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Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within the study of human society, sociobiology is closely allied to evolutionary anthropology, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and sociology.
Sociobiology investigates social behaviors such as mating system, territoriality, pack hunter, and the hive society of . It argues that just as selection pressure led to animals evolving useful ways of interacting with the natural environment, so also it led to the genetic evolution of advantageous social behavior.
While the term "sociobiology" originated at least as early as the 1940s; the concept did not gain major recognition until the publication of E. O. Wilson's book in 1975. The field quickly became the subject of scientific controversy. Critics, led by Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, argued that genes played a role in human behavior, but that traits such as aggressiveness could be explained by social environment rather than by biology. Sociobiologists responded by pointing to the complex relationship between nature and nurture. Among sociobiologists, the controversy between laying weight to different levels of selection was settled between D.S. Wilson and E.O. Wilson in 2007.
Sociobiology is based on the premise that some behaviors (social and individual) are at least partly inherited and can be affected by natural selection. (2025). 9781139680295 ISBN 9781139680295
The discipline seeks to explain behavior as a product of natural selection. Behavior is therefore seen as an effort to preserve one's genes in the population. Inherent in sociobiological reasoning is the idea that certain genes or gene combinations that influence particular behavioral traits can be Heredity from generation to generation.
For example, newly dominant male lions often kill cubs in the pride that they did not sire. This behavior is adaptive because killing the cubs eliminates competition for their own offspring and causes the nursing females to come into heat faster, thus allowing more of his genes to enter into the population. Sociobiologists would view this instinctual cub-killing behavior as being inherited through the genes of successfully reproducing male lions, whereas non-killing behavior may have died out as those lions were less successful in reproducing.
The geneticist of animal behavior John Paul Scott coined the word sociobiology at a 1948 conference on genetics and social behavior, which called for a conjoint development of field and laboratory studies in animal behavior research. With John Paul Scott's organizational efforts, a "Section of Animal Behavior and Sociobiology" of the Ecological Society of America was created in 1956, which became a Division of Animal Behavior of the American Society of Zoology in 1958. In 1956, E. O. Wilson came in contact with this emerging sociobiology through his PhD student Stuart A. Altmann, who had been in close relation with the participants to the 1948 conference. Altmann developed his own brand of sociobiology to study the social behavior of rhesus macaques, using statistics, and was hired as a "sociobiologist" at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in 1965. Wilson's sociobiology is different from John Paul Scott's or Altmann's, insofar as he drew on mathematical models of social behavior centered on the maximization of the genetic fitness by W. D. Hamilton, Robert Trivers, John Maynard Smith, and George R. Price. The three sociobiologies by Scott, Altmann and Wilson have in common to place naturalist studies at the core of the research on animal social behavior and by drawing alliances with emerging research methodologies, at a time when "biology in the field" was threatened to be made old-fashioned by "modern" practices of science (laboratory studies, mathematical biology, molecular biology).
Once a specialist term, "sociobiology" became widely known in 1975 when Wilson published his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, sparking intense controversy. Since then "sociobiology" has largely been equated with Wilson's vision. The book pioneered and popularized the attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviors such as altruism, aggression, and nurturance, primarily in ants (Wilson's own research specialty) and other Hymenoptera, but also in other animals. However, the influence of evolution on behavior has been of interest to biologists and philosophers from the 19th century onwards. Peter Kropotkin's , written in the early 1890s, is a popular example. The final chapter of the book is devoted to sociobiological explanations of human behavior, and Wilson later wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book, On Human Nature, that addressed human behavior specifically.
Edward H. Hagen writes in The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology that sociobiology is, despite the public controversy on its application to humans, "one of the scientific triumphs of the twentieth century." He adds that "Sociobiology is now part of the core research and curriculum of virtually all biology departments, and it is a foundation of the work of almost all field biologists." Sociobiological research on nonhuman organisms has increased dramatically and continuously in the world's top scientific journals such as Nature and Science. The more general term behavioral ecology is commonly substituted to avoid the public controversy.
Sociobiology uses Nikolaas Tinbergen's four questions to search for explanations of animal behavior. Two of these categories are at the species level; two, at the individual level. The species-level categories (often called "ultimate explanations") are
The individual-level categories (often called "proximate explanations") are
Various theorists have argued that in some environments Crime might be adaptive. The evolutionary neuroandrogenic (ENA) theory, by sociologist/criminologist Lee Ellis, posits that female sexual selection has led to increased competitive behavior among men, sometimes resulting in criminality. In another theory, Mark van Vugt argues that a history of intergroup conflict for resources between men have led to differences in violence and aggression between men and women. The novelist Elias Canetti also has noted applications of sociobiological theory to cultural practices such as slavery and autocracy.Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981, pp. 444–445.
A genetic basis for instinctive behavioral traits among non-human species, such as in the above example, is commonly accepted among many biologists; however, attempting to use a genetic basis to explain complex behaviors in human societies has remained extremely controversial.
Noam Chomsky has expressed views on sociobiology on several occasions. During a 1976 meeting of the Sociobiology Study Group, as reported by Ullica Segerstråle, Chomsky argued for the importance of a sociobiologically informed notion of human nature. Chomsky argued that human beings are biological organisms and ought to be studied as such, with his criticism of the "blank slate" doctrine in the social sciences (which would inspire a great deal of Steven Pinker's and others' work in evolutionary psychology), in his 1975 Reflections on Language.Noam Chomsky (1975), Reflections on Language:10. New York: Pantheon Books. Chomsky further hinted at the possible reconciliation of his anarchist political views and sociobiology in a discussion of Peter Kropotkin's , which focused more on altruism than aggression, suggesting that anarchist societies were feasible because of an innate human tendency to cooperate.Noam Chomsky (1995). "Rollback, Part II." Z Magazine 8 (Feb.): 20–31.
Wilson has claimed that he had never meant to imply what ought to be, only what is the case. However, some critics have argued that the language of sociobiology readily slips from "is" to "ought", an instance of the naturalistic fallacy. Pinker has argued that opposition to stances considered anti-social, such as ethnic nepotism, is based on morality assumptions, meaning that such opposition is not falsifiable by scientific advances.Steven Pinker (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking. p. 145 The history of this debate, and others related to it, are covered in detail by , , and .
See also
Notes
Sources
(2025). 9780195130027, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195130027
Further reading
(2025). 9781590510346, Other Press. ISBN 9781590510346
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