Is undisciplined behavior antithetical to cooperation, or is it part and parcel of it?

Abstract

This commentary raises three points in response to the target article. First, what appear to be victimless behaviors in highly individualistic, post-industrial societies might have a direct impact on group members in small-scale societies. Second, many societies show marked tolerance or ambivalence toward intemperate behavior. Third, undisciplined behavior is not antithetical to cooperation but can be used to cooperative ends.

Fitouchi et al. propose that puritanical moralizations, which appear apt to curtail seemingly victimless offenses, are rooted in folk-psychological beliefs that curbing impulses can foster long-term cooperation by promoting self-control. In devising their model the authors endeavor to resolve the gap between theoretical accounts of morality as cooperation, and the widespread moralization of putatively harmless behaviors including: idleness, certain drug use, ecstatic music and dance, gluttony, masturbation, and even too frequent sex within marriage, among others. This commentary raises three points in response to the target article: (1) the high degree of human fitness interdependence (Balliet, Tybur, & Van Lange, 2017; Syme & Hagen, 2023) means that much of what people do, where they direct their energies or not, and even seemingly harmless actions, have a direct impact on social partners; (2) social norms involving puritanical moralizations do not entirely extinguish human impulses, and many societies allow opportunities for indulgence to thrive alongside austerity; and (3) giving into one's impulses and displays of undisciplined behavior are not always antithetical to long-term cooperation but can be integral to it.

First, compared to many other mammals and even primates, humans have a high degree of fitness interdependence and maintain a large social network of both kin and non-kin to cooperate across multiples fitness-relevant cooperative domains including: childcare (Hrdy, 2009; Page et al., 2019; Shaver et al., 2020), subsistence and risk-pooling (Cashdan, 1985; Cronk & Aktipis, 2021), and even mate choice (Agey, Addison, Maya, & Gaulin, 2021; Walker, Hill, Flinn, & Ellsworth, 2011), among others. Humans are highly social beings and much of what humans do has social significance; westerners living in individualistic, large-scale societies, however, may not be well-attuned to the social relevance of seemingly victimless offenses across diverse societies. For instance, ethnographic reports from small-scale Pacific Islander communities indicate that even brief period of social withdrawal, a behavior that to our eyes might appear socially trivial, is used to express discontent with social partners and to motivate amends (Hollan, 1990; Macpherson & Macpherson, 1987; Syme & Hagen, 2023). In other words, our “modern eyes” (p. 8) might not be the best judge of what is and is not a victimless behavior in close-knit, intimate societies where there may be considerably less privacy. Furthermore, any amount of time spent masturbating, being intoxicated, or pursuing sexual relationships is potentially diverting time and effort away from economically productive tasks that may benefit the self or the group. This may be particularly relevant to societies in which daily economic and subsistence activity is time intensive. From these perspectives, many of the apparently victimless behaviors have the potential to directly divert time away from cooperative activities in daily life.

Second, although puritanical moralizations are found in geographically diverse cultures, they do not predominate across all societies, as the authors note. Although adultery is near universally condemned, societies display varying degrees of tolerance or even ambivalence. According to ethnographic reports from the mid-twentieth century on Chon Chuuk, a Micronesian population, adultery could be punished by the offended and was socially condemned; however, numerous ethnographies described the extramarital “sweetheart” relationship as idealized and regarded as a truer expression of passion (Fischer, 1950; Gladwin & Sarason, 1953; Swartz, 1958). Relatedly, many religious calendars alternate between periods of feasting and fasting (Clasquin-Johnson, 2022), and even “puritanical” societies can tolerate displays of markedly undisciplined behavior in specific settings. For instance, in some societies, possession cults (e.g., Zar cult) are sites where socially powerless individuals can enter altered states of consciousness and dramatize social conflicts, displaying in public view the anger and despair that they must suppress in daily life (Lewis, 2002; Somer & Saadon, 2000). Indeed, impulses reflect one's fitness interests and can never be expunged. If left unsatisfied, they can engender individual or collective frustration, agitation, or even rebellion. Thus, we might consider how and why societies vary with regard to tolerance and ambivalence of undisciplined behavior and the processes by which traditions and practices emerge to channel impulses, not just suppress them.

Finally, the authors discuss at length that intoxication and other undisciplined behaviors can lead to antisocial outcomes including the outbreak of conflict, but these outbreaks of conflict do not exist in social vacuums and are at times expressions of perceived injustice. Turning again to ethnographies on Chon Chuuk, a group with whom I have conducted research on family conflict, alcohol intoxication and spirit possession are gendered means of conflict resolution in which young men, through alcohol, and young women, through spirit possession, express indignation at perceived harms against the self or valued others (Hezel & Dobbin, 1995; Marshall, 1979), and unlike possession cults, spirit possession in Chuuk is not bound to ceremonial settings. When a young woman becomes spirit possessed, she flagrantly violates social norms, taking off her clothes, using foul language, and taking on the voice of an ancestor to call out family members for neglect or abuse of other family members. This behavior, though highly antisocial in one sense, can lead to cooperative resolution in the family (Hezel & Dobbin, 1995).

Human social life requires balancing the interests between individuals and groups. Despite humans' great capacity for cooperation and costly prosociality, humans remain stubbornly self-interested: lustful, gluttonous, pleasure-seeking, passionate, and intemperate. Hence, human social behavior is a complex interplay of the selfish and the prosocial, the disciplined and the undisciplined, the ascetic and the ecstatic, and one side cannot eclipse the other without extinguishing itself.