Evolutionary Perspectives on Death

210 Pages·2019·3.358 MB·English

by  Todd K. Shackelford, Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Evolutionary Psychology
Series Editors: Todd K. Shackelford · Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford
Todd K. Shackelford
Virgil Zeigler-Hill E ditors
Evolutionary
Perspectives
on Death
Evolutionary Psychology
Series Editors
Todd K. Shackelford
Rochester, MI, USA
Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford
Rochester, MI, USA
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10583
Todd K. Shackelford • Virgil Zeigler-Hill
Editors
Evolutionary Perspectives on
Death
Editors
Todd K. Shackelford Virgil Zeigler-Hill
Department of Psychology Oakland University
Oakland University Rochester, MI, USA
Rochester, MI, USA
ISSN 2197-9898 ISSN 2197-9901 (electronic)
Evolutionary Psychology
ISBN 978-3-030-25465-0 ISBN 978-3-030-25466-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25466-7
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
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Foreword
The interdisciplinary conference, “Evolutionary Perspectives on Death,” truly rep-
resented a breakthrough forum at Oakland University.
Held over 2 days in April 2018, the gathering of international scholars repre-
sented a compelling range of viewpoints and disciplines, including psychology,
anthropology, biology, medicine, English, and philosophy. The probative and pro-
vocative scholarship discussed at the conference presents an expansive examination
of death in the latest installment in the “Evolutionary Psychology Interdisciplinary
Conference Series.”
Expertly collected and edited by Oakland University Psychology Professors
Todd K. Shackelford and Virgil Zeigler-Hill, the volume represents the scientific
and intellectual richness that emerges when scholars employ an evolutionary per-
spective as the means to deepen their understanding of the role death plays in nearly
every organism.
The presentations are focused on a wide range of fascinating topics, including
philosophical approaches to understand death, sexual cannibalism in spiders, and
how nonhuman primates respond to the death of conspecifics.
Exploring the connections and contrasting fundamental approaches of a range of
disciplines has the effect of strolling through a hallway with many doors, each door
presenting a unique entryway to the changing nature of how we contemplate and
study the mechanisms, forensics, social aspects, and archetypal stories of death.
Collectively, the thoughtful and provocative views included in this volume estab-
lish new intellectual pathways and offer a profound contribution to the scholarly
catalog of how opinions and experiences of death derive from an inextricable rela-
tionship among culture, customs, personal psychology, and science.
Indeed, the exciting, productive, and intensely interdisciplinary nature of
Evolutionary Perspectives on Death offers an engaging complement to the four-
volume collection of scholarship presented in the last several years at Oakland
University conferences on the evolution of violence, sexuality, morality, and
psychopathology.
v
vi Foreword
The deep connections among the scholarship herein spotlighted by Shackelford
and Zeigler-Hill serve notice of fertile interdisciplinary approaches that will find a
wider audience when shared with the broader scientific community.
President, Oakland University Ora Hirsch Pescovitz
Rochester, MI, USA
Preface
In April 2018, we welcomed dozens of scholars from North America, Europe, and
Africa to join us at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, for a 2-day interdis-
ciplinary conference on “Evolutionary Perspectives on Death.” We invited some of
the leading minds from disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, biology, med-
icine, English, and philosophy to serve as panelists for this conference. These schol-
ars have conducted and published substantial work addressing various aspects of
death and mortality from an evolutionary perspective. This volume showcases the
groundbreaking empirical and theoretical work from several of these panelists and
other distinguished conference guests.
The volume opens with a wide-ranging contribution from Pyszczynski, “The
Role of Death in Life: Exploring the Interface Between Terror Management Theory
and Evolutionary Psychology.” The author discusses the areas of compatibility
between terror management theory (TMT)—which argues that anxiety about the
inevitability of death serves as a driving force in shaping many areas of human cog-
nition and behavior—and evolutionary perspectives concerning human nature.
Pyszczynski acknowledges that evolutionary psychologists have been critical of
TMT, but he provides a thorough review of the considerable empirical support for
TMT that has accumulated over the decades and how these findings may be inte-
grated with evolutionary perspectives. He concludes by arguing that TMT and evo-
lutionary perspectives on human behavior should be viewed as compatible and
complementary rather than as opposing frameworks.
In Chapter 2, “Evolutionary Perspectives on the Loss of a Twin,” Segal reviews
recent research concerning comparisons of grief intensity ratings provided by
bereaved monozygotic (MZ or identical) and dizygotic (DZ or fraternal) twins. This
research—which was guided by kinship-genetic theory—offers a novel way for
gaining insights into the effects of genetic and social relatedness on bereavement.
She presents evidence that genetically identical (MZ) twins tend to experience more
intense grief following the loss of their co-twin than do genetically nonidentical
(DZ) twins which are consistent with kinship-genetic theorizing. Furthermore, both
genetically identical (MZ) and genetically nonidentical (DZ) twins reported experi-
encing more intense grief for their deceased co-twins than for other relatives who
vii
viii Preface
had died during their lifetimes. Segal argues that the bereavement responses of twin
survivors serve as something akin to the “wail of frustrated genes.”
Soper contributes Chapter 3, “Beyond the Search for Suigiston: How Evolution
Offers Oxygen for Suicidology.” The author argues that the search for the contin-
gencies and risk factors that lead to suicide may be similar in some respects to the
search for phlogiston (a fiery element that was believed to be released when a sub-
stance burned prior to the discovery of oxygen) by scientists during the earlier cen-
turies. Soper argues that the reason suicide researchers have struggled to explain
suicide as the result of specialized contingencies may be because suicide is actually
a regular concomitant of the human condition. He concludes by arguing that an
evolutionary perspective on suicide may be helpful for understanding suicide as
well as identifying and prioritizing opportunities for suicide prevention.
In Chapter 4, “Animacy and Mortality Salience: New Directions for the Adaptive
Memory Literature,” Altarriba and Kazanas review recent empirical evidence that
memory tends to be optimized when information is processed for its “survival rel-
evance.” That is, individuals tend to perform better on various memory-related tasks
(e.g., remembering a list of concrete nouns such as screwdriver and cathedral)
when these tasks are framed as relevant to survival instead of other areas of life
(e.g., moving to a new house). The authors consider the various proximate and ulti-
mate explanations for this pattern as well as recent attempts to integrate mortality
salience and perceptions of animacy into this area of the literature.
In Chapter 5, “Nonhuman Primate Responses to Death,” Brosnan and Vonk pro-
vide a comparative psychological perspective on issues surrounding mortality and
death by considering the responses of nonhuman primates to death. The authors
review evidence suggesting that nonhuman primates tend to change their behavior
following the death of a conspecific with these responses being especially strong in
some situations (e.g., a mother losing an infant). Brosnan and Vonk consider various
theories for the emergence of these behavioral patterns including underlying emo-
tional experiences (e.g., grief, empathy) and physiological mechanisms (e.g., hor-
monal changes). The authors conclude by outlining many of the questions that
remain concerning how nonhuman animals respond to death and argue that answer-
ing these questions may shed light on the cognitive abilities of many species, includ-
ing our own.
Varki proposes in Chapter 6, “Did Human Reality Denial Breach the Evolutionary
Psychological Barrier of Mortality Salience? A Theory That Can Explain Many
Unusual Features of Human Origins,” that reality denial is vital to understand how
humans view their own mortality. Varki argues that the human ability for reality
denial may have emerged at a similar time as the ability to understand the mental
states of others (i.e., theory of mind). He argues that these two seemingly disparate
cognitive abilities may have jointly shaped the evolution of our species. Furthermore,
the author argues that reality denial is a fundamental aspect of human psychology
that may help us understand how individuals are able to go about their daily lives
despite knowing that they are inevitably going to die.
In Chapter 7, “Death in Literature,” Carroll considers a framework for under-
standing depictions of death in literature that incorporates ideas from evolutionary
Preface ix
psychology, human life history theory, terror management theory, the psychology of
meaning, the psychology of fiction, and evolutionary literary theory. Carroll explains
why humans create literary depictions of death and characterizes the attitudes
toward death that tend to be adopted by the authors and the characters they create.
The author uses examples from a wide variety of sources to illustrate the ways that
death is depicted in literature.
In Chapter 8, “Last Moments: Witnessing and Representing the Death of Pets,”
Pierce and Taylor explore the phenomenon of in-home pet euthanasia, which is
becoming increasingly common each year. The authors describe two recent projects
that document the in-home pet euthanasia experience: a series of still photographs
called Last Moments and a feature-length documentary film called The Hardest
Day. These documentary projects provide viewers with a window into the experi-
ence of death for pets and their families. The authors discuss issues such as the role
of the documentarian in witnessing these intensely personal and potentially trau-
matic experiences as well as the possibility that these images may help reduce the
social isolation and psychological distress that individuals often experience follow-
ing a pet’s death.
In the concluding chapter, “The Evolution of American Perspectives Concerning
Treatment of the Dead and the Role of Human Decomposition Facilities,” Zejdlik
and Burke describe the shifts that have taken place in the United States concerning
the views of death and the treatment of the dead. The authors consider a range of
unique, relatively inexpensive, and environmentally sensitive options that exist for
the disposal of human remains. One of the options they review is donation to a
human decomposition facility, which benefits science by allowing forensic anthro-
pologists to better understand aspects of decomposition while disposing of human
remains in an environmentally friendly way.
Evolutionary Perspectives on Death showcases the considerable and sweeping
intellectual value of an interdisciplinary approach to understand psychological pro-
cesses and behavior. Guided by Darwin’s insights, the contributions to this wide-
ranging volume provide a compelling case for an evolutionary analysis of mortality
and the consideration of death.
Rochester, MI Virgil Zeigler-Hill
Todd K. Shackelford
Contents
The Role of Death in Life: Exploring the Interface Between Terror
Management Theory and Evolutionary Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Tom Pyszczynski
Evolutionary Perspectives on the Loss of a Twin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Nancy L. Segal
Beyond the Search for Suigiston: How Evolution Offers Oxygen
for Suicidology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
C. A. Soper
Animacy and Mortality Salience: New Directions for the Adaptive
Memory Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Jeanette Altarriba and Stephanie A. Kazanas
Nonhuman Primate Responses to Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Sarah F. Brosnan and Jennifer Vonk
Did Human Reality Denial Breach the Evolutionary Psychological
Barrier of Mortality Salience? A Theory that Can Explain
Unusual Features of the Origin and Fate of Our Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Ajit Varki
Death in Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Joseph Carroll
Last Moments: Witnessing and Representing the Death of Pets . . . . . . . . 161
Jessica Pierce and Ross Taylor
The Evolution of American Perspectives Concerning Treatment
of the Dead and the Role of Human Decomposition Facilities . . . . . . . . . . 177
Katie Zejdlik and Sarah E. Burke
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
xi