Hello Beth Yes, social psychology in the real world! I hope some people with more experience with kinship selection replies to this. It's my understanding that kinship selection "works" with fairly close relatives, whose genetics are more similar than randomly chosen individuals. In s nutshell, we increase fitness by being altruistic to genetic relatives, even if it hurts us as individuals. Hamilton's rule is r*B > C where B = benefit to others, B = cost to us, and r = genetic relatedness to others. Hence the quip "I'd lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins". Our genes benefit, through relatives, even if the individual carrying them does not.
Bernie Madoff's Jewish associates were probably not direct relatives, so it may just be a case of taking advantage of people he was already in contact with. But, it is still an interesting question because members of an Orthodox religious community can be close (I assume his was). So you'd imagine his victims would be predominantly outside that group, which was not the case. I just checked Wikipedia and they mention 'spiteful' acts, when you do a harmful act to others AND yourself, but his situation doesn't fit that either, since he benefited from the harm he inflicted. I think spiteful acts can increase your fitness if you hurt rivals more than yourself - like murdering a spouse or torching your own land to deprive rivals of your resources. Though, didn't he put assets in his family's names to protect it??? If so, his relatives would be benefited while he himself suffers the consequences. I think there were recent court rulings about who controls the stolen assets. -------------------------- John W. Kulig Professor of Psychology Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 -------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Beth Benoit" <beth.ben...@gmail.com> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@acsun.frostburg.edu> Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2009 1:21:30 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [tips] Affinity fraud vs. kinship selection Hello TIPSland, I'm glad to see TIPS is back (or was it just me?). The following post was rejected for three days and I got no TIPS mail during that time, so I am reposting. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a repeat. Apologies in advance if it does: As America continues to marvel at the scoundrel Bernie Madoff became, I have also been thinking his actions might be interesting to discuss in social psychology classes. (First, I imagine you'll have to give a thumbnail sketch of who he is and what he did, since some students may not even be aware of this current news story.) So here's the social psychology connection: When studying "kinship selection" and other kinship concepts, how interesting it is that Bernie engaged largely in "affinity fraud." According to the U.S. SEC ( http://www.sec.gov/investor/ pubs/affinity.htm ): " Affinity fraud refers to investment scams that prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, the elderly, or professional groups. The fraudsters who promote affinity scams frequently are - or pretend to be - members of the group." Bernie's most lucrative target was his fellow Jews. He met many at country clubs, and it's likely that the "if it's too good to be true" maxim was overlooked. Did he appear to be more trustworthy because people are more likely to trust "one of their own"? Wikipedia lists ten other examples of affinity fraud, so if you do consider covering this as an interesting opposite to the kinship selection concept, you might want to read examples of other cases of affinity fraud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Affinity_fraud The first is a tax fraud known as the "slavery reparations scam," which offers a $5000 check to African Americans born before 1928, in exchange for a nifty little bit of information: the applicant's Social Security number. I wasn't able to find a single article in psychology journals on this topic, but still find it worth a mention in class. Beth Benoit Granite State College Plymouth State University New Hampshire --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
