EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES ON CHILDRENS RESOURCE-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR IN PEER RELATIONSHIPS - AN INTRODUCTION

The goal of this special section is to provide an evolutionary framewo rk for conceptualising children's resource-directed behaviour in peer relationships. Resource-directed behaviour is of importance for an evo lutionary approach to behaviour because it raises fundamental theoreti cal issues centring on the role of self-interest, co-operation, compet ition, and altruism in human relationships. These issues have been cen tral to biological theory since Darwin but they have taken on increase d importance in recent years. Indeed, one might say that the revolutio n in evolutionary biology which has occurred since the publication of G.C. Williams' Adaptation and natural selection (1966) and E.O. Wilson 's Sociobiology: The new synthesis (1975) has been fundamentally conce rned with these issues. At the heart of these issues is the question p f altruism. It would be difficult to overestimate the theoretical impo rtance of altruism in evolutionary accounts of behaviour. Altruism is deeply problematic because it implies that individuals engage in self- sacrificing behaviour which benefits others. Such behaviour could only evolve as the result of natural selection at the level of the group, and indeed, beginning with Darwin, several theorists have put forward this possibility (Darwin, 1871): It must not be forgotten that althoug h a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to ea ch individual man and his children of the same tribe, yet an increase in the number of well-endowed men and advancement in the standard of m orality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over ano ther. A tribe including many members who, possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, who were-always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and t his would be natural selection (p. 500).