeah? And just what do you mean by that? Please explain.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:19.2px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:19.2px">bill w</span></div></div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 3:38 PM, Dylan Distasio <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:interzone@gmail.com" target="_blank">interzone@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Symmetry is another tell for good genes and attractive in potential mates.<div><br></div><div>Another example of preprogrammed behaviors can be found in birds. Mother turkeys are great moms as long as their babies chirp. If a non-chirping baby is born, they will generally peck them to death as the chirping is a tell for a healthy baby. </div><div><br></div><div>In robins, males will attack just the right shade of red feathers when it is presented to them. They don't even need a whole stuffed bird to be triggered. <div><br></div><div>There are likely a large number of heuristic short cuts programmed into all animals including us, but most of ours are probably psychological at this point.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="m_5749957583495665778h5">On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 4:30 PM, John Clark <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="m_5749957583495665778h5"><div dir="ltr"><span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 12:43 PM, spike </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:spike66@att.net" target="_blank">spike66@att.net</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div></span><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><span><div bgcolor="white" lang="EN-US"><div class="m_5749957583495665778m_-8974779793941063862m_-8890539829256825855m_1288680361186854463gmail-m_-8555235092047850368WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span><br></p></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="white" lang="EN-US"><div class="m_5749957583495665778m_-8974779793941063862m_-8890539829256825855m_1288680361186854463gmail-m_-8555235092047850368WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"></span></p><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div> how would the instinct to not mess with the skunk get encoded into the genes? The skunk’s non-lethal defense would not seriously impact the unwise dog’s reproductive capacity (temporary delay only.) <p></p></div></div></blockquote></span><div><div class="gmail_default" style="display:inline"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"></font></div><font size="4">The lifetime of all animals is temporary. For several hours after an animal has been sprayed by a skunk its going to be visually blind, have no sense of smell and is going to be stumbling around distracted by pain; during that time its going to be more vulnerable to predators.<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>I don't know exactly how much that will decrease it's chances of passing along its<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>genes<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>into the next generation but it would certainly be greater than zero and over thousands of generations it would add up, animals that didn't like the look of skunks would have an advantage over animals that had no such aversion.</font><br></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">Of course this couldn't work if a predator didn't have a quick and easy way to tell a skunk from a squirrel or some other small harmless animal, and that's why <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">the</div> skunk evolved its distinctive white stripe. That's also why extremely poisonous small frogs and insects have super bright day-glow colors, but its a constant arms race, some species don't bother making the poison and would be good to eat but they mimic the bright coloration of the poisonous animal, so that animal must evolve a even more conspicuous marker. <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"></div></font></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><br></div></font></div><div><font size="4">It<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>reminds me a bit of sexual selection. Why do male peacocks have such a ridiculously large tail when a cumbersome thing <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">like that makes them very poor flyers and </div>must greatly reduce <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">their</div> chances of having a long life? Because female peacocks like large tails. <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">Why do females like long tails? Because to </div>mate with the healthiest males<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> they needed a marker that could quickly let them tell a healthy male from a unhealthy one, and long ago Evolution must have decided large tails were a pretty good rule of thumb for that. But Evolution is not perfect and things can get out of hand.</div></font></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><br></div></div><div><font size="4"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">In the population there is going to be genes for producing tails of various sizes and genes for liking tails of various sizes<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">,</div> birds with midsize tail<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">s</div> would make the best flyers and have the longest life but from peacock's genes point of view this was obviously not the most important consideration. So females who have genes for liking the long<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">est</div> tails would mate with males with genes for making the longest tails producing offspring that have both types of genes. This will lead to a disastrous positive feedback loop ending only when the advantage of superior flight performance <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">and longer life </div>of birds with midsize <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">tails </div>outweighs the greater difficulty<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> in</div> finding a mate.</span><br></font></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4"><br></font></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><font size="4"> John K Clark </font></div></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>
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