Experimental economics in anthropology: A critical assessment

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn recent years, well‐funded cross‐cultural economic experiments have received considerable publicity in science journals. The anthropologists conducting these experiments have made ambitious claims about the value of their research, saying that their findings “illuminate the nature of human nature” and the “appropriateness of the assumption of self‐interest that underpins much of social science.” The publication of a new book, Foundations of Human Sociality, provides an opportunity to assess these claims. The findings reported in the book are consistent with long‐accepted ideas in sociocultural anthropology. The book's contributors are often insufficiently critical of theoretical assumptions in economics, psychology, and biology and pay insufficient attention to relevant theory in economic anthropology. In particular, the evolutionary psychology paradigm accepted by many anthropologists conducting economic experiments does not aid in understanding their findings.