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vanderZwan 4 days ago

Weirdly enough that conclusion reminds me of a scene I once saw in a nature documentary. It involved a species of birds where the males showed off their "fitness" to the females by doing dangerous things. One remarkable thing was that in one particular area near a highway, a group had adapted to show off by diving in front of a car without being hit (I guess that that species already used to do that with snakes and other predators before).

Anyway, in a general sense that's a particular type of sexual selection[0] that's been observed more often: showing that you are a healthy individual with good genes by taking risks. It probably has name. I suspect that with humans it's also an instinctual way of showing off who is the strongest in your peer group, without the sexual selection connotations.

EDIT: turns out the wikipedia article was one click removed from what I had in mind: signaling theory! (the evolutionary biology version)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory