Content area
Full Text
Key Words
Adaptation Communication Emotions. Evolution Theory of games
Abstract
The wide distribution of rage in animals suggests that rage should have an adaptive significance. In the present work, the function of rage is explored under an evolutionary perspective. I try to assess the selective advantage conferred to the individual presenting rage compared to one that does not. In this work, I considered animals under the 'strategist' perspective rather than the 'stimulus-reactor' one. I suggest that rage has a highly adaptive significance both as: (1) an emotion to prepare antagonistic actions and (2) as a communicative act. I suggest therefore that, as a communicative act, rage can be explored through the theory of games. In three crucial scenarios, I investigate, using the theory of games framework, when, and how, there is a selective advantage for individuals expressing, bluffing and simulating rage.
Introduction
What is the role of rage for the survival of the individual, can evolutionary psychology help us understand the selective advantage of rage and fury in normal individuals. In order to understand human rage and dysphoria, evolutionary psychologists suggest to take a look at its distribution in animals and understand the ecological and social settings in which it occurs and what advantage it gives to the individual both in terms of survival and reproductive success [1, 2].
From a quick ethological review it rapidly appears that rage is too common and universally diffused not to have an adaptive significance. This universal distribution of rage in the animal kingdom suggests that to possess the option to produce and express rage must confer a selective advantage for survival to the individual, as compared to those who do not have this option.
First, we need to define what exactly rage is, how it can be measured in other species from us, how ancient it is in phylogenesis, and successively we can investigate what it is useful for in normal conditions. Then, we might be able to see rage and dysphoria in humans from an unexpected perspective.
A first function of rage is its preparatory role to attack and combat, but we will see that an attack or combat is not always anticipated by rage. In the hunting animal, predatory attacks are never...