graphing jane austen: palaeolithic politics in british novels of the 19 th century

Graphing Jane Austen: Palaeolithic Politics in British Novels of the 19th Century

• Website questionnaire on 2,000 characters from 202 British novels of the longer 19th century

• 1,494 protocols completed

• Separate website for Thomas Hardy’s

The Mayor of Casterbridge (124 protocols completed)

• 441 individual characters profiled and graphed

Joseph Carroll, Jonathan Gottschall, John Johnson, Daniel Kruger

Research Design

Content of characters:

• Sex

• Age

• Attractiveness

• Personality

• Motives

• Mate Selection Criteria

Responses of readers:

• Emotional responses

• Do you want the character to succeed?

• Is the character’s success a main feature of the story?

Role assignment:

Is the character:

a protagonist?

an antagonist?

a good minor character ?

or a bad minor character?

Designs of the author

Ethos of individual novels

Ethos of a whole culture

(end here) (start here)

Why?

FOUR

REASONS

1. To demonstrate that major components of literary meaning can be reduced to the elements of human nature.

1. To demonstrate that major components of literary meaning can be reduced to the elements of human nature.

2. To test empirically the hypothesis that agonistic structure reflects the evolved dynamics of coalitional psychology.

1. To demonstrate that major components of literary meaning can be reduced to the elements of human nature.

2. To test empirically the hypothesis that agonistic structure reflects the evolved dynamics of coalitional psychology.

3. To bring empirical evidence to bear on the theoretical controversy over the adaptive function of literature.

1. To demonstrate that major components of literary meaning can be reduced to the elements of human nature.

2. To test empirically the hypothesis that agonistic structure reflects the evolved dynamics of coalitional psychology.

3. To bring empirical evidence to bear on the theoretical controversy over the adaptive function of literature.

4. To generate new empirical knowledge and begin a process of cumulative knowledge acquisition in literary study.

REASON ONE:

To demonstrate that major components of literary meaning

can be reduced to the elements of human nature derived from evolutionary psychology.

Original Motives DominanceConstructive

Effort Romance Subsistence Nurture

Survival 0.80

Routine work 0.76

Short-term mating 0.63 -0.56

Long-term mating 0.83

Wealth 0.70 0.38

Power 0.89

Prestige 0.89

Help non-kin -0.34 0.56 0.41

Education 0.77

Make friends 0.62

Building/Creating 0.73

Help offspring/kin 0.82

12 Motives Reduced to Five Motive Factors(loadings greater than .3 or -.3)

Motive Factors: Protagonists and Antagonists

-0.80

-0.60

-0.40

-0.20

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

1.20

standard

ized s

core

s

Dominance -0.03 -0.26 0.87 0.97

Constructive Effort 0.59 0.41 -0.64 -0.5

Romance -0.2 0.4 -0.05 -0.26

Subsistence 0.34 -0.08 0.04 -0.46

Nurture -0.11 0.34 -0.61 -0.14

Male protags Female Protags Male antags Female antags

Extrinsic Attributes

Intrinsic Qualities

Physical Attractiveness

Power 0.89

Prestige 0.91

Wealth 0.88

Reliability 0.85

Kindness 0.85

Intelligence 0.78

Physical Attractiveness 0.98

Seven Long-Term Mate-Selection Criteria

Reduced to Three Factors (loadings greater than .3 or -.3)

Original Criteria

Long-Term Mate-Selection Preferences in Protagonists and Antagonists

-1.2

-1

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

standard

ized s

core

s

Extrinsic -0.1 0.29 -0.15 0.64

Intrinsic 0.07 0.53 -0.94 -1.01

Attractiveness 0.57 -0.16 -0.05 0.1

Male protags Female protags Male antags Female antags

FIVE PERSONALITY FACTORS

Extraversion ---- assertiveness and sociability

Agreeableness ---- warmth and affiliative behavior

Conscientiousness ---- organization and reliability

Emotional Stability ---- calmness and evenness of temper

Openness to Experience ---- curiosity or mental liveliness

Personality Factors: Protagonists and Antagonists

-1.4

-1.2

-1

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

standard

ized s

core

s

Extraversion -0.34 -0.17 0.38 0.52

Agreeableness 0.25 0.52 -1.13 -1.19

Conscientiousness 0.3 0.35 -0.47 0.04

Stability 0.2 0.21 -0.34 -0.55

Openness 0.25 0.5 -0.42 -0.24

Male protags Female Protags Male antags Female antags

10 Emotional Responses Reduced to Three Emotional Response Factors (loadings greater than .3 or -.3)

Original Emotions Dislike Sorrow Interest

Anger 0.86

Disgust 0.89

Contempt 0.83

Fear of character 0.72

Admiration -0.73 0.30

Liking -0.78 0.42

Fear for character 0.77

Sadness 0.83

Amusement -0.67 0.47

Indifference -0.86

Emotional Response Factors for Protagonists and Antagonists

-1

-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

standard

ized s

core

s

Dislike -0.37 -0.47 1.38 1.21

Sorrow 0.33 0.41 -0.48 -0.26

Interest -0.15 0.36 0.12 0.25

Male protags Female protags Male antags Female antags

REASON TWO:

To test empirically the contention

that agonistic structure

reflects an egalitarian ethos

central

to human evolutionary history.

19871985

1998 19981999

20012005 2007

REASON THREE:

To bring empirical evidence to bear on a major theoretical controversy:

THE ADAPTIVE FUNCTION

OF LITERATURE.

• We can draw inferences about adaptive function by working backwards from the observations of actual effects.

• We can draw inferences about adaptive function by working backwards from the observations of actual effects.

• What actual psychological and social functions do these novels fulfill?

• We can draw inferences about adaptive function by working backwards from the observations of actual effects.

• What actual psychological and social functions do these novels fulfill?

• What plausible connections can we draw between current psychological and social function and function within the EEA?

REASON FOUR:

To generate empirical findings about the novels as a whole

and about

particular novels and novelists.

REASON FOUR:

To generate empirical findings about the novels as a whole

and about

particular novels and novelists.

We thus generate knowledge that is

both new and cumulative.

Narrowing

“possibility space”

--limiting the range

of possible explanation.

35 Topics

on which we produced

specific findings

1. The existence and function of agonistic structure

2. The relation of agonistic structure to the evolved political dispositions of human nature

3. The commanding power authors exercise in determining meaning and affect

4. The essentially positive character of the male-female relation in the novels

5. The broad overlap in readers’ attributions and responses to characters

6. The factors that distinguish agonistically ambiguous characters

7. The reduction in goal achievement for protagonists after 1880

8. The relatively low level of Interest in male protagonists

9. The use of basic emotions and basic motives in stipulating genres as natural kinds

10. The interaction of authorial point of view, basic emotions, and basic motives in modulating the kind of psychological work performed by novels

11. The correlation of male and female mate-selection strategies with fantasy modes in Romance and pornography

12. The age distribution of male and female characters

13. The configurations of age and attractiveness in agonistic structure

14. The identification of plot structures with basic elements in human life

15. The affiliative and culturally active character of protagonists

16. The isolation of dominance behavior within antagonistic characters

17. The convergence of female mating preferences and antagonistic dominance behavior in female antagonists

18. The assimilation of amoral male sexual preferences to the normative value structure of the novels

19. The norm of balance and moderation in protagonists

20. The scope and depth of personal identity themes, outside the range of sex, race, and class, available within the five-factor model of personality

21. The dominance of female psychological dispositions within the normative value structure of the novels

22. The massive subordination of Sex to Valence in the novels

23. The essentially non-agonistic character of male-female relations in the novels

24. The distorting pressure of coalitional psychology in the depiction of protagonistic male status striving in the novels

25. The neutrality of reader sex in the emotional responses of readers

26. The distorting influence of male authorial psychology on the depiction of female characters

27. The distorting influence of female authorial psychology on the depiction of male characters

28. The broad convergence of male and female authors in the depiction of male and female characters

29. The use of narrative to negotiate socio-sexual conflict

30. The influence of authorial sex on the ideology of gender

31. The feminization of protagonistic males in Austen’s novels

32. The elimination of Sorrow from Austen’s emotional register

33. The organization of personality, emotions, and motives in the tonal and thematic structures of Pride and Prejudice

34. The effect of problematic role assignments and authorial distance on the emotional responses of readers of The Mayor of Casterbridge

35. The basic elements of human social interaction that have been isolated and over-generalized in the three models of tragedy used to interpret The Mayor of Casterbridge

THE

ONE MOST

IMPORTANT

FINDING:

Agonistic structure mirrors the basic political dynamic in egalitarian hunter-gatherer cultures.

Agonistic structure mirrors the basic political dynamic in egalitarian hunter-gatherer cultures.

This is an empirical finding,

NOT a speculative, discursive observation.

From this

empirical finding,

we can draw an inference

of large

theoretical significance:

• The novels serve as a medium for readers to participate in an egalitarian social ethos.

• The novels serve as a medium for readers to participate in an egalitarian social ethos.

• The novels help create the ethos that governs the society of its readers. That ethos enables people to cooperate as a social unit.

• The novels serve as a medium for readers to participate in an egalitarian social ethos.

• The novels help create the ethos that governs the society of its readers. That ethos enables people to cooperate as a social unit.

• Modern readers of the novels participate vicariously in this same ethos.

• Does the current psychological function of the novels parallel an adaptive function fictional narrative might have possessed in ancestral environments?

• Does the current psychological function of the novels parallel an adaptive function fictional narrative might have possessed in ancestral environments?

• The egalitarian political dynamic uncovered by Boehm suggests that the answer is “yes.”

• Does the current psychological function of the novels parallel an adaptive function fictional narrative might have possessed in ancestral environments?

• The egalitarian political dynamic uncovered by Boehm suggests that the answer is “yes.”

• The novels serve as prosthetic extensions of cultural practices that in oral cultures require face-to-face interaction.

The adaptive function of literature

is centrally important

to our understanding

of the evolved and adapted

character

of

human nature.

2006 2007

Thanks

for

your

attention.

Graphing Jane Austen

Joe Carroll, Jon Gottschall, John Johnson, Dan Kruger