Abstract
There is growing recognition in both evolutionary biology and anthropology that dispersal is key to establishing patterns of cooperation. However, some models predict that cooperation is more likely to evolve in low dispersal (viscous) populations, while others predict that local competition for resources inhibits cooperation. Sex-biased dispersal and extra-pair mating may also have an effect. Using economic games in Sino-Tibetan populations with strikingly different dispersal patterns, we measure cooperation in 36 villages in southwestern China; we test whether social structure is associated with cooperative behaviour toward those in the neighbourhood. We find that social organization is associated with levels of cooperation in public goods and dictator games and a resource dilemma; people are less cooperative towards other villagers in communities where dispersal by both sexes is low. This supports the view that dispersal for marriage played an important role in the evolution of large-scale cooperation in human society.
Highlights
There is growing recognition in both evolutionary biology and anthropology that dispersal is key to establishing patterns of cooperation
We find that social organization is associated with levels of cooperation in both public goods and dictator games and a resource dilemma; people are less cooperative towards the other villagers in communities where dispersal by both sexes is low
Linear multilevel models were used in the dictator game (DG) and public goods game (PGG) and generalized linear multilevel models (Poisson) were used in the resource dilemma game (RDG), with response variables dictator giving in the DG, public goods contribution in the PGG and tea taken in the RDG
Summary
There is growing recognition in both evolutionary biology and anthropology that dispersal is key to establishing patterns of cooperation. We find that social organization is associated with levels of cooperation in public goods and dictator games and a resource dilemma; people are less cooperative towards other villagers in communities where dispersal by both sexes is low. This supports the view that dispersal for marriage played an important role in the evolution of large-scale cooperation in human society. In southwest China, the matrilineal groups we study (the Mosuo, the Zhaba and a matrilineal population of Pumi) show a rare ‘duolocal’ system where neither sex disperses Both sexes remain in their multigenerational, natal household, often for life[22,23,24], and men visit their wives or girlfriends only at night. The co-existence of societies with no dispersal for marriage, within the same region, same language family, and following broadly similar agro-pastoral subsistence strategies, as patrilocal cultures with high and intermediate levels of female dispersal, provides a unique opportunity to examine the effects of dispersal patterns on human cooperation in a real world setting
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