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This thesis investigates variation in human cooperative behaviour in naturally occurring contexts. I critically assess the prevailing consensus on human cooperation derived from laboratory games (such as the dictator and public goods games), by identifying real life analogues and conducting extensive field observation and experiments. My second chapter investigates the importance of context on social behaviour by taking a commonly used laboratory game, the dictator game, and studying analogous behaviour, giving to mendicants in the street. I conclude that individuals cooperate less in the wild than they do in the laboratory and that monetary pay-offs are important in cooperative decision-making. My third chapter examines how social cues influence peoples' likelihood of giving to mendicants. I conclude that increased group size and crowd density negatively affect donation behaviour. My fourth chapter investigates dog fouling in public parks to understand the causes of variation in cheating in a naturally occurring public goods game. I conclude that despite evidence that a social game is being played, the cues that influences decisions are unclear, and behaviour may depend on local social norms. My fifth chapter investigates social influences on red light jumping by cyclists at pedestrian crossings. I find that the probability of cheating is higher with fewer observers and when other cyclists also cheat.

Using concepts of cognitive evolutionary theory, the author explores how narrative storytelling manifests itself in Denis Johnson's novella Train Dreams. The novella form is also discussed, focusing on its manipulation of linear time, its naturalization of supernatural elements, and its deconstruction of dichotomous relationships. Utilizing the novella's distinct structural and thematic elements, Johnson's text shows the myth of American expansionism and industrial progress and that of Kootenai holism in collision, resulting in a narrative renegotiation that seeks to affirm coexistence and complexity.

This research aimed to explore the narratives of romantic jealousy in the context of infidelity for heterosexual and homosexual men from Johannesburg South Africa. This study takes on a qualitative approach using a narrative analysis in combination with a structural and thematic content analysis. The narratives of the heterosexual and homosexual men revealed the role which jealousy plays in every relationship, and how it can affect the emotions and behaviours of both partners. This study found that the narratives of these men were in contradiction to what evolutionary theories as well as past research on the topic have suggested. Evolutionary perspectives propose that heterosexual men are more inclided to sexual infidelity, this was however found to be in contradiction to the beliefs and ideas held by the participants of this study. Heterosexual participants of this study reported that for them emotional infidelity would be more jealousy provoking, as it would be a sure indication that the relationship would end. Past research findings on the other hand have suggested that homosexual males are more inclined to emotional infidelity, as they do not face the risk of cuckholdry. However the same can not be said for the narratives of the homosexual participants of this study. The narrative of all except for one homosexual participant indicated that homosexual men felt that they would be greatly affected by sexual infidelity rather than emotional infidelity. There explanations revolved around the open ended nature and ease of access to sex which is prevalent in the gay community. It is also important to note that simmilarly to the heterosexual group, most of the participnats who experienced sexual jealousy also experienced sexual infidelity. Indicating a link between the type of infidelity you experience to the type of jealousy you feel. This research identified that heterosexual participants felt that in their live stories they found emotional jealousy to be the worst apsect of infidelity while homosexual men felt that sexual jealousy was the worst aspect of infidelity.

O presente trabalho verifica a forma como a literatura econômica vem tratando da suposta desindustrialização do Brasil, analisando a compatibilidade entre as atuais abordagens e a visão evolucionária da mudança econômica, que combina elementos das teorias neoschumpeteriana e neoinstitucionalista (recuperando o institucionalismo original, do início do século XX). A busca de uma teorização compatível destaca que transformações como a (des)industrialização devem ser tratadas como processos de mudança estrutural gerados a partir da complexa interação entre os ambientes micro e macro de uma economia. Um novo tratamento para o fenômeno é sugerido de forma a apresentar diagnósticos mais úteis e a guiar a formação de políticas públicas em torno dessas transformações. / This work verifies how the economic literature has been working on the supposed Brazilian deindustrialization phenomenon, analyzing its compatibility with the evolutionary approach to economics, understood as a bridge that links Neoschumpeterian and Neoinstitutionalist theories (the latter retrieving Original Institutionalism from early twentieth century). The pursue of a consistent theorization of (de)industrialization and economic evolution stresses that transformations like (de)industrialization must be treated as processes of structural change built from the complex interaction between micro and macro environments of an economy. A new approach is suggested in order to present more useful diagnostics and to guide policy making in the matter of such transformations.

This dissertation investigates the latent but critical effects of risk attitude on competitive success in construction applying an evolutionary approach. The approach considers contractors as individual entities competing with each other for common job opportunities, and competition as an evolutionary process in the market. In construction, competitive bidding is the major mechanism of competition. Bidding itself is an important managerial function in a construction organization while it is risky since the actual cost of a job is unknown. Therefore, contractors' risk-taking in competition is an essential element in the construction business. Individuals may behave differently in competition depending on their own risk attitude which defines what risks can be accepted or not in an organization. Depending on the differences in risk-taking, the result of a competition varies. How contractors compete, that is, how they take risks in competition affects the competition among themselves. Also, contractors' performance is differentiated through competition to decide successful firms and unsuccessful firms. The current study investigates the effects of risk attitude, which is the latent basis for contractors' different behaviors in competition. The current investigation is unique in that it combines: 1) an evolutionary approach; 2) behavioral decision-making under uncertainty; 3) multi-level analyses from the individual to the aggregate; and 4) a long-term perspective on firms' success and life-cycles (birth, death, survival, growth, contraction, and market diversification). The developed evolutionary model simulates and analyzes competition among contractors in the competitive bidding environment. A new method is proposed to represent contractors' different risk-taking behaviors depending on their own risk attitude. The analysis accounts for contractors' differences in risk-taking, their performances through competition, and corresponding organizational changes in life-cycles at the individual level, and aggregate patterns evolving at the population level as resultants of competition over long time periods. The study finds that risk attitude is a latent but dominant competitive characteristic of contractors by identifying the critical effects of risk attitude on competitive success. The results provide new insights on competition and recommendations for contractors' competitive success, which are not available using conventional approaches.

Sex differences in spatial cognition have been reported for many species ranging from voles to humans. The range size hypothesis predicts that sex differences in spatial ability will only occur in species in which the mating system selects for differential range size. Consistent with this prediction, we observed sex differences in spatial ability in giant pandas, a promiscuous species in which males inhabit larger ranges than females, but did not observe sex differences in Asian small-clawed otters, a related monogamous species in which males and females share home ranges. Furthermore, the sex difference in giant pandas was observed during the period of male range expansion and outside female estrus, thus the potentially confounding influence of decreased female ability was avoided. Finally, all subjects in this study were raised in captivity and never actually inhabited different range sizes. Therefore these findings emphasize the importance of biological rather than experiential factors underlying sex differences in spatial cognition. These results are the first evidence of sex differences in spatial ability in the order Carnivora, and provide support for the range size hypothesis.

Despite most educated people now accepting Darwinian explanations for human physical evolution, many of these same people remain reluctant to accept similar accounts of human behavioural or cognitive evolution. Leftists in particular often assume that our evolutionary history now has little bearing on modern human social behaviour, and that cultural processes have taken over from the biological imperatives at work elsewhere in nature. The leftist view of human nature still largely reflects that of Karl Marx, who believed that our nature is moulded solely by prevailing social and cultural conditions, and that, moreover, our nature can be completely changed by totally changing society. Ethical philosopher Peter Singer challenges this leftist view, arguing that the left must replace its non-Darwinian view of an infinitely malleable human nature with the more accurate scientific account now made possible by modern Darwinian evolutionary science. Darwinism, Singer suggests, could then be used as a source of new ideas and new approaches that could revive and revitalise the egalitarian left. This thesis defends and develops Singer’s arguments for a Darwinian left. It shows that much modern leftist opposition to evolutionary theory is misguided, and that Darwinism does not necessarily have the egregious political implications so often assumed by the egalitarian left – even in such controversial areas as possible ‘biological’ differences between the sexes or between different human populations.

Following Merton (1942) science studies has moved from the philosophy of science to a more sociologically minded analysis of scientific activity. This largely involves a shift away from questions that bear on the context of justification – a question of rationality and philosophy, to those that deal with the context of discovery. This thesis investigates changes in science studies in three papers: sociocultural evolutionary theories of scientific change; general trends in science studies - especially concerning the sociology of science; and a principle component analysis (PCA) that details the development and interaction between research programmes in science studies. This thesis describes the proliferation of research programmes in science studies and uses evolutionary theory to make sense of the pattern of change.