Life in the Fast Lane, Part IV: Rebelliousness, Risk, Social Deviance, and Educational Intervention

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
-James Dean

I recently paid a visit to Madame Tussaud's wax museum in New York City. It was an eerie experience, as there were many moments when I simply could not tell at first sight which people were real and which were just wax figures. I was especially struck by Jame Dean's figure. He looked so real, so alive, and so cool. Behind his wax figure hangs a plaque on the wall with the following line said by the actor John Derek in the film Knock On Any Door:

"Live fast, die young, and have a beautiful looking corpse."

James Dean certainly lived the fast life. Unfortunately, it was too fast, as he left this world at the age of 24. His wax figure is how the world will always remember him; young, brooding, and cool. As I stood in front of his figure, I wondered what he went through in his life, what his thoughts were like from one moment to the next, and how he reacted to things. Beautiful minds comes in very different forms. Many of the greatest talents, like Dean, have lived the fast life and died young. As I've been arguing throughout this series, the fast life has a deep, evolutionary logic to it (see Part I: Evolution of the Fast Life). Therefore, to really get into the mind of James Dean, you must really get into the mind of Darwin.

Included in the suite of traits and behaviors that promote the fast life are those related to rebelliousness and risk-taking. Both of these variables are linked to a lack of self-control, both in thought and in action. But while slower life societies such as Western societies typically view the human capacity for self-control as the hallmark of evolution, in most of the harsh and unpredictable ecologies in which our ancestors evolved, a lack of self-control was evolutionarily adaptive (see Part I: Evolution of the Fast Life). Therefore, in certain ecologies, risk was adaptive. But what is risk, anyway?

Risk is Relative

When thinking about rebelliousness and risk, I like to adopt the thinking of economists, behavioral ecologists, and modern evolutionary psychologists, who view risk as relative and take into account the context of the risk-taker. According to this approach, it matters who is deciding whether to take $5 now or wait a year to receive $10. If the person living under harsh and unpredictable conditions doesn't have much reason to think they will be able to live to collect that money, or if they need that money for immediate survival, it's actually 'smarter' for them to take the $5 in comparison to the person who lives in a more stable environment where saving the money will have more of a long-term payoff. Considering the ecological validity of risk-taking behavior, Figueredo & Jacobs (2010) point out that

"one cannot always assume the risk-taking behavior to be maladaptive, even in the case of asynchronous timeframes of costs and benefits. Under some circumstances, discounting future losses in favor of more immediate gains is the more adaptive strategy; conversely, under other circumstances, discounting immediate gains in favor of future losses is the more adaptive strategy. Hence, presuming that one or the other set of relative valuations is inherently or universally superior to the other is unwise."

The standard social sciences model tends to place emphasis on the costs of risk while ignoring the expected benefit of risk-taking. As Figueredo & Jacobs (2010) note,

"By conflating variable payoffs and expected losses, social science becomes insensitive to potential motivations behind risk-taking. Standard social sciences thereby typically treat risk-taking as pathological and in need of preventive interventions."

In contrast, evolutionary theory predicts that for some individuals, under certain specific circumstances, it is adaptive to take risks. The benefit of this perspective is that it allows us to look at risk-taking behavior dispassionately, enabling insight into both the negative consequences and positive incentives underlying different risk-taking behaviors, neither advocating nor condemning any particular behavior (Figueredo & Jacobs, 2010).

People with a propensity for risk-taking tend to engage in risky behaviors across a wide variety of situations (Donovan & Jessor, 1985). Risk-taking, in general, tends to be higher in situations that Western cultures characterize as 'stressful'. For instance, father-absence, dysfunctional parental relationships, and low socioeconomic status tend to cluster together. Children growing up in such environments tend to display a variety of risk-taking behaviors that also cluster together such as sexual precociousness, poor parenting behavior, poor academic performance, suicide attempts, and violence. This interconnectedness of context, behavior, and outcomes means that it is difficult distinguishing between the risk-taking behaviors and the environmental conditions that are associated with them. This has some deep implications for social intervention, since changing a specific behavioral strategy within a cluster will likely be ineffective without also changing the contexts in which they are associated. While traditional social science theories have not offered much insight into the causal explanations for the existence of these clusters, Life History Theory, grounded in evolutionary biology, offers pure and applied guidance for those who wish to address these problems systematically (Figueredo & Jacobs, 2010).

Life History Theory, Self-Control, and Social Deviance

According to Life History Theory, an individual's Life History Strategy involves a coordinated set of behavioral tactics that are evolutionarily adaptive within particular life circumstances (see Part I: Evolution of the Fast Life). Over the course of human evolution, natural and sexual selection acted to eliminate particular tactics that would interfere with others in the suite. This is why those who live the slower life tend to inhibit impulsive behaviors that may be risky and/or socially deviant. Such behaviors would not be consistent with their slower lifestyle and would likely get in the way of their longer-term goals.

On the other hand, the general attitude of "being a rebel" that many living the fast life exude, and the risks they take, can be evolutionarily adaptive in certain contexts. Of course, just because something may be evolutionary adaptive does not mean that it is necessarily "good" or "bad", "moral", or "immoral". Evolutionary adaptiveness strictly refers to the likelihood that a particular behavior is conducive to survival and reproduction. Still, understanding the deep evolutionarily logic of behaviors across the full spectrum of individual differences is important in making sense of widespread behaviors that have a clear pattern to them.

Since many behaviors that go against the rule norms of society tend to interfere with longer-term planning and goals, those living a slower life tend to minimize behaviors that are considered "socially deviant" in our society. Figuredo et al. (2007) came up with a combined measure of "social problems", including measures of delinquent behaviors, risk-taking behaviors, and impulsive behaviors. They found that a "K-factor", consisting of a wide range of Life History Traits (see Part I: Evolution of the Fast Life), was negatively related to this combined measure of "social deviance". In other words, the slower the Life History of the participant, the less likely they were to display "socially deviant" behaviors.

Some societal norms, however, such as attending school or long-term planning for the future may conflict with the cluster of traits and behaviors that comprise a fast life strategy. Indeed, those living the fast life tend to have lower self-control and they tend to engage in risky behaviors such as using drugs, alcohol, and engaging in risky sexual activity that can cause self-harm. Those living the fast life also tend to have a cluster of traits and behaviors that, in the terms of behavioral endocrinology, is permissive of more criminal socially deviant behaviors such as theft and homocide. It is important to note that not all those who live the fast life engage in socially deviant behaviors. There are plenty of inner-city fast life youth with great levels of empathy and caring for others, who have no desire to hurt others.The point is that the fast life mindset is conducive to social deviance, and is even statistically correlated with non-clinical levels of psychopathy.

For instance, Gladden, Sisco, and Figueredo (2008) found that a fast Life History Strategy was related to an extensive inventory of self-reported sexually coercive behaviors, as well as psychopathy, machiavellianism, and aggression. Other research has found that those with a fast Life History Strategy tended to score lower on a short-form measure of emotional intelligence (Andrzejczak et al., 2007). This is to be expected, since the fast life is associated with psychopathy, and psychopathy is associated with deficits in emotional and cognitive empathy (Heym & Lawrence, 2007).

In a series of more recent studies, Dr. Jonason and his colleagues applied Life History Theory to the Dark Triad- the combination of machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy. Across multiple studies, they found that overall, men tended to have a faster Life History Strategy than women. It was argued that this is probably due the biological fact that men have a lower obligation to offspring than do women. They also found that a measure of Life History Strategy was positively related to a composite measure of the Dark Triad, but the correlation was primarily driven by the psychopathy component of the Dark Triad (Jonason, Koenig, & Tost, in press). The Dark Triad was no longer associated with machiavellianism nor narcissism once the thrill-seeking and lying traits that comprise psychopathy were taken into account. This psychopathy link was replicated in another study of theirs in which those higher in psychopathy tended to report engaging in more risk-taking behaviors in their lives, and also engaged in more risk-taking during the actual experiment by choosing a smaller reward that day over a larger one in a year.

Similarly, in another paper titled "I just cannot control myself: The Dark Triad and self-control", Jonason & Tost (2010) found further evidence, across two studies, that psychopathy is associated with multiple measures of self-control, including a tendency to discount future consequences, and high rates of attention deficit disorder. Interestingly, narcissism wasn't associated with Life History Strategy in either of their studies, but machiavellianism was related to their measures of self-control in their second study (but not their first). The researchers conclude that

"the short-term exploitative strategy that characterizes the Dark Triad is supported by a system of limited self-control, a tendency to discount future consequences, and attention deficit symptoms. These systems are likely to leave the person with a fast life history strategy to feel as though they just cannot control themselves, although it is unlikely they want to.

In sum, research does indeed show a statistical correlation between the fast life and an inclination toward psychopathy. Still, I must repeat that this does not mean the fast life is the same thing as social deviance. The cluster of traits and behaviors that comprise the fast life permits such risky behaviors, but it is not compulsory. All the research taken together suggets that those who are more likely to commit serious crimes than others are those who are simultaneously a) biologically predisposed to living the fast life, b) are living under certain conditions (e.g., harsh and unpredictable environments) that make it more likely that the fast life genes will be activated (see Part II, Developing a Fast Life History Strategy), and c) are predisposed to the traits that make up psychopathology (e.g., lack of empathy).

Many living the fast life have a great deal of empathy but due to their lack of self-control tend to engage in risky behaviors that harm their own selves, even if they have no interest in harming others. This is important to keep in mind, as it can be easy to erroneously pigeonhole people living the fast life as also being socially deviant individuals. This isn't necessarily the case. Still, future research is needed that investigates the precise factors that turn an otherwise peaceful and law-abiding fast life strategist into a socially deviant person. Figueredo and his colleagues are currently designing studies to look at this issue, so stay tuned on that front. The field of behavioral ecology is fast evolving and the findings have a lot of relevance for social interventions.

Now that we looked at the evolutionary basis for these behaviors, what are the proximate cognitive mechanisms that facilitate the low levels of self-control found in fast life strategists?

Executive Functions, Rebelliousness, and Risk

Research suggests that a set of brain areas located in the frontal lobes of humans support self-control processes. These "executive functions" enable people the abilities to plan, inhibit, or delay responding. The extent to which these areas of the brain light up in an individual predicts whether that person is likely to follow the rule norms of society, and engage in a wide variety of risky behaviors. Correlations can also be found at the behavioral level of analysis. Various research studies have found that a cluster of socially deviant behaviors, such as a lack of positive peer influence, antisocial behavior, deficits in self-control, impulsivity, lack of future orientation, and risk-taking relate to systematic deficits in performance-based measured of Executive Functioning (e.g., Figueredo et al., 2005).

These areas of the brain allow for rule governance, which often take the form of compliance with verbal if-then statements. Where do these statements come from? Typically, it's other people who come up with these rules. Therefore, executive functions are really good at adhering to others' rules.

In a fascinating paper by Galizio (1979), he demonstrated that externally imposed rules can control behavior despite contradictory environmental contingencies. He had people learn a particular pattern of reinforcement and then told them that they were on a different schedule. He found that people's behavior then acted in accord with his rules, not the actual environmental contingencies. In other words, people behaved as if they were under the control of the contingency described by the rule rather than the actual contingency. In this situation, the participants' behavior was both maladaptive and irrational!

Extending this work, and linking the ability for rule governance to Executive Functioning, Figueredo & Jacobs (2010) argue that the lower the level of Executive Functioning in a person, the more directly that person will respond to immediate adaptive problems, environmental conditions, and behavioral outcomes (e.g., fast life behaviors). In contrast, they argue that the higher the level of Executive Functioning in a person, the more that individual will respond to long-term adaptive problems, environmental conditions, and behavioral outcomes (i.e., slower life behaviors). Either case can be adaptive depending on the context.

Mutalistic and Antagonistic Strategies

According to Malamuth's 1996 Confluence Model, those living the slow life are more prone to approach sexual relationships harmoniously and they therefore adopt mutualistic sexual strategies. This is because convergent interests are more conducive to the long-term planning of slow term strategists. On the other hand, those living the fast life are predicted to be more prone to approach sexual relationships antagonistically.

In a fascinating extension of Malamuth's model, Figueredo & Jacobs (2010) argue that the mutualistic-antagonistic spectrum doesn't apply just to the sexual domain, but also to the social domain. They argue those living the slow life are more prone to adopt a mutualistic social strategy toward others whereas those living the fast life will be more prone to adopt an antagonistic social strategy toward others.

Research does bear this out. Those living the slow life are indeed more likely to be securely attached, and engage in reciprocally altrustic relationships with family members and friends, as well as romantic partners and their offspring (see Part III: Romantic Attachment in the Fast Lane). Slow life strategists do prefer long-term and cooperative social and sexual relationships, which is indeed an adaptive preference in stable, predictable, and controllable environments. The mutualistic social strategy slower life strategists adopt is inherently less risky. Being open to following the rules set by others is simply less risky than being a 'rebel'.

On the other hand, a fast Life History Strategy, and the associated insecure attachment found in those with this strategy (Part III: Romantic Attachment in the Fast Lane), is associated with an antagonistic social strategy that brings one in conflict with others but is also consistent with short-term gains. The deficits in behavioral and emotional self-regulation found in fast life strategists facilitates this conflict, causing potential hard to self and others. As Figueredo & Jacobs (2010) point out, the same conditions of environmental harshness and unpredictability that contributes to the evolution and development of the fast life (see Part I: Evolution of the Fast Life and Part II: Developing a Fast Life History) also facilitates an antagonistic social strategy. As they astutely note, "harm to others and potential harm to self are therefore intimately intertwined in multiple ways and at multiple levels that are difficult to disentangle in the real world."

Taken together, we we can start to understand, from both a distal evolutionary perspective and a proximal brain and environmental perspective, why and how those living the fast life tend to be more rebellious, risk-taking, and impulsive than those living the slower life.

Dangerous Minds

Fool, death ain't nothing but a heart beat away,
I'm living life do or die, what can I say?
I'm twenty-three now, will I ever live to see twenty-four,
The way things is going I don't know...
We've been spending most our lives
Living in a gangsta's paradise.
- Coolio

I think there is a lot of potential for Life History Strategy to be integrated with educational psychology, particularly when it comes to developing creativity. Life History Theory gives us greater insight into the mechanisms by which students adapt to their environments- inside and outside of the classroom. Lots of students with extraordinary potential for making socially valuable contributions have their potential squandered because their energies are directed toward other concerns involving survival and reproduction.

Note that while Life History Strategy is directly related to brain-based executive functions that may get in the way of school performance, Life History Strategy is not directly related to IQ. While IQ test performance is related to tests of Executive Functioning, the processes evoked when taking an IQ test aren't exactly the same as the processes evoked on tests of Executive Fucntioning (see Heitz et al., 2006). Life History Strategy is less directly tied to IQ and more tied to executive functioning and the self-control and emotional self-regulation skills that Executive Functioning affords. Therefore, fast life strategists are not 'stupid'. In fact, if you define intelligence as the ability to adapt to the environment (as many intelligence researchers define the term), then fast life strategists are, in certain environments, very intelligent.

Many fast life strategists are reprimanded in school for displaying social problems that are adaptive in their environment outside the classroom but may not be adaptive inside the classroom. Indeed, my past-advisor Robert J. Sternberg has long-argued that "practical intelligence" is a form of intelligence just as important as the type of analytical skills measured by IQ tests (see Sternberg's book, How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life). The importance of looking at context in making sense of a wide range of intelligent behaviors has also been made quite convincingly by Stephen Ceci (see Ceci's book On Intelligence...More or Less: A Biological Treatise on Intellectual Development).

While intelligence theorists rarely peer through an evolutionarily lens (a state of affairs I find unfortunate), I think looking at the entire suite of human strategies from an evolutionarily informed perspective offers potential for helping teachers better understand the evolutionary logic behind many of the traits and behaviors they see in their classrooms. Just as I stared non-judgementally at James Dean and really tried to get into his head, I think teachers may get more out of their students by really getting into their student's heads and attempting to understand the evolutionary logic behind many of their classroom behaviors. Such an understanding can potentially help students channel their strategies toward socially acceptable creative and productive pursuits. There's no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater; some fast life traits such as risk-taking, questioning of authority, and rebelliousness can be quite conducive to creativity. Don't we want to teach our students to question authority, and not blindly follow other people's rules? Unfortunately, displays of creativity and low executive functioning are not highly valued in most classrooms (see Jonah Lehrer's blog post Classroom Creativity which summarizes recent articles in this regard). A recent paper called "Cognition without control: When a little frontal lobe goes a long way", however, points to the various benefits, including creativity and language learning, of deactivating executive functions (Thompson-Schill, Ramscar, & Chrysikou, 2009).

Thankfully, there's some exciting work being done looking at education from an evolutionarily-informed perspective. I highly recommend checking out Peter Gray's work on the topic (for examples, see ADHD and School: The Problem of Assessing Normalcy in an Abnormal Environment and The "ADHD Personality": Its Cognitive, Biological, and Evolutionary Foundations). While Gray doesn't explicitly tie ADHD with Life History Strategy, I think there is good reason to link the two to each other, especially in light of Jonason & Tost's (2010) article that links attention deficit disorder and a lack of self-control to Life History Strategy. At the end of the day, the key to dealing with life's many demands seems to be the ability to strategically activate or deactivate executive funcions depending on the context. This skill is not taught in schools, but why not?

Another key to educating those in the fast lane is to convince them that there is a reason for them to invest in their creativity- that their investment will pay off. Many living the fast life really do perceive their future as dire. The Life History framework predicts that in order to have long-lasting changes on student's living the fast life, you have to change their harsh and unpredictable contexts, as this is the most likely way their strategies will change from seeking short-term gains to seeing a purpose for longer-term planning.

While Life History Strategy certainly doesn't explain everything, I think there is a lot of potential for using Life History Strategy to inform educational structure and practices. There are a lot of students who may not be well-adapted to a structured classroom environment, but that does not mean that they can't harnass their particular way of thinking and behaving in a way that that is highly innovative as well as socially and culturally valued.

© 2010 by Scott Barry Kaufman

Other Parts of the Series

Part I: Evolution of the Fast Life

Part II: Developing a Fast Life History Strategy

Part III, Romantic Attachment in the Fast Lane

Part V, Social Class and Public Policy

Part VI: Consilience, Pop Culture, and Modern Living

References

Andrzejczak, D.J., Jones, D.N., Smith, V., Montero, E., & Figueredo, A.J. (2007). Ethnocentrism and life history strategy. Paper. In Figueredo, A. J., (Chair), Correlates of life history strategy. Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Williamsburg, Virginia.

Donovan, J. E. & Jessor, R. (1985). Structure of problem behavior in adolescence and young adulthood. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 53, 890-904.

Figueredo, A. J., Frías-Armenta, M., Valdez, P., Nava, M. G., Borrani, J., Contreras, M., Vega, B., & Ríos, D. (2005). Executive function and juvenile delinquency: Preliminary data. Paper. In Figueredo, A.J., (Chair), Life history strategy and mental abilities. Annual Meeting of the International Society for Intelligence Research, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Figueredo, A.J., & Jacobs, W.J. (2010). Aggression, risk-taking, and alternative life history strategies: The behavioral ecology of social deviance. In M. Frias-Armenta & V. Corral-Verdugo (Eds.), Biopsychosocial Perspectives on Interpersonal Violence. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, in press.

Figueredo, A.J., Vasquez, G., Brumbach, B.H., Schneider, S.M.R., Sefcek, J.A., Tal, I.R., Hill, D., Wenner, C.J., & Jacobs, W.J. (2006). Consilience and Life History Theory: From genes to brain to reproductive strategy. Developmental Review, 26, 243-275.

Figueredo, A.J., Vasquez, G., Brumbach, B.H., & Schneider, S.M.R. (2007). The K-Factor, covitality, and personality: A psychometric test of life history theory. Human Nature, 18, 47-73.

Galizio, M. (1979). Contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior: Instructional control of human loss avoidance. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 31, 53-70.

Gladden, P.R., Sisco, M., & Figueredo, A.J., (2008). Sexual Coercion and Life History Strategy, Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 319-326.

Heitz, R. P., Redick, T. S., Hambrick, D. Z., Kane, M. J., Conway, A. R. A., & Engle, R. W. (2006). WM, EF, and gF are not the same. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 135-136.

Heym, N., & Lawrence, C. (2007). The relationship between psychoticism, empathy and aggression. Paper. 13th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, Giessen, Germany.

Jonason, P.K., Koenig, B., & Tost, J. (in press). Living the fast life: Psychopathy links the Dark Triad to Life History Theory. Human Nature.

Jonason, P.K., & Tost, J. (2010). I just cannot control myself: The Dark Triad and self-control. Personality and Individual Differences, 49, 606-610.

Malamuth, N. M. (1996). The confluence model of sexual aggression: Feminist and evolutionary perspectives. In Buss, D. M., & Malamuth, N. M., (Eds.), Sex, power, conflict: Evolutionary and feminist perspectives, pp. 269-295. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Thompson-Schill, S.L., Ramscar, M., & Chrysikou, E.G. (2009). Cognition without control: When a little frontal lobe goes a long way. Current Directions in Psychology Science, 18, 259-263.