what does the American Dream have in
common with tilapia the American Dream
is this idea that an individual can make
it big from rags to riches without
facing barriers as a result of class or
demographic it’s been described as the
ideal it’s the American Dream and for
those for many the American Dream often
requires some sort of socio-economic
class migration so for example perhaps
from the lower middle class to perhaps
the upper class and for those who are
able to accomplish this feat they often
find that there are invisible barriers
that are directly shaped by the
environment that that individual
experienced in their class of origin for
those who are able to climb the
socio-economic ladder they often find
that there are subtle changes in social
cues and they find it difficult to
adjust to these changes something known
as trouble with class passing perhaps
their new class cohort just as
differently or talks about different
subjects at parties or even holds their
silverware differently and all of these
small changes are a direct result of how
the environment shapes our behavior now
at this point you might be wondering
what do fish have to do with any of this
well it turns out that fish might shed
some insight on the way that humans
behave now I want to quickly state that
I’m in no way a sociologist or a
psychologist what I am is an animal
behavioral ecologist and what I study is
the way that animals make decisions
during fights more specifically I study
what’s called assessment strategies so
animals are constantly taking in
information about costs about benefits
fighting ability and they factor this
information into an assessment decision
or a strategy in which they choose
whether to persist in a fight or
withdraw
on one end of the spectrum we’ve got
self-assessment under this strategy an
animal will solely utilize private
information so this is often thought of
as energy reserves they will fight and
fight and fight until the energy is
depleted and then withdraw and then on
the other end of the spectrum there is
mutual assessment and under this
strategy an animal will not only
consider private fighting ability
information but then compare it to
information about their opponents so for
example let’s imagine that I was
fighting Shaquille O’Neal yikes
all right so wouldn’t take me very long
to make a conclusion that I’m clearly
outmatched and then withdraw based off
of that conclusion using a mutual
assessment strategy and what I wanted to
specifically explore was the way that
social and environmental context
influence the way that tilapia made
choices about contest resolution and to
answer this question I designed an
experiment with two treatments so first
I had a rich group in which there were
primarily larger individuals and there
were plentiful resources so five
shelters for five fish and then my other
treatment was a poor treatment in which
there were primarily smaller individuals
and there was one shelter for the five
fish to either share or fight over and
fish spent 24 hours in these treatments
and then were fought against each other
and Fox fights occurred between either
two fish from rich treatments two fish
from poor treatments or one from a rich
treatment and one from a poor treatment
and what I found was that when fish were
both from rich treatments they used a
mutual assessment strategy so that’s
when they compared their own fighting
ability against their opponent
when both fish are from poor treatments
they use the self-assessment strategy so
that’s when they were purely concerning
concerned about their own fighting
ability but when one fish was from a
rich treatment and one from a poor
treatment most notably these
relationships completely fell apart
which indicates that fish are fighting
by different rules and those rules are
direct result of their personal history
and their physical state when both
Fisher from the same type of environment
of origin it was clear which mutual or
which assessment strategy was being used
mutual or self but it was there was no
discernable assessment strategy when one
fish was from a different environment
than the other so what can we conclude
from this what does the American Dream
have in common with tilapia while fish
might be engaged in an agonistic
interaction and the rules that they
fight by are directly influenced by
their personal history and their
physical state humans might engage in a
discussion in perhaps a boardroom
setting and the way that they interact
with each other might be directly
influenced by their current or prior
social class you might imagine that a
first generation businessman who perhaps
grew up the son of a taxi driver for
example would engage very differently in
a boardroom discussion with a man who
perhaps grew up the fourth generation
businessman what’s most important is to
recognize that we are heavily influenced
by our environment and that the way that
we engage with others is also directly
influenced by our personal histories and
our physical States and what we also
need to recognize is that we might not
be that different from fish after all
thank you [Applause]
common with tilapia the American Dream
is this idea that an individual can make
it big from rags to riches without
facing barriers as a result of class or
demographic it’s been described as the
ideal it’s the American Dream and for
those for many the American Dream often
requires some sort of socio-economic
class migration so for example perhaps
from the lower middle class to perhaps
the upper class and for those who are
able to accomplish this feat they often
find that there are invisible barriers
that are directly shaped by the
environment that that individual
experienced in their class of origin for
those who are able to climb the
socio-economic ladder they often find
that there are subtle changes in social
cues and they find it difficult to
adjust to these changes something known
as trouble with class passing perhaps
their new class cohort just as
differently or talks about different
subjects at parties or even holds their
silverware differently and all of these
small changes are a direct result of how
the environment shapes our behavior now
at this point you might be wondering
what do fish have to do with any of this
well it turns out that fish might shed
some insight on the way that humans
behave now I want to quickly state that
I’m in no way a sociologist or a
psychologist what I am is an animal
behavioral ecologist and what I study is
the way that animals make decisions
during fights more specifically I study
what’s called assessment strategies so
animals are constantly taking in
information about costs about benefits
fighting ability and they factor this
information into an assessment decision
or a strategy in which they choose
whether to persist in a fight or
withdraw
on one end of the spectrum we’ve got
self-assessment under this strategy an
animal will solely utilize private
information so this is often thought of
as energy reserves they will fight and
fight and fight until the energy is
depleted and then withdraw and then on
the other end of the spectrum there is
mutual assessment and under this
strategy an animal will not only
consider private fighting ability
information but then compare it to
information about their opponents so for
example let’s imagine that I was
fighting Shaquille O’Neal yikes
all right so wouldn’t take me very long
to make a conclusion that I’m clearly
outmatched and then withdraw based off
of that conclusion using a mutual
assessment strategy and what I wanted to
specifically explore was the way that
social and environmental context
influence the way that tilapia made
choices about contest resolution and to
answer this question I designed an
experiment with two treatments so first
I had a rich group in which there were
primarily larger individuals and there
were plentiful resources so five
shelters for five fish and then my other
treatment was a poor treatment in which
there were primarily smaller individuals
and there was one shelter for the five
fish to either share or fight over and
fish spent 24 hours in these treatments
and then were fought against each other
and Fox fights occurred between either
two fish from rich treatments two fish
from poor treatments or one from a rich
treatment and one from a poor treatment
and what I found was that when fish were
both from rich treatments they used a
mutual assessment strategy so that’s
when they compared their own fighting
ability against their opponent
when both fish are from poor treatments
they use the self-assessment strategy so
that’s when they were purely concerning
concerned about their own fighting
ability but when one fish was from a
rich treatment and one from a poor
treatment most notably these
relationships completely fell apart
which indicates that fish are fighting
by different rules and those rules are
direct result of their personal history
and their physical state when both
Fisher from the same type of environment
of origin it was clear which mutual or
which assessment strategy was being used
mutual or self but it was there was no
discernable assessment strategy when one
fish was from a different environment
than the other so what can we conclude
from this what does the American Dream
have in common with tilapia while fish
might be engaged in an agonistic
interaction and the rules that they
fight by are directly influenced by
their personal history and their
physical state humans might engage in a
discussion in perhaps a boardroom
setting and the way that they interact
with each other might be directly
influenced by their current or prior
social class you might imagine that a
first generation businessman who perhaps
grew up the son of a taxi driver for
example would engage very differently in
a boardroom discussion with a man who
perhaps grew up the fourth generation
businessman what’s most important is to
recognize that we are heavily influenced
by our environment and that the way that
we engage with others is also directly
influenced by our personal histories and
our physical States and what we also
need to recognize is that we might not
be that different from fish after all
thank you [Applause]
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