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40 Evolution, Psychology, and Reason that these soldiers have probably subconsciously come to believe that the people they are killing are inferior or subhuman to them in some sense. Numerous examples exist of people living peacefully together for many years and then some event divides them into separate groups, and they begin to hate and attack one another. One such event was the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 along religious lines into India and Pakistan. Until then, Hindus and Muslims had lived relatively peacefully together on the Indian subcontinent.

The tit-for-tat strategy might have been developed in one of B. F. Skinner’s laboratories. II. Cognitive Psychology Operant behaviorism does not explain all actions. When one confronts a grizzly bear in the woods, turning and running is generally not a good strategy for staying alive. Indeed, there is no sure strategy for accomplishing this end, but standing one’s ground and staring down the bear is more likely to get it to walk away than turning and running. Yet how would the first person who confronted a grizzly have known to stand his ground rather than run?

During the gasoline crisis of the 1970s in the United States, there were long lines to get gas, and some line cutters were even shot and killed by irate drivers further back in the line. Unfortunately, not all of the mental processes that aid survival on the African savanna have positive value in a twenty-first-century, postindustrial society. If a pickpocket takes your wallet and you detect it, an instinctive reaction is irate rage. Many people will give chase to the pickpocket and risk their lives from a heart attack or a knife wound, even though the financial loss from the theft is rather modest.