The Evolution of Prosocial and Antisocial Competitive Behavior and the Emergence of Prosocial and Antisocial Leadership Styles

Evolutionary analysis focuses on how genes build organisms with different strategies for engaging and solving life’s challenges of survival and reproduction. One of those challenges is competing with conspecifics for limited resources including reproductive opportunities. This article suggests that...

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Main Authors: Paul Gilbert, Jaskaran Basran
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-06-01
Series:Frontiers in Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00610/full
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spelling doaj-16ec1c1cb64b4077a50851c0fea48e472020-11-25T00:54:19ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782019-06-011010.3389/fpsyg.2019.00610413801The Evolution of Prosocial and Antisocial Competitive Behavior and the Emergence of Prosocial and Antisocial Leadership StylesPaul GilbertJaskaran BasranEvolutionary analysis focuses on how genes build organisms with different strategies for engaging and solving life’s challenges of survival and reproduction. One of those challenges is competing with conspecifics for limited resources including reproductive opportunities. This article suggests that there is now good evidence for considering two dimensions of social competition. The first, has been labeled as antisocial strategies, to the extent that they tend to be self-focused, threat sensitive and aggressive, and use tactics of bulling, threatening, and intimidating subordinates, or even injuring/killing competitors. Such strategies can inhibit care and affiliative social interactions and motivation. The social signals emitted stimulate threat processing in recipients and can create stressed and highly stratified groups with a range of detrimental psychological and physiological effects. Second, in contrast, prosocial strategies seek to create relaxed and secure social interactions that enable sharing, cooperative, mutually supportive and beneficial relationships. The friendly and low/no threat social signals emitted in friendly cooperative and affiliative relationships stimulate physiological systems (e.g., oxytocin, the vagus nerve of the parasympathetic system) that downregulates threat processing, enhances the immune system, and facilitates frontal cortical processes and general wellbeing. This article reviews the literature pertaining to the evidence for these two dimensions of social engagement.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00610/fullantisocialcompassioncompetitive behaviorleadershipprosocial
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Paul Gilbert
Jaskaran Basran
spellingShingle Paul Gilbert
Jaskaran Basran
The Evolution of Prosocial and Antisocial Competitive Behavior and the Emergence of Prosocial and Antisocial Leadership Styles
Frontiers in Psychology
antisocial
compassion
competitive behavior
leadership
prosocial
author_facet Paul Gilbert
Jaskaran Basran
author_sort Paul Gilbert
title The Evolution of Prosocial and Antisocial Competitive Behavior and the Emergence of Prosocial and Antisocial Leadership Styles
title_short The Evolution of Prosocial and Antisocial Competitive Behavior and the Emergence of Prosocial and Antisocial Leadership Styles
title_full The Evolution of Prosocial and Antisocial Competitive Behavior and the Emergence of Prosocial and Antisocial Leadership Styles
title_fullStr The Evolution of Prosocial and Antisocial Competitive Behavior and the Emergence of Prosocial and Antisocial Leadership Styles
title_full_unstemmed The Evolution of Prosocial and Antisocial Competitive Behavior and the Emergence of Prosocial and Antisocial Leadership Styles
title_sort evolution of prosocial and antisocial competitive behavior and the emergence of prosocial and antisocial leadership styles
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
series Frontiers in Psychology
issn 1664-1078
publishDate 2019-06-01
description Evolutionary analysis focuses on how genes build organisms with different strategies for engaging and solving life’s challenges of survival and reproduction. One of those challenges is competing with conspecifics for limited resources including reproductive opportunities. This article suggests that there is now good evidence for considering two dimensions of social competition. The first, has been labeled as antisocial strategies, to the extent that they tend to be self-focused, threat sensitive and aggressive, and use tactics of bulling, threatening, and intimidating subordinates, or even injuring/killing competitors. Such strategies can inhibit care and affiliative social interactions and motivation. The social signals emitted stimulate threat processing in recipients and can create stressed and highly stratified groups with a range of detrimental psychological and physiological effects. Second, in contrast, prosocial strategies seek to create relaxed and secure social interactions that enable sharing, cooperative, mutually supportive and beneficial relationships. The friendly and low/no threat social signals emitted in friendly cooperative and affiliative relationships stimulate physiological systems (e.g., oxytocin, the vagus nerve of the parasympathetic system) that downregulates threat processing, enhances the immune system, and facilitates frontal cortical processes and general wellbeing. This article reviews the literature pertaining to the evidence for these two dimensions of social engagement.
topic antisocial
compassion
competitive behavior
leadership
prosocial
url https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00610/full
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