Hostility to difference an evolutionary adaptation?

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Ok, so this kind of intended to be a bit of fun, a thought experiment if you will.

I was just wondering if hostility to perceived differences in others (including autism) might be an evolutionary adaptation and if anyone is aware of any formal theories on this?

I know that anxiety is meant to be in part an evolved trait, those of us who are around, had ancient relatives who were more wary so they were the ones not eaten by bears and tigers! and we're their descendants...

But I reckon hostility to difference could be an evolved trait too. This does not in anyway justify it - but it might go some way to explain it. This is the way I see it:-

To massively oversimplify the argument let's imagine we have three tribes of humans.

Tribe 1 is not hostile to difference, they welcome everything and everybody

Tribe 2 is hostile to all difference, they tend to destroy different things.

Tribe 3 is not hostile to difference, but is more cautious about it.

Imagine the following scenarios

Day 1
------

3 sick strangers happen to approach Tribes 1, 2 and 3.

Tribe 1 (Friendlys) immediately welcomes in the stranger and invites them to eat with them, but later that week some of them get sick and some of them die.

Tribe 2 (Hostiles) kills the stranger on site, none of them get sick.

Tribe 3 (Not Sures) is cautious about the stranger, so decide to drive them away, they don't get sick


Day 3
-------

3 traders approach the tribes carrying useful artefacts for hunting

Tribe 1 (Friendlys) welcomes the trader, they trade for very good hunting equipment, they catch a big beast and eat well that evening

Tribe 2 (Hostiles) kills the trader on sight, they miss out on the trade goods and catching better beasts

Tribe 3 (Not Sures) is cautious about the trader, but realises they have something to offer and trades for some goods (they do not do as well as Tribe 1 in trade goods as they were not so welcoming but can now catch a medium sized beast and eat well).


Day 7
------

Tribe 1 (Friendlys) encounters Tribe 2 (Hostiles). Tribe 1 welcome Tribe 2 on sight but Tribe 2 reckons they're too different and dangerous and decide to kill them immediately, because some Tribe 1 are sick from the stranger at Day 1, and because they're surprised by this hostility, they don't do so well in the fight and most of them are killed or taken as slaves by Tribe 1, Tribe 2 also steal the hunting goods that Tribe 1 got through trading.


Day 9
--------

Tribe 3s (Not Sures) scouts come across Tribe 2 (Hostiles) but because they are cautious people Tribe 2 don't spot them. Tribe 3's scouts realise Tribe 1 are unpleasant hostile people who take slaves and are nasty to them and run away. Tribe 3's scouts tell the Tribe's elders that there are these dangerous people nearby and they decide to get the h*** out of there a long long way from Tribe 2 and hope they never ever meet them again...


Several eons / centuries on
---------------------------------

Tribe 1 (Friendlys) descendants are very few and far between.

Tribe 2's (Hostiles) descendants are now very hostile and good at war and doing pretty well because of it; they kill strangers, and anyone born to the tribe who is strange or different, but cos they're hostile they're also good at stealing other peoples cool stuff, even if they're not so good at making it themselves so they're doing ok.

Tribe 3's (Not Sures) descendants are doing pretty well too, as they cautiously embrace difference they have some people who their tribes who are artisans and shamans but a bit weird (perhaps the ancestors of autistics and other different people today). They really benefit from these people and are generally more technologically advanced than Tribe 2.

Who does best when Tribe 2 and Tribe 3 goes to war will vary, Tribe 1 will be better at hostility, but sometimes Tribe 3s deep and alternative thinkers and better technology will give them a strong tactical advantage.

I reckon that most of people are probably descended from the equivalents of the Hostiles and the Not Sures, and that's why most people may have evolved to be so suspicious of different people.

Anyway hope you enjoyed the story...must must go and do real work now :)

Any thoughts?

That was quite an interesting story.
The RDOS-Aspie Quiz mentions various "hunting" tendencies in both neurotypicals and Aspies.
I believe that most personality traits serves some evolutionary function. As mentioned in your story, however, balance is optimal for survival.

This was talked about in The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

It's been a long time since I read it and I don't remember the details, but I think that this is the case.

Sounds about right, I'd imagine that Dawkins would have a much better version of this though, anyone remember any details?

Have not read the Selfish Gene, it's on my must get round to reading list :).

I'll actually add one of my own theories of racism here as I think it applies. When hunting, you need to be able to quickly narrow down your field of concentration by eliminating unnecessary stimuli. Thus you look for simply identifiable traits to dismiss as many things/animals/people as you can at once. This is why people typically look for reasons to narrow down their field of relevant people to only those that are similar to themselves and dismiss any who are different as being irrelevant or evil. A narrow mind is easier to control and focus on the task at hand. So, most people have a tendency towards discrimination. It works well in a crowd as it lets you narrow down the people who you would want to talk to and those who don't matter, thus cutting down on the number you need to deal with in order to find a kindred soul.

Too little difference within the population of a species -> no place for development and beneficial diversity. Too large difference -> the species integrity at risk due to too much variability. So, there's a middle ground for diversity that is circumscribed by the tolerance and intolerance of the members of a species.

We should consider natural selection too, for those members who do not or can not contribute to the species' wealth (in our world: human society) for whatever reason, such as being too different, fall in the category of "unwanted toy humans" (after auntblabby, but he recently changed it to "loveable").

That theory is pretty well-supported, actually. And it predates us being humans - virtually all social species are hostile to outgroup members (and non-social species tend to be hostile to all except their own offspring and potential mates).

But it's mainly a matter of holding territory and sometimes controlling mate access. If you claim a certain region and drive out anyone else who enters that region, you get those resources all to yourself. And if you're a male and you keep out other males, you get to father all the babies. If males invest in the care of the offspring, females also have reason to avoid their male mating with other females, because that divides his attention between your offspring and her offspring.

It's important to remember that just because a tendency was evolutionarily selected for doesn't make it morally right or inevitable. This theory doesn't provide an excuse to tolerate discrimination.

That theory is pretty well-supported, actually. And it predates us being humans - virtually all social species are hostile to outgroup members (and non-social species tend to be hostile to all except their own offspring and potential mates).

But it's mainly a matter of holding territory and sometimes controlling mate access. If you claim a certain region and drive out anyone else who enters that region, you get those resources all to yourself. And if you're a male and you keep out other males, you get to father all the babies. If males invest in the care of the offspring, females also have reason to avoid their male mating with other females, because that divides his attention between your offspring and her offspring.

It's important to remember that just because a tendency was evolutionarily selected for doesn't make it morally right or inevitable. This theory doesn't provide an excuse to tolerate discrimination.

Yes, thank you, now you mention it I have dim memories of hearing about \ reading about the hostility to outgroup members stuff

So this makes me wonder could one of the triggers for human society getting more advanced be that some groups of humans realised, that accepting difference might actually work to their advantage, all be it they continued to be pretty cautious about it?

[edited once for typo]

Difference is always acceptable when there's a when there is something to be mutually gained from it. Why are dogs and cats domesticated? Because there's mutual gain. Doesn't get more different than that.

Sounds like what my two cats are doing. Fighting over my bedroom.

Good thread. I'm going to keep reading and learning.

I very, very strongly doubt it.

Look at British history alone. The only time the country has ever been joined is by military force. The Romans managed it, but after they left the country promptly disintegrated into smaller groups which then started conquering each other and growing. Even as late as ~900 most "counties" in the UK at the moment were countries in their own right. Modern East Anglia bears a striking resemblance to the territory held by The Kingdom of East Angles, for instance.

You'll see more or less the same process with any country you care to look at from city states at the dawn of our recorded history onwards. Expansion is, and has always been achieved with the military, not with diplomacy.

Accepting difference appears to be a hearts and minds effort after conquering people. As in, killing half of the people you have conquered would go down really badly with the other half and would make them less inclined to accept your rulership.

When groups started conquering each other then they gained larger resources and numbers of people, which let them expand yet further by conquering yet more smaller groups.

My view is that technological advancement only tends to be introduced when people have the time to start developing things. Small tribal groups live a hand to mouth existence (where they exist today!) that is virtually the same as stone age man would have lived. This suggests that you simply can't do technological advancements when you are spending all of your time hunting, fighting or eating. You get technological advancements when your society starts specialising into farmer, baker, hunter, craftsman etc. Then you get some primitive form of currency, which allows the economic conditions for technological advancement. Then you need competition, to accelerate development.

Historically, technology has always developed at a noticeable rate when we are locked in an arms race with another country. When that stops, so does development.

We are advancing our technology so fast at the moment simply because we have such a huge market that it is actually companies locked in arms races with their products instead of countries. If the competition goes, then you see R&D spending slashed and propaganda spending increased, since marketing is cheaper than developing better products.