Impulse control in a dangerous environment?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by visceral_instinct, May 30, 2010.

  1. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    This originated in the 'Age of friends' thread. I'll just quote mine and River Ape's posts rather than reiterate..

    me: I wonder if teens' and young adults' neurological development would be different if they were in a different environment...

    Would your average 16 year old still have weak impulse control, say, in a hunter-gatherer society where weak impulse control might mean a large animal stuck its horns into you?


    River Ape: Ah, but . . .
    Weak impulse control => Unthinking sponteneity => Rapid response => Survival in a hazardous environment.


    me: Interesting point.

    It's a double edged sword I guess, because that is also an environment where weak impulse control could really fuck you up.

    16 year old hunter can't resist goofing off or talking to her friend and drops her spear. Said hunter gets gored in the stomach by the animal she was stalking.

    What do you think? Would it be an advantage, a disadvantage or potentially both?
     
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  3. francois Schwat? Registered Senior Member

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    You're talking about ADD traits, right? I think bad impulse control might be a side-effect of other traits that are good, such as being able to take in a lot of information at once and switch focus quickly. We might ask ourselves why our forearm bones are so frail and wont to break, but if they were thicker, it would limit mobility and other things. Different virtuous traits push up against each other with the end result being that you can't have everything. I'm sure something like that is going on with our personality types.

    I could see how that type would be at an advantage. He would be able to walk through huge swaths of forest, scanning and finding tiny clues, tracking down prey. I could see how that trait would be selected for in that environment as opposed to someone who's a more thinking type, who takes in information more slowly and methodically, who may be a better thinker and builder.
     
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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    There was an article by Tyler Cowan in the December issue of Reason magazine that said some of the disorders that we regard as handicaps are not clearly disadvantages in the modern world. He specifically said that people with ADD channel their information faster and more efficiently because they have to. Also, autistics are infovores, and with every passing year the rest of us seem more and more like them. Dyslexics, who are accustomed to delegating, often make great entrepreneurs.
     
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  7. Skeptical Registered Senior Member

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    I have often thought that a primitive hunter/gatherer tribal society would need risk takers. For example : imagine a tribe on the move, and a pride of lions closing in. This sort of thing would happen often enough to be an adaptive influence in evolution.

    If we assume that said tribe has some kind of weapon, even just long sharp sticks, then a suitable defense would be to gather into a huddle, with the risk takers on the outside ready to fend off attack. While one such person could do little to stop a lion, a group of them might inflict substantial harm on the predator. This should be sufficient to protect the tribe, since predators are careful to avoid injury that might lead to them being unable to hunt, and then starving.

    So who does the tribe need to be risk takers? Obviously the strongest and fastest. This translates into young men. Guess who turn out to be the risk takers?

    Of course, my scenario requires evolution to occur at group level, and this idea is still controversial.
     
  8. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    Depends on the impulses. Given that in hunter gatherer societies there would be much more energetic options - even during 'school' - I think some of the problems with impulse control would nto be present. Sit someone at a desk listening to generally mediocre public speakers for six hours and not having impulse control becomes a natural reaction.
     
  9. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    Very good point, thanks.

    I wonder about the 'fact' that young people have poor impulse control; wouldn't it apply in all situations?

    For example, teens are usually very socially conscious and would be well able to control what they do and say around their friends for fear of being disapproved of and losing place in the 'cool' culture (well, I wasn't...but I'm a fucking mutant, lol

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