Citations Needed: Links to Interesting Research
Something that I have been thinking about that actually supports "nurture" as an explanation of a behavior is attitudes towards breaking wind. Although exact reactions vary across circumstance, I think we can all agree that if another human (or animal) breaks wind generally other humans in the area would find the smell unpleasant and react accordingly.
However, you could break the largest fart in the world in a dog or cats face and they would be completely agnostic towards it. And these animals (at least dogs) have far superior olfactory senses than our own. I guess an interesting case study would be to observe Chimpanzee reactions.
However, you could break the largest fart in the world in a dog or cats face and they would be completely agnostic towards it. And these animals (at least dogs) have far superior olfactory senses than our own. I guess an interesting case study would be to observe Chimpanzee reactions.
Something that I have been thinking about that actually supports "nurture" as an explanation of a behavior is attitudes towards breaking wind. Although exact reactions vary across circumstance, I think we can all agree that if another human (or animal) breaks wind generally other humans in the area would find the smell unpleasant and react accordingly.
However, you could break the largest fart in the world in a dog or cats face and they would be completely agnostic towards it. And these animals (at least dogs) have far superior olfactory senses than our own. I guess an interesting case study would be to observe Chimpanzee reactions.
However, you could break the largest fart in the world in a dog or cats face and they would be completely agnostic towards it. And these animals (at least dogs) have far superior olfactory senses than our own. I guess an interesting case study would be to observe Chimpanzee reactions.
And for all the people that call me a white supremacist, just understand that you people are the ones that are holding the world back, not me. This is why I refer to you guys as regressive liberals, you guys are not progressives and you slow down progress, you guys are the exact opposite and do not even realize it.
What can you do with an incontinent dog?
Spoiler:
Anything you like, just blame the dog
Oh come on. I think everyone understands that when you make a claim that someone ascribes to the blank slate theory it doesn't mean that they reject any biological influence whatsoever. It means that they have the chronic tendency/bias in rejecting biological influences in favor of sociological explanations.
When you set the bar so high for someone to be regarded as a blank slater you reduce the position to a caricature of the position. 40% of sociologists thought that males propensity for violence and watching porn having a biological basis is implausible (when given the choice between plausible and implausible). Indeterminate would be fair. But implausible? What would someone have to believe in order for them to be aptly described as a believer in the blank slate theory? That our sexual preferences have no biological basis? That our appetite for food has no biological basis?
When you set the bar so high for someone to be regarded as a blank slater you reduce the position to a caricature of the position. 40% of sociologists thought that males propensity for violence and watching porn having a biological basis is implausible (when given the choice between plausible and implausible). Indeterminate would be fair. But implausible? What would someone have to believe in order for them to be aptly described as a believer in the blank slate theory? That our sexual preferences have no biological basis? That our appetite for food has no biological basis?
Maybe we could even take the way back machine and look at well named's posts on gender differences and see if they are "blank slate" leaning and contrary to mainstream science?
Amazing isn't it? What is very ironic is that by being honest on the issue of male violence, by understand the biological/evo mechanisms, we could potentially do better as a society to do something about it. Ignoring reality is not the way to go to better society. Sometimes the truth is harsh, but nature does not care about what's is harsh/moral/immoral, it does not care. If we want to better society socially, we need to be honest about the origins of human behavior.
And for all the people that call me a white supremacist, just understand that you people are the ones that are holding the world back, not me. This is why I refer to you guys as regressive liberals, you guys are not progressives and you slow down progress, you guys are the exact opposite and do not even realize it.
And for all the people that call me a white supremacist, just understand that you people are the ones that are holding the world back, not me. This is why I refer to you guys as regressive liberals, you guys are not progressives and you slow down progress, you guys are the exact opposite and do not even realize it.
Is it just me or are the male violence/pornography questions in that study written in completely the opposite way to all the others?
Questions 1-5, 7 are all worded to say that there is a significant evolutionary biological component but 6, 8 specifically say that there is no significant evolutionary biology component. If those are genuinely the questions as written on the survey then at a minimum the answers to 6 and 8 are going to be unreliable and such a blatant failure in the methodology would probably cast doubt on the whole paper.
I'm not particularly interested in arguing the findings but this is such a major issue with the methodology that I don't quite understand how a serious study could make this mistake.
1. People’s taste for foods containing fat and sugar is hardwired into our brains by evolution. Such high-energy foods were important in human’s ancestral environments, where access to stable food was by no means certain. Hence people evolved the impulse to gorge on such foods for fat storage.
2. Men have a greater tendency toward promiscuity than women due to an evolved reproductive strategy (men in humans’ ancestral past without such a tendency would produce fewer offspring).
3. The widespread fear of snakes and spiders across cultures indicates an evolved psychological tendency toward predator avoidance.
4. Although beauty standards vary historically, there is a biological underpinning connected to health indicators. People have evolved to find such characteristics as symmetrical features and smooth skin physically attractive due to their health and reproductive indicators.
5. Feelings of sexual jealousy have a significant evolutionary biological component.
6. Men’s greater likelihood than women to engage in violent crime is determined by culture and learning. There is no significant evolutionary biological component.
7. The widely observed tendency for men to try and control women’s bodies as property (e.g., veiling, virginity cults, etc.) has a significant evolutionary biological component.
8. Men’s greater use of pornography relative to women results from culture and learning (norms of ‘‘objectification’’ of women, etc.). There is no significant evolutionary biological component.
2. Men have a greater tendency toward promiscuity than women due to an evolved reproductive strategy (men in humans’ ancestral past without such a tendency would produce fewer offspring).
3. The widespread fear of snakes and spiders across cultures indicates an evolved psychological tendency toward predator avoidance.
4. Although beauty standards vary historically, there is a biological underpinning connected to health indicators. People have evolved to find such characteristics as symmetrical features and smooth skin physically attractive due to their health and reproductive indicators.
5. Feelings of sexual jealousy have a significant evolutionary biological component.
6. Men’s greater likelihood than women to engage in violent crime is determined by culture and learning. There is no significant evolutionary biological component.
7. The widely observed tendency for men to try and control women’s bodies as property (e.g., veiling, virginity cults, etc.) has a significant evolutionary biological component.
8. Men’s greater use of pornography relative to women results from culture and learning (norms of ‘‘objectification’’ of women, etc.). There is no significant evolutionary biological component.
I'm not particularly interested in arguing the findings but this is such a major issue with the methodology that I don't quite understand how a serious study could make this mistake.
I don't think it's unique to sociology or the liberal arts - it's just a lot easier to visualize the insanity because they deal with things that most of us have given a lot of thought to and are relevant to our lives.
The reverence that some people have for stem fields is completely unwarranted imo. Ability to do high level math is a guarantee of very little - I had an upper year calculus prof who wore a q-ray bracelet who justified it in class as "well, maybe it doesn't work, but what if it does!". He's what you'd call a... loud talker.
https://www.qray.com
Not a tenured professor, no, but this was at a pretty reputable school (for it's math program).
I think people in general just tend to put way too much stock in the title of professor and professional titles more generally. You want to avoid the hubris in thinking you know better than 'da experts' but the standards in almost any field is shockingly low, probably because being able to teach the subject matter is a trivially easy task even for people who have very obvious learning disabilities.
I'd speculate that a large proportion of these professors (and professionals more generally) are dim people from "good homes" who were encouraged to be all they can be, whose ambition is fueled by the lack of respect they get in their social life. And this probably contributes to the general trend towards embracing blank slate theory because it caters to their emotional need to believe that everything in life is hard work - because the alternative is that they may be innately deficient (no way!).
The reverence that some people have for stem fields is completely unwarranted imo. Ability to do high level math is a guarantee of very little - I had an upper year calculus prof who wore a q-ray bracelet who justified it in class as "well, maybe it doesn't work, but what if it does!". He's what you'd call a... loud talker.
https://www.qray.com
Can a simple bracelet actually turn my life around? We’re positive!
The power of positivity has long been regarded as a vital component for feeling better and living better. When you are in balance, your everyday life benefits. You have greater clarity, you perform at a higher level and you feel more positive.
The QRay wellness bracelet’s exclusive and innovative design helps to restore the body’s natural balance, so that you can carry on the way nature intended. It’s a topsy-turvy world, but you don’t have to be.
The power of positivity has long been regarded as a vital component for feeling better and living better. When you are in balance, your everyday life benefits. You have greater clarity, you perform at a higher level and you feel more positive.
The QRay wellness bracelet’s exclusive and innovative design helps to restore the body’s natural balance, so that you can carry on the way nature intended. It’s a topsy-turvy world, but you don’t have to be.
I think people in general just tend to put way too much stock in the title of professor and professional titles more generally. You want to avoid the hubris in thinking you know better than 'da experts' but the standards in almost any field is shockingly low, probably because being able to teach the subject matter is a trivially easy task even for people who have very obvious learning disabilities.
I'd speculate that a large proportion of these professors (and professionals more generally) are dim people from "good homes" who were encouraged to be all they can be, whose ambition is fueled by the lack of respect they get in their social life. And this probably contributes to the general trend towards embracing blank slate theory because it caters to their emotional need to believe that everything in life is hard work - because the alternative is that they may be innately deficient (no way!).
Is it just me or are the male violence/pornography questions in that study written in completely the opposite way to all the others?
Questions 1-5, 7 are all worded to say that there is a significant evolutionary biological component but 6, 8 specifically say that there is no significant evolutionary biology component. If those are genuinely the questions as written on the survey then at a minimum the answers to 6 and 8 are going to be unreliable and such a blatant failure in the methodology would probably cast doubt on the whole paper.
I'm not particularly interested in arguing the findings but this is such a major issue with the methodology that I don't quite understand how a serious study could make this mistake.
Questions 1-5, 7 are all worded to say that there is a significant evolutionary biological component but 6, 8 specifically say that there is no significant evolutionary biology component. If those are genuinely the questions as written on the survey then at a minimum the answers to 6 and 8 are going to be unreliable and such a blatant failure in the methodology would probably cast doubt on the whole paper.
I'm not particularly interested in arguing the findings but this is such a major issue with the methodology that I don't quite understand how a serious study could make this mistake.
I haven't read the paper in detail so it's possible they address this discrepancy but even if it is addressed and was deliberate then it definitely seems like a terrible decision to do it.
It does seem like an unnecessary complication and I haven't thought through whether or not I think it could impact the results. It seems like the latter responses could be skewed by the inversion. Someone could think that both possibilities are plausible, and this would cause them to overestimate how many disagree with the plausibility of evolutionary theories.
With regard to violence, I also thought that was the most surprising result. I don't know if it's possible that this explains some of that difference or not. Methodologically I think they would have better off keeping the question forms parallel to avoid this.
I'll respond to other posts later on...
For critics, the heart of the intellectual problem remains an ideological adherence to the increasingly implausible view that human behavior is strictly determined by socialization. This perspective—variably dubbed ‘‘cultural determinism’’ (e.g., Alcock 2001), the ‘‘standard social science model’’ (e.g., Tooby and Cosmides 1992), or, more popularly, the ‘‘blank slate’’ (e.g., Pinker 2002)—views the mind as wholly molded by the cultural environment and without any ‘‘built-in’’ biological tendencies. (p. 490)
Now, if instead you want to level the charge that sociologists tend to prefer explanations from sociocultural/environmental factors over biological explanations, then I think that's guilty as charged, but it's a different question. I would also view this is mostly a consequence of specialization, which has its benefits and drawbacks. We're discussing some of the drawbacks.
Mostly my view is that we should recognize the limits of any particular theoretical paradigm. I said this before. A good theoretical lens tends to clarify some issues while obscuring others. Sociological approaches both benefit and suffer from this in the same way that biological approaches do. The benefit is that apart from specialization we might be far more likely to ignore social-level factors in our explanations. As far as I can tell that is the norm for people who have little exposure to the field.
The authors of this study also provide some background survey data:
Stephen Sanderson and colleagues carried out surveys of sociologists in the 90s that bear in part on their attitudes toward evolutionary biology (Sanderson and Ellis 1992; Lord and Sanderson 1999). Of 168 sociologists surveyed by Sanderson and Ellis (1992), only 2.5% identify sociobiology as a primary or secondary theoretical perspective in their work. That number dropped to 1.9% in a later survey of 375 sociological theorists surveyed by Lord and Sanderson (1999).
Following Sanderson et al., we also asked respondents to indicate their preferred theoretical perspectives in their research. Among a list of 13 options, we found that 5.3% identify evolutionary biology=sociobiology as their primary or secondary theoretical perspective (and 8.3% include sociobiology among their top three perspectives). Although this still represents a small fraction of sociologists, it is a notable increase from the 1.9% and 2.5% of evolutionarily-oriented respondents in Sanderson and colleagues’ earlier surveys. What we appear to find, hence, is some movement among sociologists toward increased acceptance of sociobiological ideas.
Following Sanderson et al., we also asked respondents to indicate their preferred theoretical perspectives in their research. Among a list of 13 options, we found that 5.3% identify evolutionary biology=sociobiology as their primary or secondary theoretical perspective (and 8.3% include sociobiology among their top three perspectives). Although this still represents a small fraction of sociologists, it is a notable increase from the 1.9% and 2.5% of evolutionarily-oriented respondents in Sanderson and colleagues’ earlier surveys. What we appear to find, hence, is some movement among sociologists toward increased acceptance of sociobiological ideas.
I think if your view of the field was more informed by reading and interacting with mainstream sociologists, and less by reading and listening to political commentary then you'd probably have had different expectations.
You've overestimated the importance of politics and underestimated the importance of intellectual history within the field, and particularly the inertia of theory. That is, if you were more familiar with classical social theory you might easily come to the opposite conclusion. There's a footnote in the article poker phenom cited: "Among sociologists, Emile Durkheim is perhaps most often targeted for holding a blank slate view in his discussion of social facts." This was also the first thought that came to mind for me. It's part of the history of the field -- Durkheim was in part trying to justify the existence of sociology as a specialization separate from other natural sciences, and I think it led him to overstate his thesis about social facts in a way that comes closer to a blank slate view. Sociologists' preferences for social theories are not something new, or something that results primarily from political identity. Political identity is certainly salient, but the causation runs both ways, e.g. sociologists' theoretical views inform their politics as much as their politics inform their theoretical preferences.
The authors of this study also provide some background survey data:
Note of course that not emphasizing "sociobiology" as a primary perspective is also not the same as rejecting that perspective altogether (and see the other data from tables 1 and 2 already mentioned), but the point is that it would appear the trend is opposite of what you predicted. This actually makes sense to me and reflects my experiences. There's going to be more Dalton Conleys in the future (he went back for a genetics PhD after completing a sociology PhD), not fewer of them.
I think if your view of the field was more informed by reading and interacting with mainstream sociologists, and less by reading and listening to political commentary then you'd probably have had different expectations.
The authors of this study also provide some background survey data:
Note of course that not emphasizing "sociobiology" as a primary perspective is also not the same as rejecting that perspective altogether (and see the other data from tables 1 and 2 already mentioned), but the point is that it would appear the trend is opposite of what you predicted. This actually makes sense to me and reflects my experiences. There's going to be more Dalton Conleys in the future (he went back for a genetics PhD after completing a sociology PhD), not fewer of them.
I think if your view of the field was more informed by reading and interacting with mainstream sociologists, and less by reading and listening to political commentary then you'd probably have had different expectations.
Now, if instead you want to level the charge that sociologists tend to prefer explanations from sociocultural/environmental factors over biological explanations, then I think that's guilty as charged, but it's a different question. I would also view this is mostly a consequence of specialization, which has its benefits and drawbacks. We're discussing some of the drawbacks.
The only problem I have is when you over-generalize or misrepresent your own citation. If the claim is that some largish minority of sociological theorists in the survey have a poor understanding of biology then I think that claim is well supported by the data presented. I'm not even sure this should be that surprising. Sociologists aren't biologists. They contribute useful ideas and research to a holistic understanding of the world but I would never accuse the field of being comprehensive or providing the only answers anyone could ever need.
But the data also illustrate that sociology is not a monolithic field where everyone has the same views, despite all the allegations to the contrary. At best to me it represents a good example for why I value a generalist approach instead of over-specialization.
But the data also illustrate that sociology is not a monolithic field where everyone has the same views, despite all the allegations to the contrary. At best to me it represents a good example for why I value a generalist approach instead of over-specialization.
Something something sexists and transphobes something something mostly macho meathead men something something
Women’s opportunities have been profoundly altered over the past century by reductions in the social and structural constraints that limit women’s educational attainment. Do social constraints manifest as a suppressing influence on genetic indicators of potential, and if so, did equalizing opportunity mean equalizing the role of genetics? We address this with three cohort studies: the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS; birth years 1939 to 1940), the Health and Retirement Study, and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health; birth years 1975 to 1982). These studies include a “polygenic score” for educational attainment, providing a novel opportunity to explore this question. We find that within the WLS cohort, the relationship between genetics and educational outcomes is weaker for women than for men. However, as opportunities changed in the 1970s and 1980s, and many middle-aged women went back to school, the relationship between genetic factors and education strengthened for women as they aged. Furthermore, utilizing the HRS and Add Health, we find that as constraints limiting women’s educational attainment declined, gender differences in the relationship between genetics and educational outcomes weakened. We demonstrate that genetic influence must be understood through the lens of historical change, the life course, and social structures like gender.
But more importantly it's just an interesting study, and the results seem intuitive to me from previous work that I've read (including that of Dalton Conley). So I might have linked it here anyway. It's also illustrative of why I think "nature vs. nurture" is a false dichotomy. The background discussion on this point is interesting (I've snipped a lot):
Most research involving genetics and educational attainment is rooted in a perspective that assumes, tacitly or explicitly, that any genetic influence is separable from that of environments: nature and nurture can be disentangled (Plomin 2018). Within economics and sociology, a robust literature seeks to separate genetic and environmental influences as a way of clarifying the role of the latter in educational differences.... Although many of these scholars would have tacitly acknowledged the likelihood of gene-environment interactions, they lacked the tools to test them.
While this segment of the social sciences employed empirical approaches to rule out genetic explanations, in order to specify environmental influences on educational attainment, another segment, behavioral genetics, attempted to demonstrate what Turkheimer (2016:25) calls “strong” genetic explanations, specifically that “an observed phenotypic difference is a manifestation of a specific latent genetic mechanism.” Turkheimer further argues that “the history of behavior genetics can be seen as an extended attempt to proceed from weak to strong genetic explanation.” .... On average, these studies show that approximately 40 percent of the variance in educational attainment can be accounted for by genetics (Branigan et al. 2013).
Finally, a key assumption underlying this perspective is that complex social outcomes— like education—do not change over time. For there to be a “strong” genetic influence on educational attainment, education itself will not fundamentally change over time.
While this segment of the social sciences employed empirical approaches to rule out genetic explanations, in order to specify environmental influences on educational attainment, another segment, behavioral genetics, attempted to demonstrate what Turkheimer (2016:25) calls “strong” genetic explanations, specifically that “an observed phenotypic difference is a manifestation of a specific latent genetic mechanism.” Turkheimer further argues that “the history of behavior genetics can be seen as an extended attempt to proceed from weak to strong genetic explanation.” .... On average, these studies show that approximately 40 percent of the variance in educational attainment can be accounted for by genetics (Branigan et al. 2013).
Finally, a key assumption underlying this perspective is that complex social outcomes— like education—do not change over time. For there to be a “strong” genetic influence on educational attainment, education itself will not fundamentally change over time.
A sociocontextual perspective acknowledges that genetic differences play a role in shaping a complex social outcome like educational attainment, but it emphasizes that genetic influence must be understood in context, such as history and cohort, the life course, and social forces like gender. This perspective posits that the influence of genetic factors on educational attainment is filtered, altered, and shaped by broader complex environments.... This perspective contextualizes individual experiences in historical periods and birth cohorts (Boardman et al. 2013; Schmitz and Conley 2017; Walter et al. 2016; Wedow et al. 2018). For example, a burgeoning literature examines how cohorts and historical periods modify the influence of genetic variants on health behavior outcomes like smoking, producing evidence that genetic factors have had greater influence in more recent cohorts as laws and social norms have made it harder to smoke (Domingue et al. 2016; Wedow et al. 2018).
Our results indicate that the role of genetics in shaping educational attainment is strongly patterned by gender, a social structure embedded throughout social life (Risman 2004). Within the WLS cohort (~1939), the relationship between genetics and educational outcomes is weaker for women than for men, especially between the 1950s and 1960s when a series of structural and social barriers limited women’s engagement in higher education. However, the relationship between genetic factors and education strengthened for women in middle age as they went back to school as their childrearing responsibilities wound down and new schooling opportunities emerged. Furthermore, analyses of the HRS (1931 to 1959) and Add Health (1975 to 1982) cohorts demonstrate that gender differences in how well polygenic information predicts educational attainment weakened substantially among younger cohorts. There is little evidence, among the youngest cohorts, that genetics has a greater influence on men’s versus women’s postsecondary schooling outcomes.
These findings provide more support for sociocontextual models that suggest environments play a large role in modifying the influence of genetics on educational attainment, rather than for strong genetic models that assume environments do not meaningfully alter genetic influences on education. We also find evidence that contextual factors may suppress genetic advantages. Larger social constraints reduced genetic influences on women’s postsecondary educational outcomes, thus decreasing their probability of realizing their “genetic” potential as compared to men. Only when social conditions were altered to reduce the structural and social barriers limiting women’s participation in higher education did gender differences weaken.
These findings provide more support for sociocontextual models that suggest environments play a large role in modifying the influence of genetics on educational attainment, rather than for strong genetic models that assume environments do not meaningfully alter genetic influences on education. We also find evidence that contextual factors may suppress genetic advantages. Larger social constraints reduced genetic influences on women’s postsecondary educational outcomes, thus decreasing their probability of realizing their “genetic” potential as compared to men. Only when social conditions were altered to reduce the structural and social barriers limiting women’s participation in higher education did gender differences weaken.
I admit I may not be understanding the argument, but the argument seems to be that genetics becomes relatively MORE important as social constraints are lessened?
Grunching bu if you have two influences and one is reduced then the other automatically becomes relatively more significant.
A study like this also looks at phenotype, not genotype. Meaning it studies the interaction between genes and environment (in this case gender and education), not the genes specifically.
A study like this also looks at phenotype, not genotype. Meaning it studies the interaction between genes and environment (in this case gender and education), not the genes specifically.
The kind of interaction highlighted in the article is pretty straightforward, but applies to a lot of phenomena. Conceptually, we've known that it must exist for a long time. What's new is mostly that we have better tools to measure and quantify it.
One of the main points the authors want to make, in my reading, is that environmental interactions like this mean that we can't interpret snapshot measures of explained variance as fixed and immutable. Historically, there is a tendency to interpret results this way, probably influenced by the intuitive idea that biology is fairly immutable. So if some GWAS study finds that 40% of the variance in phenotype can be explained by genetic differences, we shouldn't expect that to be true across all times and places, because of the importance of environmental interactions.
The second point they emphasize is that early research on relative contributions of genetics and environment tend to use only very local measures of environment, like the effects of immediate family. This is mostly just a methodological limitation with twin studies (though they emphasize that twin studies are really valuable). The interpretation of the data in this study is meant to illustrate that we can see the influence of very macro-level social phenomena as well, once we have the right kinds of data. The effects of feminist movements and women's acceptance into higher education is not going to appear very easily in studies that rely on family-level measures of environment at a single point in time, but becomes apparent using longitudinal data and multiple datasets over a longer time period.
One of the reasons I'm interested in this type of work is because it does seem a like a very fruitful opportunity for interdisciplinary work between the social sciences and biology. What was missing in the past was a useful methodological framework for this. It's become possible mostly because of innovations in biology, and it was biologists who first began to push those methods to ask questions that are of sociological interest. But sociological methods (and experience in dealing with some of the complexities involved) are also useful for these kinds of questions. Particularly with regard to the need for historical/sociological contextualization. And, just as new tools like polygenic scores allow biological researchers to delve into traditionally sociological questions, so you will see sociologists borrow those biological tools and datasets themselves.
It's also illustrative of why I think "nature vs. nurture" is a false dichotomy.
My expectation is that as more and more genetic data because available (more polygenic scores for more phenotypes, larger sample sizes, etc.), we will see more studies of this type in sociology journals, and more emphasis on complex interactions between biology and environment.
My expectation is that as more and more genetic data because available (more polygenic scores for more phenotypes, larger sample sizes, etc.), we will see more studies of this type in sociology journals, and more emphasis on complex interactions between biology and environment.
I highly suspect that this is occurring in prisons. Based upon the environment a organism is in, the environment can magnify/lessen certain behaviors we would classify as negative. I also don't think it is also a coincidence that races and ethnic groups stick together in prisons. The harsher/dangerous the environment the males are in, certain genes/behaviors will become magnified. I think essentially what is occurring when males go into prisons is that certain genes are being influenced to essentially give the organism a higher chance of surviving. The organism knows it is now in a harsher environment, and because of this certain extended phenotypes will be influenced to increase the chances of surviving. I would not even be surprised if the endocrine system was influenced, I would not be surprised if a hormone like testosterone was being raised (not claiming that this does occur).
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