19.5: Key Terms

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Altruism: Providing a benefit to someone else at a cost to oneself, without expecting future reciprocation.

Biological determinism: Behaviors are determined exclusively by genes.

Ecology: The physical and social environment, including food resources, predators, terrain, weather, social rules, behavior of other people, and cultural rules.

Evolutionary history: An understanding of how traits (including behaviors) may be the result of natural selection in our hominin past.

Human Behavioral Ecology: The field of anthropology that explores how ecological factors and evolutionary history combine to influence how humans behave.

Kin selection: A type of natural selection whereby people help relatives, which can evolve because people are helping other individuals with whom they share genes.

Naturalistic fallacy: The incorrect belief that what occurs is what ought to be.

Proximate explanation: The mechanism that is immediately responsible for an event.

Reciprocal altruism: Helping behavior that occurs because individuals expect that any help they provide will be reciprocated in the future.

Show-off hypothesis: Individuals provide benefits to others because it improves their reputation and social status.

Ultimate explanation: An explanation for an event that is further removed than a proximate explanation but that provides a greater insight or understanding. In human behavioral ecology, ultimate explanations usually describe how a behavior is linked to reproduction and survival.