Cooperation and altruism. Flashcards
altruism definition from an adaptationist perspective -
Intentionality, Deliberate altruism.
Important.
Natural selection has designed this adaptation for the delivery of benefits to another organism.
Four types of interactions?
mutualism
selfishness
altruism
spite
Mutualism
is ‘cooperation’, but not puzzling (unlike ‘altruism’); why?
Doesn’t involve altruism.
E.g. Flowers - bees get nectar, flowers get pollinated.
Corpse flower - smells like rotting meat. - flies like it and get the pollen on the legs, and spread it.
Reciprocal Altruism
Trivers -
‘You scratch my back i’ll scratch yours’.
Do something for me that I can’t do for myself, and I’ll repay the favour.
A mutually beneficial exchange.
examples of Reciprocal Altruism
Grooming behaviour in primates - getting parasites off if they can’t do it themselves.
Food sharing in Norway rats.
‘Windfall’ resources
something extra, something you weren’t expecting.
It’s insurance/chance - you never know who will be the lucky one.
So when it’s you who lucks out, you share, so they will do the same.
The chief obstacle to the evolution of reciprocity?
Avoiding cheaters.
Based on this observation, Cosmides and Tooby did famous work on the Wason Selection Task.
Used the pre-existing term ‘social exchange’ (=reciprocal altruism).
The mind consists of domain-specific cognitive systems for reasoning about social exchange.
reasoning mechanisms that work well, when processing information about social exchange.
Specifically when processing information about social exchange or reciprocal altruism.
‘Blank slate’ prediction: reasoning about social exchange involves domain-general reasoning mechanisms.
Reasoning mechanisms work well regardless of information content.
The Wason Selection Task:
results?
With either familiar or unfamiliar content:
5-30% correct without social exchange.
65-80% correct with social exchange.
Massive effect.
When reciprocal altruism is introduced, performance dramatically improves.
Improved performance whenever the task involved cheater detection in social exchange (reciprocal altruism).
what did the The Wason selection task studies establish?
Our minds consist of domain-specific mechanisms, which evolved to solve adaptive problems.
indirect reciprocity -
Similar to reciprocal altruism, however you judge based on what other people have told you about them instead of past behaviour that you have observed yourself.
REPUTATION…
Reciprocity can also be achieved (and cheater avoided) based on what?
on others’ interaction histories.
The human ability to gossip, spread reputational information (language is essential).
What may also help explain ‘overly-altruistic’ behaviour?
- Reputational effects
- When these games provide the opportunity to see past altruism or reputation, people are more altruistic.
Even with anonymity in games where people are likely to be selfish, they are still quite generous. - this may be because their actions are being monitored in a lab.
When there are pictures of eyes looking at you, you are more likely to be altruistic.
People paid more just when pictures of eyes were there.
The presence of a piece of paper with eyes on it is more effective than reducing bike theft than CCTV. - more ecologically valid ancestral queue.
Costly Signalling:
Altruism as advertisement of desirable qualities (Barclay et al, 2021).
Makes oneself more attractive as an ally or mate.
E.g. if you buy everyone a drink at the bar, you portray yourself as wealthy and maybe the kind of person people want to be friends with.
Such altruism may actually be aggressively selfish.
Can be used in exploitative dominating ways.
It is showing off. - they can become dependent on you as you are seen as powerful.
Group selection:
Very controversial.
People benefit from being in strong groups.
But also from out competing co members of their own group.
Rare to be no conflict of interest at all.
Brings up the free rider problem in collective action.
Collective Action:
Collective action involves ‘complex cooperation’.
Jointly producing some outcome that benefits the group.
E.g. for ‘production of public good’ - e.g. clear air/water.
Cannot exclude people from access.
When everyone receives the same reward, the lowest contributors come out on top.
Free riders have the highest benefit-to-contribution ratio.
main obstacle of collective action?
- free rider problem
- Free riding can occur at any organisational level.
E.g. CEO makes 300x the average salary without contributing 300x as much. - Free rider problem is the longstanding major problem in psychology, social and biological sciences.
Central obstacle to evolution and success of collective action.
How do we solve the free rider problem?
First solution:
Punitive sentiment/punishment; higher contributors are more punitive.
- Because it benefits you, so you are punitive towards people who do not contribute.
- Or, whether or not its important to you, you are contributing a lot, so you expect others to contribute a lot because you’d be at a disadvantage.
- Second solution to the free rider problem:
- Partner choice (positive assortment / positive assortation).
- People band together, and exclude the free riders.
- Allows co-operators to interact preferentially with each other, and exclude the free riders.
what is the ‘2nd-order free rider problem’.
Punishment is costly, because it often provokes retaliation.
Punishers punish back.
Punishment of free riders itself is considered a ‘second order public good’.
Therefore, punishment in collective action is referred to as ‘altruistic punishment’.
Solutions to ‘2nd-order free rider problem’?
Punishment can be done cheaply (e.g. subtle shunning). Punishers may benefit from punishing: Seen as a more trustworthy Group-focused Worthy of respect May deter free riding of self Scares off potential exploiters.
