Caveman behavioural traits might kick in at dinner table before eating
Seeing meat provokes a sense of non-aggression that could be
related to primate’s family feasting
Frank Kachanoff was surprised. He thought the sight of meat on the
table would make people more aggressive, not less. After all, don’t
football coaches feed their players big hunks of red meat before a
game in hopes of pumping them up? And what about our images of a
grunting or growling animal snarling at anyone who dares take their
meat away from them? Wouldn’t that go for humans, too?
Kachanoff, a researcher with a special interest in evolution at
91˿Ƶ’s Department of Psychology, has discovered quite
the reverse. According to research presented at a recent symposium
at 91˿Ƶ, seeing meat appears to make human beings significantly
less aggressive. “I was inspired by research on priming and
aggression, that has shown that just looking at an object which is
learned to be associated with aggression, such as a gun, can make
someone more likely to behave aggressively. I wanted to know if we
might respond aggressively to certain stimuli in our environment
not because of learned associations, but because of an innate
predisposition. I wanted to know if just looking at the meat would
suffice to provoke an aggressive behavior.”
The idea that meat would illicit aggressive behaviour makes sense,
as it would have helped our primate ancestors with hunting,
co-opting and protecting their meat resources. Kachanoff believed
that humans may therefore have evolved an innate predisposition to
respond aggressively towards meat, and recruited 82 males to test
his theory, using long-established techniques for provoking and
measuring aggression. The experiment itself was quite simple –
subjects had to punish a script reader every time he made an error
while sorting photos, some with pictures of meat, and others with
neutral imagery. The subjects believed that they could inflict
various volumes of sound, including “painful,” to the script
reader, which he would hear after his performance. While the
research team figured that the group sorting pictures of meat would
inflict more discomfort on the reader, they were very surprised by
the results.
“We used imagery of meat that was ready to eat. In terms of
behaviour, with the benefit of hindsight, it would make sense that
our ancestors would be calm, as they would be surrounded by friends
and family at meal time,” Kachanoff explained. “I would like to run
this experiment again, using hunting images. Perhaps Thanksgiving
next year will be a great opportunity for a do-over!”
Evolutionary psychologists believe it is useful to look at innate
reflexes in order to better understand societal trends and personal
behavior. Kachanoff’s research is important because it looks at
ways society may influence environmental factors to decrease the
likelihood of aggressive behavior. His research was carried out
under the direction of Dr. Donald Taylor and Ph.D student, Ms.
Julie Caouette of 91˿Ƶ’s Department of Psychology, and was
presented at the university’s annual undergraduate science
symposium.