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1.5.9 What Is a Coalition? In Signaling Theory, It's a Cooperative Alliance Between Individuals—Even Non-relatives
Vervet monkeys produce calls that communicate both referential and emotional meaning. These calls warn their kin of an approaching predator (emotional meaning—fear). Each type of call specifies a different type of predator (referential meaning—snake, eagle, etc.). The vervets react to each type of call with a different escape pattern, depending on the predator indicated in the call.
In humans and in non-human animals, the auditory system connects directly to regions of the brain that control muscles. If you hear something unusual, your body can automatically react quickly. When somebody sneaks up behind you and yells “Boo!”, you jump instantly, without a moment’s thought.
Music and motor control also go together, as evidenced in dancing, clapping along to a beat, head nodding, and so on. How might our rhythmic and entrainment skills have arisen?
Possibly through coalition signalling. A coalition is a cooperative alliance.
As selfish gene theory predicts, we humans, like other animals, tend to favour those who carry our genes or those whose genes we carry—our close kin, in other words. Especially our progeny. But humans also have the unique ability to form many friendships and alliances with individuals in whom we have no kinship investment whatever. Coalitions.