Generosity among the Ik of Uganda.

Cathryn Townsend,Athena Aktipis,Lee Cronk,Daniel Balliet

doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.22

Abstract

According to Turnbull's 1972 ethnography The Mountain People, the Ik of Uganda had a culture of selfishness that made them uncooperative. His claims contrast with two widely accepted principles in evolutionary biology, that humans cooperate on larger scales than other species and that culture is an important facilitator of such cooperation. We use recently collected data to examine Ik culture and its influence on Ik behaviour. Turnbull's observations of selfishness were not necessarily inaccurate but they occurred during a severe famine. Cooperation re-emerged when people once again had enough resources to share. Accordingly, Ik donations in unframed Dictator Games are on par with average donations in Dictator Games played by people around the world. Furthermore, Ik culture includes traits that encourage sharing with those in need and a belief in supernatural punishment of selfishness. When these traits are used to frame Dictator Games, the average amounts given by Ik players increase. Turnbull's claim that the Ik have a culture of selfishness can be rejected. Cooperative norms are resilient, and the consensus among scholars that humans are remarkably cooperative and that human cooperation is supported by culture can remain intact.

Highlights

IntroductionIn the evolutionary biological study of cooperation, it is widely accepted that humans cooperate with each other in a wide variety of ways and on large scales (Herrmann, Thoni, & Gachter, 2008; Cronk & Leech, 2013; Peysakhovich, Nowak, & Rand, 2014; Ensminger & Henrich, 2014; Turchin, 2015; Gächter & Schulz, 2016; Falk et al, 2018) and that culture, defined as socially transmitted information (Cronk 1999; Alvard 2003), is a primary reason for our species’ success in the arena of cooperation (Boyd & Richerson 2009)
Across our analyses of Dictator Games, considering what we know about generosity in a range of different societies, the generosity observed among the Ik falls within the expected range of possible giving
These analyses suggest that the Ik are not outliers in their average amounts of giving in Dictator Games

Summary

Introduction

In the evolutionary biological study of cooperation, it is widely accepted that humans cooperate with each other in a wide variety of ways and on large scales (Herrmann, Thoni, & Gachter, 2008; Cronk & Leech, 2013; Peysakhovich, Nowak, & Rand, 2014; Ensminger & Henrich, 2014; Turchin, 2015; Gächter & Schulz, 2016; Falk et al, 2018) and that culture, defined as socially transmitted information (Cronk 1999; Alvard 2003), is a primary reason for our species’ success in the arena of cooperation (Boyd & Richerson 2009) Those claims contrast sharply with findings presented in The Mountain People, an ethnography of the Ik people of northeastern Uganda by Colin Turnbull published in 1972 (Turnbull 1972). Turnbull found Ik behaviour and Ik culture so repugnant that he advocated that they be forcibly ‘rounded up in something approaching a military operation’ without regard to ‘age, sex, or kinship’ ‘in small units of about ten’ and ‘taken to parts of Uganda sufficiently remote for them not to be able to return’ to their home as a way of eliminating the culture traits, including their language, that he believed led them to be so selfish

Methods

Results

Conclusion