Theory Of Reciprocal Altruism Research Articles

A moderated mediation model of tourist cultural worldviews, perceived social relations, self-esteem, and prosocial behaviors - analyzing competing models

Despite a great deal of recent scholarly attention devoted to prosocial behaviors in tourism, its central antecedents from a socio-psychological and cultural perspective remain unknown. Using key socio-cultural constructs (cultural worldviews, perceived social relations, and self-esteem), this research examines a baseline model and compares it with a competing model to highlight alternative theoretical possibilities. We employ the face negotiation theory, the theory of reciprocal altruism, the sociometer theory, and the terror management theory to disentangle these relationships highlighting self-esteem’s significant role. The results are based on a survey of 403 tourists in a popular tourist destination in Asia, Macau. In the better-fitted model, findings demonstrate that while cultural worldviews and perceived social relations significantly predict prosocial behaviors, self-esteem moderates the extent to which both cultural worldviews and perceived social relations would trigger prosocial behaviors. These findings contribute valuable theoretical, methodological, and practical insights into the relationships among prosocial behavior and its socio-cultural antecedents.

Reciprocal Altruism in a Charity-Fundraising Event: Reconceptualizing the Cost of Volunteering

Following a scholarly bias toward the benefit of volunteering, this study aims to investigate the cost paid by volunteers. Underpinned by the sociobiological theory of reciprocal altruism, the benefit of volunteering is reconceptualized as the return of costs incurred by volunteering. Drawing from fieldwork conducted in Open Gardens (private gardens open to the public as tourist attractions and a means of charity-fundraising), this study identified three kinds of costs paid by volunteers in exchange for benefits: fear of failure to live up to visitors’ expectations, reluctance to reject garden owners’ requests, and reluctance to mobilize friends. The study highlighted “cheaters” who deliberately refrained from paying these costs and discussed their impact on the management of Open Gardens. As a steppingstone to detect cheaters and recruit reliable volunteers, the study calls for more research into the cost of volunteering.

Pathways to antisocial behavior: a framework to improve diagnostics and tailor therapeutic interventions.

The Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), and antisocial behavior (ASB) in general, is associated with significant impact on individuals themselves, their environment, and society. Although various interventions show promising results, no evidence-based treatments are available for individuals with ASPD. Therefore, making informed choices about which treatment can be applied to an individual patient is complicated. Furthermore, contradictory findings on therapy effectiveness and underlying factors of ASB, such as cognitive impairments and personality traits, fuel the debate whether the conceptualization of ASPD in the DSM-5 is accurate and whether this population can be seen as homogeneous. A conceptual framework, based on the reciprocal altruism theory, is presented in which we propose different pathways to ASB. These pathways suggest underlying dynamics of ASB and provide an explanation for previous contradictory research outcomes. This framework is intended to serve as a clinically relevant model that provides directions for improving diagnostics and matching treatments to underlying dynamics in the antisocial population.

The impact of loneliness on compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines.

Many individuals have been reluctant to follow the COVID-19 prevention guidelines (e.g., wearing a mask, physical distancing, and vigilant handwashing) set forth by the U.S. Center for Disease Control to reduce the spread of COVID-19. In this research, we use reciprocal altruism theory to investigate the role of loneliness and its impact on compliance with these guidelines. Our findings indicate that lonely individuals are less willing to comply with COVID-19 prevention guidelines than non-lonely individuals. Process evidence suggests that this occurs as loneliness can inhibit an individual's sense of obligation to reciprocate to others. However, we demonstrate that framing information about COVID-19 through agentic (vs. communal) advertising messaging strategies can offset the negative impact of loneliness on compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines. Thus, marketers and policymakers may want to consider the important role of loneliness when tailoring messaging appeals that encourage compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines.

Community participation towards conservation of Touran National Park (TNP): an application of reciprocal altruism theory

ABSTRACT Past research linking tourism and reciprocal altruism (RA), although meagre, has typically focused on relationships between hosts and guests. To broaden the application of RA in tourism, the current study focuses specifically on a local community and their participation in conserving national park assets. Face-to-face interviews with 39 local stakeholders were conducted in Iran to investigate how locals' altruistic behaviours contribute to the conservation of Touran National Park. The results demonstrate that while altruism motives such as satisfying a moral obligation to support the environment, protecting wildlife, and doing something positive for the community were cited as the main reason for conservation cooperation for NGOs and environmentalists, self-interest was the main reason for conservation cooperation motives amongst tourism business operators in conserving the park. This study also showed that locals' altruistic behaviour is an important and influential factor in protecting valuable natural resources.

Belief in an Afterlife Influences Altruistic Helping Intentions in Alignment With Adaptive Tendencies.

Evolutionary definitions of altruism are only concerned with reproductive consequences and not motives or other psychological mechanisms, making them ideal for generalization to all forms of organisms. Hamilton's inclusive fitness theory explains altruistic behavior toward genetic relatives and has generated extensive empirical support. Trivers' theory of reciprocal altruism helps explain patterns of helping among non-kin, and other research has demonstrated that human helping intentions follow fitness consequences from age-based reproductive value on altruism. The current study examines a novel psychological factor, belief in the afterlife, which may influence altruistic helping intentions. Belief in the afterlife was incorporated into a previous study design assessing the effects of a target's genetic relatedness and age-based reproductive value. The influences of inclusive fitness and target age were reproduced in a non-Western sample of participants (N = 300) in Iran. Belief in the afterlife predicted the overall confidence of risking one's life to save another across all targets, and also moderated the effects of genetic relatedness and target age. Rather than promoting altruism equitably or advantaging those favored by adaptive tendencies, higher belief in an afterlife aligned with these tendencies in promoting further favoritism toward close kin and younger targets with higher reproductive value.

A decentralized cooperative solution to the iterated pacifist’s dilemma game: notes in the margin of Pinker’s theory of Leviathan

The current paper is heavily indebted to Steven Pinker’s theory of Leviathan. He made ingenious theoretical and historical use of the one-off prisoner’s dilemma game (= the pacifist’s dilemma game) and demonstrated how the state, as one of the most important institutions for controlling violence, solves the Hobbesian problem of anarchy. We argue, however, that centralized authoritarian solutions to the pacifist’s dilemma game continue to suffer from a few, specifiable problems that cause political violence, and citizens’ violence against one another, and that decentralized cooperative solutions to the pacifist’s dilemma game, arising from iterated solution concepts, are capable of solving these particular problems. A decentralized cooperative solution to the pacifist’s dilemma game, without the sovereign, is not only a feasible, but, also, under certain conditions, an evolutionarily stable equilibrium. There are several theoretical constructs that have reached essentially the same conclusion. These include the Folk Theorem by Robert Aumann, the theory of reciprocal altruism by Robert Trivers, and the strategic simulations and models of the evolution of cooperation by Robert Axelrod and William D. Hamilton. Constitutional democracy, based on citizens’ equal political rights and on the rule of law, incorporates some of the key logical components of the above-mentioned models of decentralized cooperation. It is not a perfect system of government, as such, but it does solve some of the key problems of political violence and instability that have plagued centralized authoritarian systems of government. The paper thus provides a new theoretical outlook upon the pacifying effects of constitutional democracy.

The merits of self-handicap: The handicap principle as an explanation of altruism compared to reciprocal altruism

AbstractThis paper reintroduces the Handicap Principle theory as an explanation of altruism. Handicap Principle is a general theory which has been increasingly applied in various disciplines and topics, though strangely it has been missing from both debates and empirical research on altruism in biology. We clarify the logic and principles of HP regarding altruistic behavior based on the costs and benefits to both the donor and the recipient of an altruistic act. We review supportive empirical studies of HP theory. We also compare Handicap Principle theory to Reciprocal Altruism theory and suggest how HP can explain paradigmatic examples of Reciprocal Altruism. Finally, the phenomenon of one-shot altruism is discussed in order to evaluate, and distinguish between, the different explanations of Handicap Principle and Reciprocal Altruism.

Food Sharing among Hadza Hunter-Gatherer Children.

Human prosociality is one of the defining characteristics of our species, yet the ontogeny of altruistic behavior remains poorly understood. The evolution of widespread food sharing in humans helped shape cooperation, family formation, life history, language, and the development of economies of scale. While the behavioral and ecological correlates of food sharing among adults are widely studied, very little is known about food sharing among children. Here, in the first study to analyze the food sharing patterns of hunter-gatherer children, we show that while sharing may be biased towards kin, reciprocity characterizes the majority of all sharing dyads, both related and unrelated. These data lend support to the recent claim that discrimination among kin might be linked with reciprocal altruism theory. Furthermore, we show that age positively correlates with an increase in sharing, both in frequency and amount, supporting recent suggestions that prosocial behaviors and egalitarianism develop strongly in middle childhood when children acquire the normative rules of their society.

Donations, risk attitudes and time preferences: A study on altruism in primary school children

We study in a sample of 1070 primary school children, aged seven to eleven years, how altruism in a donation experiment is related to children's risk attitudes and intertemporal choices. Examining such a relationship is motivated by theories of reciprocal altruism that provide a cornerstone for understanding human social behavior. We find that higher risk tolerance and patience in intertemporal choice increase, in general, the level of donations, albeit the effects are non-linear. We confirm earlier results that altruism increases with age during childhood and that girls are more altruistic than boys. Having older brothers makes subjects less altruistic.

Institutional Reform and the Changing Face of ＂Guanxi＂

History illustrates that different polities adopt different development models in order to achieve modernity. In the case of successful socio-economic and sociopolitical development, the models that have been adopted have conformed to the paradigms held by the majority of the citizenry, to their cultural values, and to the informal institutions that underpin the sense-making of the citizenry. This paper develops a theoretical framework to better identify potential trajectories of economic development in emerging countries. It draws on Trivers's theory of reciprocal altruism from evolutionary biology, Berry's eco-cultural framework from cross-cultural psychology, and North's framework for analyzing economic and institutional change from new institutional economics. The framework is used in the current study to guide an exploratory empirical examination into how the development models adopted in eight Asian polities influence the reliance by Chinese business people on ＂guanxi＂ (relationships) to manage opportunism and to reduce search and transaction costs and environmental uncertainty. The findings indicate that the nature and practice of ＂guanxi＂ varies from polity to polity, depending on the type of development model adopted.

ALTRUISM AND THE GOLDEN RULE

AbstractThis essay addresses recent claims about the compatibility of the sociobiological theory of reciprocal altruism with standard Western formulations of the Golden Rule. Derek Parfit claims that the theory of reciprocal altruism teaches us to be “reciprocal altruists,” who benefit only those people from whom we can reasonably expect benefits in the future. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, teaches us to benefit anyone regardless of their intention or ability to return the favor, or as Parfit puts it, the Golden Rule teaches us to be “suckers.” I argue that this distinction is founded on a misconception of the nature of the theory of reciprocal altruism, which is sociobiological as opposed to moral, and that this distinction accordingly confuses is with ought. Sociobiological theories may explain underlying psychological motivations in individuals (and perhaps even in populations), but these theories do not prescribe any sort of moral behavior. Furthermore, the theory of reciprocal altruism does not imply mental states of which agents are aware. The unconscious motivations assumed by this theory are in fact compatible with certain formulations of the Golden Rule; I will accordingly argue for the view that certain words with moral content related to the Golden Rule—such as “altruism” and “selfishness”—exist only insofar as they are social tools, which can further the self‐interests of an individual in any group.

Donations, Risk Attitudes and Time Preferences: A Study on Altruism in Primary School Children

We study with a sample of 1,070 primary school children, aged seven to eleven years, how altruism in a donation experiment is related to children’s risk attitudes and intertemporal choices. Examining such a relationship is motivated by theories of reciprocal altruism that provide a cornerstone to understand human social behavior. We find that higher risk tolerance and patience in intertemporal choice increase, in general, the level of donations, albeit the effects are non-linear. We confirm earlier results that altruism increases with age during childhood and that girls are more altruistic than boys. Having older brothers makes subjects less altruistic.

Bringing People Back into Protected Forests in Developing Countries: Insights from Co-Management in Malawi

This study examines struggles to bring people back into protected forests to enhance sustainable forest management and livelihoods using insights emerging from a co-management project in Malawi. It uses mixed social science methods and a process-based conceptualization of co-management to analyze experiences, and theory of reciprocal altruism to explain major findings of continuing local forest-user commitment to co-management despite six years of conservation burdens largely for minimal financial benefits. It argues that overemphasis on cash incentives as the motivation for “self-interested” users to participate in co-management overlooks locally significant non-cash motivations, inflates local expectations, and creates perverse incentives that undermine socio-ecological goals. Some non-cash incentives outweighed cash-driven ones. Findings support broadening of incentives mechanisms, including via nested cross-scale institutional arrangements for holistic management that integrates adjacent forests into forest-reserve co-management. Strengthened institutions, improving community/government and intra-community trust, improved village forests easing pressure on the reserve, measures minimizing elite capture, and impetus from an external threat, enhanced forest condition. Generous forest rights and appropriate community licensing and benefit-sharing systems also helped. Bureaucratic/donor inefficiencies, wood-extraction challenges, poor forest-based enterprise development, and low resource value undermined performance. Insights on forest-management planning, fair cost-sharing, targeting the poor, and need for social learning are highlighted.

Grooming reciprocity in wild male chimpanzees

Understanding cooperation between unrelated individuals remains a central problem in animal behaviour; evolutionary mechanisms are debated, and the importance of reciprocity has been questioned. Biological market theory makes specific predictions about the occurrence of reciprocity in social groups; applied to the social grooming of mammals, it predicts reciprocity in the absence of other benefits for which grooming can be exchanged. Considerable effort has been made to test this grooming trade model in nonhuman primates; such studies show mixed results, but may be confounded by kin effects. We examined patterns of reciprocity within and across bouts, and tested predictions of the grooming trade model, among wild male chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes: a system with negligible kin effects. In accord with the model’s expectations, we found that some grooming was directed by lower- to higher-ranked individuals, and that, on average, higher-ranked individuals groomed more reciprocally. We found no support, however, for a prediction that more reciprocity should occur between individuals close in rank. For most dyads, reciprocity of effort occurred through unbalanced participation in grooming bouts, but reciprocity varied considerably between dyads and only a small proportion showed strongly reciprocal grooming. Despite this, each male had at least one reciprocal grooming relationship. In bouts where both individuals groomed, effort was matched through mutual grooming, not alternating roles. Our results provide mixed support for the current grooming trade, biological market model, and suggest that it needs to incorporate risks of currency inflation and cheating for species where reciprocity can be achieved through repeated dyadic interactions. 2010 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Altruistic acts are behaviours that benefit the recipient at an apparent cost to the actor (Trivers 1971). The theory of reciprocal altruism holds that such acts can evolve by natural selection if the roles of actor and recipient are reciprocated such that both incur costs (albeit offset in time) and obtain net fitness benefits. Evidence for the role of this ‘direct reciprocity’ in shaping altruistic behaviour among animal species is limited, however (Clutton-Brock 2009). Originally modelled using the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Trivers 1971), increasingly sophisticated game-theoretical approaches have been developed to accommodate more realistic assumptions. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, individuals are constrained into interacting with a particular partner, and have only a choice between cooperation or noncooperation, with the value of cooperation equal to both partners (Trivers 1971). In contrast, for animals living in social groups, choice of partners for social interactions is common (Wilkinson 1984; Noe et al. 1991; Emery 2004; Connor 2007;

A few misunderstandings about reciprocal altruism

Current discussion about reciprocal altruism is plagued by a few points of continuing disagreement/misunderstanding. In order to facilitate progress in understanding the role of reciprocity in animal societies, in this paper we try to highlight these points of disagreement/misunderstanding. Our contribution can be summarized by the following statements: 1) A temporal contingency between action and reciprocation is not the sole valid evidence for reciprocal altruism; 2) Reciprocity is not (always) cognitively demanding; 3) Kin biases in altruism are not necessarily and entirely due to kin selection; 4) Mutualism can also involve reciprocal partner choice; 5) Biological market theory is an extension of reciprocal altruism theory.

On seeing our selves and others as persons

Human beings may be the only organisms capable of thinking of self and other in equivalent ways – as selves and persons. Most organisms think about their own activities differently than they do the activities of others. A few large-brained organisms like chimps and dolphins sometimes think of the activities of self and other in the same way. But, only humans think quite generally in this manner. In this paper I give a description of our commonsense notions of self and person, and a scientific framework in which it can be fit. I then provide a phylo- and onto-genetic account of these concepts. Finally, I argue that the theory of reciprocal altruism provides the best account of why the notions of self and person evolved to have the form and function they do with respect to human social life and moral capacities.

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) do not develop contingent reciprocity in an experimental task

Chimpanzees provide help to unrelated individuals in a broad range of situations. The pattern of helping within pairs suggests that contingent reciprocity may have been an important mechanism in the evolution of altruism in chimpanzees. However, correlational analyses of the cumulative pattern of interactions over time do not demonstrate that helping is contingent upon previous acts of altruism, as required by the theory of reciprocal altruism. Experimental studies provide a controlled approach to examine the importance of contingency in helping interactions. In this study, we evaluated whether chimpanzees would be more likely to provide food to a social partner from their home group if their partner had previously provided food for them. The chimpanzees manipulated a barpull apparatus in which actors could deliver rewards either to themselves and their partners or only to themselves. Our findings indicate that the chimpanzees’ responses were not consistently influenced by the behavior of their partners in previous rounds. Only one of the 11 dyads that we tested demonstrated positive reciprocity. We conclude that contingent reciprocity does not spontaneously arise in experimental settings, despite the fact that patterns of behavior in the field indicate that individuals cooperate preferentially with reciprocating partners.

An institutional analysis of Chinese business relationships

Understanding Chinese business practices and relationships has become increasingly important for international firms. One of the common threads for international firms is the importance of a special relational aspect of Chinese markets, called guanxi. The impact of guanxi on value chain management is under-researched but increasingly gaining attention. This paper takes a more novel approach by reviewing guanxi in terms of its institutional rather than simply its often-cited cultural implications. It adopts and adapts the ecocultural framework of John Berry and incorporates Robert Trivers theory of reciprocal altruism in an attempt to shed light on the practice of guanxi in eight Chinese related polities. The eight polities are investigated using a qualitative methodology. The design of the study incorporates two phases with focus groups and an online survey. The study acknowledges that the institution of guanxi has important implications for all polities researched but it remains an essential and powerful force in the mainland Chinese polities of Shanghai and Beijing. Subsequently, the relational dynamic of guanxi remains an essential element in value chain management in Chinese contexts, particularly for chains operating on the mainland. As the paper also contends, this has important implications for both Chinese and Western firms.

Reciprocal altruism, rather than kin selection, maintains nepotistic food transfers on an Ache reservation

Cooperation among relatives is often regarded as evidence of kin selection. Yet altruism not requiring shared genes can also evolve among relatives. If characteristics of relatives (such as proximity, familiarity, or trust) make kin preferred social partners, the primary causes of nepotistic biases may reside principally in direct fitness payoffs from cooperation rather than indirect fitness payoffs acquired from aiding collateral kin. We consider the roles of kin selection and reciprocal altruism in maintaining nepotistic food transfers on an Ache reservation in northeastern Paraguay. Households do not primarily direct aid to related households that receive larger comparative marginal gains from food intake as we would predict under kin selection theory. Instead, (1) food transfers favor households characterized by lower relative net energy production values irrespective of kinship ties, (2) households display significant positive correlations in amounts exchanged with each other, suggesting contingency in food transfers, and (3) kinship interacts with these positive correlations in amounts households exchange with each other, indicating even stronger contingency in sharing among related households than among unrelated households. While kin are preferred recipients of food aid, food distributions favor kin that have given more to the distributing household in the past rather than kin that would benefit more from the aid. Such discrimination among kin accords better with reciprocal altruism theory than with kin selection theory.