Sociobiology

Definition

Sociobiology is an approach to studying the biological bases of social behavior that focuses on applying evolutionary theory and the principles of genetics to explain specific instances of social behavior in a wide variety of species.

Background

John P. Scott coined the term sociobiology in 1948, but it was not until 1964 that William Hamilton laid the theoretical foundations of the field. Hamilton introduced the idea that, in the evolution of species, the transmission of genes from one generation to the next matters much more than any individual organism's success in survival and reproduction. He and others went on to conclude that, because social behaviors may aid in the passing on of genes, such behaviors may have evolutionary, and ultimately biological, bases.

The modern era of sociobiology effectively began in 1975, however, with the publication of entomologist E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Wilson's prominent yet controversial work advocated the integrative and systematic application of many disciplines, including evolutionary theory and genetics, to the study of social behavior. With the release of Wilson's book, the amount of work in this area increased dramatically. Many of the core principles of sociobiology persist today in the field of evolutionary psychology.

What Sociobiologists Study

Sociobiologists try to identify the evolutionary origins of social behaviors in all species. To do this, they examine specific social behaviors and the environments in which they occur, and then infer how such behaviors may have been adaptive in enabling species to pass on their genes. Although most sociobiological research has focused on behavior in nonhuman animals, sociobiologists have also examined the evolutionary bases of human social behavior. Research on helping, for instance, has shown that the likelihood that people will aid those in distress depends partly on how genetically related the helper is to the person in need. This supports the idea that altruism has an evolutionary basis in aiding the survival of those who share one's genes.

Constraints on Human Sociobiology

Although many interpret sociobiological research on humans to suggest that people's behavior can be explained using evolutionary theory, others have argued that this approach is limited because the precise influence of genes in most human behavior is difficult to pinpoint. This is because most of the social behaviors sociobiologists attribute to genetic influence also can be explained by the influence of cultural norms and learning. For example, cultural norms promote helping one's close relatives over helping strangers. In addition, sociobiologists have difficulty specifying the adaptive value of complex cultural phenomena such as art and religion. Nonetheless, study of the evolutionary bases of human behavior has proved a novel, and increasingly influential, approach to understanding human social behavior.