- Population Density, Infanticide and Social Pathology
In this paper I address two classic examples of "social pathology"--apparently maladaptive social behavior--and suggest that they can be understood to a great extent (perhaps entirely) when viewed from the perspective of competitive individuals acting according to the principles of
economic defendability models. These are based on the simple assumption that territorial or possessive behavior is favored only when benefits exceed costs; while initially sounding trivial,
this perspective challenges widespread typological thinking--"species X is/is not territorial" gives way to "individuals of species X should be territorial under some conditions and not others".
URL: http://dss.ucsd.edu/~jmoore/publications/DensityInfanticide.html
(Added: 17-Sep-2000 Hits: 682)
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