Infant Cries As Evolutionary Melodrama: Extortion or Deception?
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Crying is melodramatic in the sense that crying babies seem to respond to a great variety of distressing situations with behaviors, such as gasping, choking, and panting that would be appropriate to a very specific respiratory emergency. In this paper we develop models to explore whether extortion or deception is the more plausible origin of the melodrama in a baby's cry. According to these models, deception seems a more plausible origin than extortion because extortion requires the incoherent assumption that nature can select against the genetic interests of an organism. By comparison, the assumptions required to rationalize a deception explanation — that the parent share in the benefits given to its offspring — seem relatively harmless and consistent with contemporary sociobiological theory.
Publication Title
Evolution of Communication
Publication Date
1998
Volume
2
Issue
1
First Page
25
Last Page
43
ISSN
1569‑9757
DOI
10.1075/eoc.2.1.03tho
Repository Citation
Thompson, Nicholas S.; Dessureau, Brian; and Olson, Carolyn, "Infant Cries As Evolutionary Melodrama: Extortion or Deception?" (1998). Faculty Works. 86.
https://commons.clarku.edu/facultyworks/86
