Abstract
This chapter discusses vigilance and the group-size effects in human behavior. A widely studied phenomenon is the "group-size effect", whereby vigilant behavior, operationalized as the frequency and/or duration of scans, decreases as the group size increases. Such a pattern has been observed in many non-human animals, including birds, mammals, and fish—species in which individuals associate with two or more conspecifics and thereby constitute a group. The group size effect has also been observed in humans despite the virtual absence of predation in modern human societies. Thus, the group-size effect in humans may be a relic of selection in the evolutionary environment of human ancestors. The group-size effect has generally been attributed to the influence of predation risk on the behavior of individuals. For example, because every group member benefits when a predator is detected, individuals can reduce their own scanning rate, without decreasing the probability of predator detection, if all group members do some scanning for predators
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