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Strong reciprocity and human sociality.
1Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. hgintis@mediaone.net
Journal of Theoretical Biology
|September 1, 2000
Summary
Humans exhibit strong reciprocity, a prosocial behavior involving cooperation and punishment, which helps explain sociality even without close kinship. This study explores its evolutionary origins.
Area of Science:
- Social psychology
- Evolutionary biology
- Behavioral economics
Background:
- Human groups display remarkable sociality despite low genetic relatedness.
- Traditional explanations like kinship and reciprocal altruism do not fully account for this cooperation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review evidence for strong reciprocity as a driver of human sociality.
- To present a model for the evolutionary emergence of strong reciprocity.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of empirical evidence for strong reciprocity.
- Development of a stylized evolutionary model.
Main Results:
- Strong reciprocity, characterized by cooperation and punishment of non-cooperators, is an empirically identifiable human behavior.
- This behavior persists even when not kin-selected or reciprocally altruistic.
Conclusions:
- Strong reciprocity is a key factor in understanding human sociality.
- The proposed model offers a plausible explanation for its evolutionary development.