Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:38:50.585Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A mutualistic approach to morality: The evolution of fairness by partner choice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2013

Nicolas Baumard ,
Jean-Baptiste André  and
Dan Sperber
Nicolas Baumard
Affiliation:
Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6PN, United Kingdom; and Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. nbaumard@gmail.com
Jean-Baptiste André
Affiliation:
Laboratoire Ecologie et Evolution, UMR 7625, CNRS – Ecole Normale Supérieure, 75005 Paris, France. jeanbaptisteandre@gmail.comhttp://jb.homepage.free.fr
Dan Sperber
Affiliation:
Institut Jean Nicod, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France; and Department of Cognitive Science and Department of Philosophy, Central European University, 1051 Budapest, Hungary. dan@sperber.frhttp://www.dan.sperber.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a proximate “how” question or as an ultimate “why” question. The “how” question is about the mental and social mechanisms that produce moral judgments and interactions, and has been investigated by psychologists and social scientists. The “why” question is about the fitness consequences that explain why humans have morality, and has been discussed by evolutionary biologists in the context of the evolution of cooperation. Our goal here is to contribute to a fruitful articulation of such proximate and ultimate explanations of human morality. We develop an approach to morality as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions. In this environment, the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally. Those who offer less than others will be left out of cooperation; conversely, those who offer more will be exploited by their partners. In line with this mutualistic approach, the study of a range of economic games involving property rights, collective actions, mutual help and punishment shows that participants' distributions aim at sharing the costs and benefits of interactions in an impartial way. In particular, the distribution of resources is influenced by effort and talent, and the perception of each participant's rights on the resources to be distributed.

Keywords

cooperationfairnesseconomic gamesevolutionary psychologymoralitypartner choice
Type
Target Article
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 59 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adam, T. C. (2010) Competition encourages cooperation: Client fish receive higher-quality service when cleaner fish compete. Animal Behaviour 79(6):1183–89.Google Scholar
Aguiar, F., Branas-Garza, P. & Miller, L. M. (2008) Moral distance in dictator games. Judgment and Decision Making 3(4):344–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aktipis, C. (2004) Know when to walk away: Contingent movement and the evolution of cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology 231(2):249–60.Google Scholar
Alesina, A. & Glaeser, E. (2004) Fighting poverty in the US and Europe: A world of difference. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Almås, I., Cappelen, A. W., Sorensen, E. U. & Tungodden, B. (2010) Fairness and the development of inequality acceptance. Science 328(5982):1176–78.Google Scholar
Alvard, M. (2004) Kinship, lineage identity, and an evolutionary perspective on the structure of cooperative big game hunting groups in Indonesia. Human Nature 14(2):129–63.Google Scholar
Alvard, M. & Nolin, D. (2002) Rousseau's whale hunt? Coordination among big game hunters. Current Anthropology 43(4):533–59.Google Scholar
Ambady, N. & Rosenthal, R. (1992) Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 111(2):256–74.Google Scholar
André, J. B. & Baumard, N. (2011a) Social opportunities and the evolution of fairness. Journal of Theoretical Biology 289:128–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Andreoni, J. (1995) Cooperation in public-goods experiments: Kindness or confusion? American Economic Review 85(4):891–904.Google Scholar
Aspelin, P. (1979) Food distribution and social bonding among the Mamainde of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Journal of Anthropological Research 35:309–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aumann, R. J. (1981) Survey of repeated games. In: Gesellschaft, Recht, Wirtschaft, Wissenschaftsverlag, vol. 4: Essays in game theory and mathematical economics in honor of Oskar Morgenstern, ed. Bohm, V., pp. 11–42. Bibliographisches Institut.Google Scholar
Aumann, R. J. & Shapley, L. S. (1992) Long-term competition: A game-theoretic analysis. UCLA Economics Working Paper No. 676, Department of Economics, University of California.Google Scholar
Axelrod, R. (1984) The evolution of cooperation. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Axelrod, R. & Hamilton, W. (1981) The evolution of cooperation. Science 211(4489):1390–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bahry, D. & Wilson, R. (2006) Confusion or fairness in the field? Rejections in the ultimatum game under the strategy method. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 60(1):37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, R. C. (1991) The behavioral ecology of Efe Pygmy men in the Ituri Forest, Zaire. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balicki, A. (1970) The Netsilik Eskimo. Natural History Press.Google Scholar
Barclay, P. (2004) Trustworthiness and competitive altruism can also solve the “Tragedy of the Commons.” Evolution and Human Behavior 25(4):209–20.Google Scholar
Barclay, P. (2006) Reputational benefits for altruistic punishment. Evolution and Human Behavior 27(5):325–44.Google Scholar
Barclay, P. & Willer, R. (2007) Partner choice creates competitive altruism in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 274(1610):749–53.Google ScholarPubMed
Bardsley, N. (2008). Dictator game giving: Altruism or artefact? Experimental Economics 11:122–33.Google Scholar
Barkow, J. (1992) Beneath new culture is old psychology: Gossip and social stratification. In: The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, ed. Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J., pp. 159–72. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barnard, A. & Woodburn, J. (1988) Property, power, and ideology in hunter–gatherer societies: An introduction. In: Hunters and gatherers, vol. 2: Property, power and ideology, ed. Ingold, T., Riches, D. & Woodburn, J., pp. 4–31. Berg.Google Scholar
Baron, J. & Miller, J. (2000) Limiting the scope of moral obligations to help: A cross-cultural investigation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 31(6):703–25.Google Scholar
Barr, A. (2004) Kinship, familiarity, and trust: An experimental investigation. In: Foundations of human sociality: Economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies, ed. Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E. & Gintis, H., pp. 305–34. Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Baumard, N. (2008) Une théorie naturaliste et mutualiste de la morale. Thèse de doctorat à l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Philosophie et sciences sociales, Paris.Google Scholar
Baumard, N. (2010a) Comment nous sommes devenus moraux : Une histoire naturel du bien et du mal. Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Baumard, N. (2010b) Has punishment played a role in the evolution of cooperation? A critical review. Mind and Society 9(2):171–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumard, N. (2011) Punishment is not a group adaptation: Humans punish to restore fairness rather than to support group cooperation. Mind and Society 10(1):1–26.Google Scholar
Baumard, N., Boyer, P. & Sperber, D. (2010) Evolution of fairness: Cultural variability [Letter]. Science 329(5990):388–89.Google Scholar
Baumard, N., Mascaro, O. & Chevallier, C. (2012) Preschoolers are able to take merit into account when distributing goods. Developmental Psychology 48(2):492–98. doi:10.1037/a0026598CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baumard, N. & Sperber, D. (2012) Evolutionary and Cognitive Anthropology, In: A companion to moral anthropology. ed. Fassin, D., pp. 611–28. Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Berg, J., Dickhaut, J. & McCabe, K. (1995) Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behavior 10(1):122–42.Google Scholar
Bernhard, H., Fischbacher, U. & Fehr, E. (2006) Parochial altruism in humans. Nature 442(7105):912–15.Google Scholar
Bernstein, L. (1992) Opting out of the legal system: Extralegal contractual relations in the diamond industry. Journal of Legal Studies 21(1):115–57.Google Scholar
Black, D. (2000) On the origin of morality. In: Evolutionary origins of morality: Cross-disciplinary perspectives, ed. Katz, L. D., pp. 107–18. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Blake, P. R. & Rand, D. G. (2010) Currency value moderates equity preference among young children. Evolution and Human Behaviour 31(3):210–18. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.06.012.Google Scholar
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S. & Richerson, P. (2003) The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100(6):3531–35.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. (2005) Solving the puzzle of human cooperation. In: Evolution and culture, ed. Levinson, S., pp. 105–32. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Branas-Garza, P. (2006) Poverty in dictator games: Awakening solidarity. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 60(3):306–20.Google Scholar
Brosig, J. (2002) Identifying cooperative behavior: Some experimental results in a prisoner's dilemma game. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 47(3):275–90.Google Scholar
Broten, N. (2010) From sickness to death: The financial viability of the English friendly societies and coming of the Old Age Pensions Act, 1875–1908. Economic History Working Paper 135/10, Department of Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science.Google Scholar
Brown, W. M. (2003) Are there nonverbal cues to commitment? An exploratory study using the zero-acquaintance video presentation paradigm. Evolutionary Psychology 1:42–69.Google Scholar
Bshary, R. & Grutter, A. (2005) Punishment and partner switching cause cooperative behaviour in a cleaning mutualism. Biology Letters 1(4):396–99.Google Scholar
Bshary, R. & Grutter, A. (2006) Image scoring and cooperation in a cleaner fish mutualism. Nature 441(7096):975–78.Google Scholar
Bshary, R. & Noë, R. (2003) The ubiquitous influence of partner choice on the dynamics of cleaner fish–client reef fish interactions. In: Genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation, ed. Hammmerstein, P., pp. 167–84. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bull, J. & Rice, W. (1991) Distinguishing mechanisms for the evolution of co-operation. Journal of Theoretical Biology 149(1):63–74.Google Scholar
Burrows, P. & Loomes, G. (1994) The impact of fairness on bargaining behaviour. Empirical Economics 19(2):201–21.Google Scholar
Cadeliña, R. V. (1982) Batak interhousehold food sharing: A systemic analysis of food management of marginal agriculturalists in the Philippines. Doctoral dissertation. University of Hawaii.Google Scholar
Camerer, C. (2003) Behavioral game theory: Experiments in strategic interaction. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cappelen, A. W., Hole, A. D., Sorensen, E. O. & Tungodden, B. (2007) The pluralism of fairness ideals: An experimental approach. American Economic Review 97(3):818–27.Google Scholar
Cappelen, A. W., Sørensen, E. O. & Tungodden, B. (2010) Responsibility for what? Fairness and individual responsibility. European Economic Review 54(3):429–41.Google Scholar
Cashdan, E. (1980) Egalitarianism among hunters and gatherers. American Anthropologist 82(1):116–20.Google Scholar
Charnov, E. L. (1976) Optimal foraging, the marginal value theorem. Theoretical Population Biology 9(2):129–36.Google Scholar
Cherry, T. L., Frykblom, P. & Shogren, J. F. (2002) Hardnose the dictator. American Economic Review 92(4):1218–21.Google Scholar
Chiang, Y. (2008) A path toward fairness: Preferential association and the evolution of strategies in the ultimatum game. Rationality and Society 20(2):173–201.Google Scholar
Chiang, Y. (2010) Self-interested partner selection can lead to the emergence of fairness. Evolution and Human Behavior 31(4):265–70.Google Scholar
Chibnik, M. (2005) Experimental economics in anthropology: A critical assessment. American Ethnologist 32(2):198–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cima, M., Tonnaer, F. & Hauser, M. (2010) Psychopaths know right from wrong but don't care. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5(1):59–67.Google Scholar
Cinyabuguma, M., Page, T. & Putterman, L. (2004) On perverse and second-order punishment in public goods experiments with decentralized sanctioning. Brown University, Department of Economics Working Paper 2004-1.Google Scholar
Clark, M. S. & Jordan, S. (2002) Adherence to communal norms: What it means, when it occurs, and some thoughts on how it develops. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 95:3–25.Google Scholar
Clark, M. S. & Mills, J. (1979) Interpersonal attraction in exchange and communal relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37(1):12–24. (Featured article).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. (2002) Breeding together: Kin selection and mutualism in cooperative vertebrates. Science 296(5565):69–72.Google Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. (2009) Cooperation between non-kin in animal societies. Nature 462(7269):51–57.Google Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. & Parker, G. (1995) Punishment in animal societies. Nature 373(6511):209–16.Google Scholar
Coricelli, G., Fehr, D. & Fellner, G. (2004) Partner selection in public goods experiments. Journal of Conflict Resolution 48(3):356–78.Google Scholar
Cronk, L. (2007) The influence of cultural framing on play in the trust game: A Massai example. Evolution and Human Behavior 28(5):352–58.Google Scholar
Cronk, L. & Wasielewski, H. (2008) An unfamiliar social norm rapidly produces framing effects in an economic game. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 6(4):283–308.Google Scholar
Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1988) Homicide. Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dawes, C. T., Fowler, J. H., Johnson, T., McElreath, R. & Smirnov, O. (2007) Egalitarian motives in humans. Nature 446(7137):794–96.Google Scholar
DeScioli, P. & Kurzban, R. (2009) The alliance hypothesis for human friendship. PLoS ONE 4(6):e5802. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005802.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dugatkin, L. (1995) Partner choice, game theory and social behavior. Journal of Quantitative Anthropology 5(1):3–14.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1993) Co-evolution of neocortex size, group size and language in humans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16(4):681–735.Google Scholar
Eckel, C. C. & Grossman, P. J. (1996) Altruism in anonymous dictator games. Games and Economic Behavior 16:181–91.Google Scholar
Ehrhart, K.-M. & Keser, C. (1999) Mobility and cooperation: On the run. Working Paper 99s–24. CIRANO, University of Montreal.Google Scholar
Elster, J. (2007) Explaining social behavior: More nuts and bolts for the social sciences. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Emery, G. & Emery, J. (1999) A young man's benefit: The independent order of odd fellows and sickness insurance in the United States and Canada, 1860–1929. McGill-Queens University Press.Google Scholar
Emlen, S. T. (1997) Predicting family dynamics in social vertebrates. Behavioral Ecology 4:228–53.Google Scholar
Ensminger, J. (2004) Market integration and fairness: Evidence from ultimatum, dictator, and public goods experiments in East Africa. In: Foundations of human sociality: Economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies, ed. Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E. & Gintis, H., pp. 356–81. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Falk, A., Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. (2005) Driving forces behind informal sanctions. Econometrica 73(6):2017–30.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. (2002) Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature 415:137–40.Google Scholar
Fehr, E., Gächter, S. & Kirchsteiger, G. (1997) Reciprocity as a contract enforcement device: Experimental evidence. Econometrica 65(4):833–60.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. & Henrich, J. (2003) Is strong reciprocity a maladaptation? On the evolutionary foundations of human altruism. In: Genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation, ed. Hammerstein, P., pp. 55–82. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fehr, E., Kirchsteiger, G. & Riedl, A. (1993) Does fairness prevent market clearing? An experimental investigation. Quarterly Journal of Economics 108(2):437–59.Google Scholar
Fehr, E., Kirchsteiger, G. & Riedl, A. (1998) Gift exchange and reciprocity in competitive experimental markets. European Economic Review 42(1):1–34.Google Scholar
Fehr, E. & Schmidt, K. (1999) A theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation. Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(3):817–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fessler, D. & Haley, K. (2003) The strategy of affect: Emotions in human cooperation. In: Genetic and cultural evolution of cooperation: Dahlem Workshop Report 90, ed. Hammerstein, P., pp. 7–36. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fiske, A. (1992) The four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological Review (New York) 99:689–89.Google Scholar
Fleurbaey, M. (1998) Equality among responsible individuals. In: Freedom in economics: New perspectives in normative analysis, ed. Laslier, J. F., pp. 206–34. Routledge.Google Scholar
Fong, C. (2001) Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution. Journal of Public Economics 82(2):225–46.Google Scholar
Frank, R. (1988) Passions within reason: The strategic role of the emotions, vol. 1. Norton.Google Scholar
Frank, R., Gilovich, T. & Regan, D. (1993) The evolution of one-shot cooperation: An experiment. Ethology and Sociobiology 14:247–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frohlich, N., Oppenheimer, J. & Kurki, A. (2004) Modeling other-regarding preferences and an experimental test. Public Choice 119(1):91–117.Google Scholar
Gambetta, D. & Origgi, G. (2009) L-worlds: The curious preference for low quality and its norms. Sociology Working Paper 2009–08, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Gardner, A. & West, S. A. (2004) Cooperation and punishment, especially in humans. The American Naturalist 164(6):753–64.Google Scholar
Gauthier, D. (1986) Morals by agreement. Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Geraci, A. & Surian, L. (2011) The developmental roots of fairness: Infants' reactions to equal and unequal distributions of resources. Developmental Science 14(5):1012–20.Google Scholar
Gintis, H., Bowles, S., Boyd, R. & Fehr, E. (2003) Explaining altruistic behavior in humans. Evolution and Human Behavior 24(3):153–72.Google Scholar
Gosden, P. (1961) The friendly societies in England, 1815–1875. Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Grafen, A. (1990) Sexual selection unhandicapped by the Fisher process. Journal of Theoretical Biology 144(4):473–516.Google Scholar
Greif, A. (1993) Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade: The Maghribi Traders' Coalition. American Economic Review 83(3):525–48.Google Scholar
Guala, F. (2012) Reciprocity: Weak or strong? What punishment experiments do (and do not) demonstrate. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35(2).Google Scholar
Guala, F. & Mittone, L. (2010) Paradigmatic experiments: The Dictator Game. Journal of Socio-Economics 39(5):578–84.Google Scholar
Gurven, M. (2004) To give and to give not: The behavioral ecology of human food transfers. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27(4):543–83.Google Scholar
Gurven, M., Hill, K., Hurtado, A. & Lyles, R. 2000. Food transfers among Hiwi foragers of Venezuela: Tests of reciprocity. Human Ecology 28:171–214.Google Scholar
Gurven, M. & Winking, J. (2008) Collective action in action: Prosocial behavior in and out of the laboratory. American Anthropologist 110(2):179–90.Google Scholar
Hagen, E. H. & Hammerstein, P. (2006) Game theory and human evolution: A critique of some recent interpretations of experimental games. Theoretical Population Biology 69(3):339–48.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2007) The new synthesis in moral psychology. Science 316(5827):998–1002.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. & Baron, J. (1996) Social roles and the moral judgement of acts and omissions. European Journal of Social Psychology 26:201–18.Google Scholar
Haidt, J., Koller, S. & Dias, M. (1993) Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65:613–28.Google Scholar
Haley, K. J. & Fessler, D. M. T. (2005) Nobody's watching? Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution of Human Behavior 26(3):245–56.Google Scholar
Hamann, K., Warneken, F., Greenberg, J. R. & Tomasello, M. (2011) Collaboration encourages equal sharing in children but not in chimpanzees. Nature 476(7360):328–31.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. (1964a) The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7:1–16.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. (1964b) The genetical evolution of social behaviour. II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7:17–52.Google Scholar
Hamlin, J. K., Wynn, K. & Bloom, P. (2007) Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature 450(7169):557–59.Google Scholar
Hardy, C. L. & Van Vugt, M. (2006) Nice guys finish first: The competitive altruism hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32(10):1402–13.Google Scholar
Hare, R. D. (1993) Without conscience: The disturbing world of the psychopaths among us. Pocket Books.Google Scholar
Heintz, C. (2005) The ecological rationality of strategic cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(6):825–26.Google Scholar
Hennig-Schmidt, H., Li, Z. & Yang, C. (2008) Why people reject advantageous offers – Non-monotonic strategies in ultimatum bargaining: Evaluating a video experiment run in PR China. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 65:373–84.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., McElreath, R., Alvard, M., Barr, A., Ensminger, J., Hill, K., Gil-White, F., Gurven, M., Marlowe, F., Patton, J. Q., Smith, N. & Tracer, D. (2005) “Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(6):795–815; discussion: 815–55.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Ensminger, J., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Cardenas, J. C., Gurven, M., Gwako, E., Henrich, N., Lesorogol, C., Marlowe, F., Tracer, D. & Ziker, J. (2006) Costly punishment across human societies. Science 312(5781):1767–70.Google Scholar
Henry, J. (1951) The economics of Pilagá food distribution. American Anthropologist 53(2):187–219.Google Scholar
Herrmann, B., Gächter, S. & Thöni, C. (2008) Antisocial punishment across societies. Science 319(5868):1362–67.Google Scholar
Hirschman, A. O. (1970) Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, T. (1651) Leviathan, or, The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill. Printed for Andrew Ckooke [i.e., Crooke], at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard, London. (Original edition used.)Google Scholar
Hoebel, E. A. (1954) The law of primitive man: A study in comparative legal dynamics. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, E., McCabe, K. & Smith, V. (1996) Social distance and other-regarding behavior in dictator games. American Economic Review 86(3):653–60.Google Scholar
Hoffman, E. & Spitzer, M. (1985) Entitlements, rights, and fairness: An experimental examination of subjects' concepts of distributive justice. Journal of Legal Studies 14(2):259–97.Google Scholar
Howell, P. (1954) A manual of Nuer law: Being an account of customary law, its evolution and development in the courts established by the Sudan government. Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Jakiela, P. (2007) How fair shares compare: Experimental evidence from two cultures. Job Market Paper, University of California–Berkeley.Google Scholar
Jakiela, P. (2009) Equity vs. efficiency vs. self-interest: On the use of dictator games to measure distributional preferences. Working Paper, Washington University, Saint Louis.Google Scholar
Johnson, T., Dawes, C., Fowler, J., McElreath, R. & Smirnov, O. (2009) The role of egalitarian motives in altruistic punishment. Economics Letters 102(3):192–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. (1785) Grounding for the metaphysics of morals; with, On a supposed right to lie because of philanthropic concerns. Hackett.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H. & Gurven, M. (2005) The natural history of human food sharing and cooperation: A review and a new multi-individual approach to the negotiation of norms. In: Moral sentiments and material interests: The foundations of cooperation in economic life, ed. Gintis, H., Bowles, S., Boyd, R. & Fehr, E., pp. 75–113. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H. & Hill, K. (1985) Hunting ability and reproductive success among male Ache foragers: Preliminary results. Current Anthropology 26(1):131–33.Google Scholar
Konow, J. (2000) Fair shares: Accountability and cognitive dissonance in allocation decisions. American Economic Review 90(4):1072–91.Google Scholar
Konow, J. (2001) Fair and square: The four sides of distributive justice. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 46(2):137–64.Google Scholar
Konow, J. (2003) Which is the fairest one of all? A positive analysis of justice theories. Journal of Economic Literature 41(4):1188–239.Google Scholar
Krebs, J. R. & Davies, N. B. (1993) An introduction to behavioural ecology, 4th edition. Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Krupp, D. B., Barclay, P., Daly, M., Kiyonari, T., Dingle, G. & Wilson, M. (2005) Let's add some psychology (and maybe even some evolution) to the mix. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(6):828–29.Google Scholar
Kurzban, R. (2001) Are experimental economists behaviorists and is behaviorism for the birds? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24(3):420–21.Google Scholar
Kurzban, R. & DeScioli, P. (2008) Reciprocity in groups: Information-seeking in a public goods game. European Journal of Social Psychology 38(1):139–58.Google Scholar
Landa, J. T. (1981) A theory of the ethnically homogeneous middleman group: An institutional alternative to contract law. Journal of Legal Studies 10(2):349–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledyard, J. O. (1994/1995) Public goods: A survey of experimental research. Public Economics Paper, 1994. Also in: Handbook of Experimental Economics, ed. Kagel, J. & Roth, A. E., pp. 111–94. Princeton University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Leibbrandt, A. & López-Pérez, R. (2008) The envious punisher: Understanding third and second party punishment with simple games. Empirical Research in Economics Working Paper 373, University of Zurich.Google Scholar
Lesorogol, C. (2007) Bringing norms in. Current Anthropology 48(6):920–26.Google Scholar
Lesorogol, C. (forthcoming) Gifts or entitlements: The influence of property rights and institutions for third-party sanctioning on behavior in dictator, ultimatum and punishment games. In: Experimenting with social norms: Fairness and punishment in cross-cultural perspective, ed. Henrich, J. & Ensminger, J.. Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Levine, R. V., Norenzayan, A. & Philbrick, K. (2001) Cross-cultural differences in helping strangers. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 32(5):543–60.Google Scholar
Liberman, V., Samuels, S. M. & Ross, L. (2004) The name of the game: Predictive power of reputations versus situational labels in determining prisoner's dilemma game moves. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30(9):1175–85.Google Scholar
Lieberman, D., Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2007) The architecture of human kin detection. Nature 445(7129):727–31.Google Scholar
LoBue, V., Nishida, T., Chiong, C., DeLoache, J. S. & Haidt, J. (2011) When getting something good is bad: Even three-year-olds react to inequality. Social Development 20(1):154–70.Google Scholar
Locke, J. (1689) Two treatises of government. Awnsham Churchill.Google Scholar
Luce, R. D. & Raiffa, L. (1957) Games and decisions. Wiley.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. (1926) Crime and custom in savage society. Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Marlowe, F. (2009) Hadza cooperation: Second-party punishment, yes; third-party punishment, no. Human Nature 20(4):417–30.Google Scholar
Marshall, G., Swift, A., Routh, D. & Burgoyne, C. (1999) What is and what ought to be: Popular beliefs about distributive justice in thirteen countries. European Sociological Review 15(4):349–67.Google Scholar
McAdams, R. (1997) The origin, development, and regulation of norms. Michigan Law Review 96(2):338–433.Google Scholar
McCrink, K., Bloom, P. & Santos, L. R. (2010) Children's and adults' judgments of equitable resource distributions. Developmental Science 13(1):37–45.Google Scholar
McCullough, M. E., Kurzban, R., Tabak, B. A., Shaver, I. P. R. & Mikulincer, M. (2010) Evolved mechanisms for revenge and forgiveness. In: Understanding and reducing aggression, violence, and their consequences, ed. Shaver, P. R. & Mikulincer, M., pp. 221–39. American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Mealey, L. (1995) The sociobiology of sociopathy: An integrated evolutionary model. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18(3):523–99.Google Scholar
Miller, W. (1990) Bloodtaking and peacemaking: Feud, law, and society in Saga Iceland. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nesse, R. (2007) Runaway social selection for displays of partner value and altruism. Biological Theory 2(2):143–55.Google Scholar
Noë, R., van Schaik, C. & Van Hooff, J. (1991) The market effect: An explanation for pay-off asymmetries among collaborating animals. Ethology 87(1–2):97–118.Google Scholar
Norton, M. I. & Ariely, D. (2011) Building a better America – one wealth quintile at a time. Perspectives on Psychological Science 6(1):9–12.Google Scholar
Ohtsubo, Y. & Watanabe, E. (2008) Do sincere apologies need to be costly? Test of a costly signaling model of apology. Evolution and Human Behavior 30(2):114–23.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. (Political economy of institutions and decisions). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oxoby, R. J. & Spraggon, J. (2008) Mine and yours: Property rights in dictator games. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 65(3–4):703–13.Google Scholar
Page, T., Putterman, L. & Unel, B. (2005) Voluntary association in public goods experiments: Reciprocity, mimicry and efficiency. The Economic Journal 115(506):1032–53.Google Scholar
Petersen, M. B., Sell, A., Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2010) Evolutionary psychology and criminal justice: A recalibrational theory of punishment and reconciliation. In: Human morality and sociality: Evolutionary and comparative perspectives, ed. Høgh-Olesen, H.. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Pillutla, M. M. & Chen, X. P. (1999) Social norms and cooperation in social dilemmas: The effects of context and feedback. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 78(2):81–103.Google Scholar
Polinsky, A. M. & Shavell, S. (2000) The economic theory of public enforcement of law. Journal of Economic Literature 38(1):45–76.Google Scholar
Posner, R. A. (1983) The economics of justice. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pradel, J., Euler, H. A. & Fetchenhauer, D. (2008) Spotting altruistic dictator game players and mingling with them: The elective assortation of classmates. Evolution and Human Behavior 30(2):103–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, J. A. (1975) Sharing: The integration of intimate economies. Anthropologica 17:3–27.Google Scholar
Rachlin, H. & Jones, B. A. (2008) Social discounting and delay discounting. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 21(1):29–43.Google Scholar
Ratnieks, F. L. W. (2006) The evolution of cooperation and altruism: The basic conditions are simple and well known. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 19(5):1413–14.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. (1971) A theory of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rigdon, M., Ishii, K., Watabe, M. & Kitayama, S. (2009) Minimal social cues in the Dictator Game. Journal of Economic Psychology 30:358–67.Google Scholar
Roberts, G. (1998) Competitive altruism: From reciprocity to the handicap principle. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 265(1394):427–31.Google Scholar
Roberts, G. (2005) Cooperation through interdependence. Animal Behaviour 70(4):901–908.Google Scholar
Robinson, P. & Kurzban, R. (2006) Concordance and conflict in intuitions of justice. Minnesota Law Review 91:1829–907.Google Scholar
Rockenbach, B. & Milinski, M. (2011) To qualify as a social partner, humans hide severe punishment, although their observed cooperativeness is decisive. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108(45):18307–12. doi:10.1073/pnas.1108996108.Google Scholar
Roemer, J. (1985) Equality of talent. Economics and Philosophy 1(2):151–81.Google Scholar
Ruffle, B. J. (1998) More is better, but fair is fair: Tipping in dictator and ultimatum games. Games and Economic Behavior 23(2):247–65.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. (1965) On the sociology of primitive exchange in the relevance of models for social anthropology. In: The relevance of models for social anthropology, ed. Banton, M., pp. 139–236. Praeger.Google Scholar
Saijo, T. & Nakamura, H. (1995) The “spite” dilemma in voluntary contribution mechanism experiments. Journal of Conflict Resolution 39(3):535–60.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. (1998) What we owe to each other. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schelling, T. C. (1960) The strategy of conflict. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, M. & Sommerville, J. (2011) Fairness expectations and altruistic sharing in 15-month-old human infants. PLoS ONE 6(10):e23223. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023223e23223.Google Scholar
Sell, A., Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2009) Formidability and the logic of human anger. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106(35):15073–78.Google Scholar
Sheldon, K. M., Sheldon, M. S. & Osbaldiston, R. (2000) Prosocial values and group assortation. Human Nature 11(4):387–404.Google Scholar
Shweder, R. A., Mahapatra, M. & Miller, J. G. (1987) Culture and moral development. In: The emergence of moral concepts in young children, ed. Kagan, J. & Lamb, S., pp. 1–83. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Silberbauer, G. (1981) Hunter/gatherers of the Central Kalahari. In: Omnivorous primates: Gathering and hunting in human evolution, ed. Harding, R. S. O. & Teleki, G., pp. 455–98. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, E. A. (2005) Making it real: Interpreting economic experiments. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(6):832–33.Google Scholar
Smith, V. L. (2005) Sociality and self interest. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(6):833–34.Google Scholar
Sober, E. & Wilson, D. (1998) Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sosis, R. (2005) Methods do matter: Variation in experimental methodologies and results. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(6):834–35.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. & Baumard, N. (2012) Moral and reputation in an evolutionary perspective. Mind and Language 27(5):495–518.Google Scholar
Sylwester, K. & Roberts, G. (2010) Cooperators benefit through reputation-based partner choice in economic games. Biology Letters 6(5):659–62. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2010.0209.Google Scholar
Tetlock, P. E., Kristel, O. V., Elson, S. B., Green, M. C. & Lerner, J. S. (2000) The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78(5):853–70.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., Melis, A., Tennie, C., Wyman, E., Herrmann, E. & Schneider, A. (submitted) Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation: The mutualism hypothesis.Google Scholar
Tooby, J., Cosmides, L. & Price, M. E. (2006) Cognitive adaptations for n-person exchange: The evolutionary roots of organizational behavior. Managerial and Decision Economics 27:103–29.Google Scholar
Tooby, J., Cosmides, L., Sell, A., Lieberman, D. & Sznycer, D. (2008) Internal regulatory variables and the design of human motivation: A computational and evolutionary approach. In: Handbook of approach and avoidance motivation, ed. Elliot, A. J., pp. 251–71. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tracer, D. (2003) Selfishness and fairness in economic and evolutionary perspective: An experimental economic study in Papua New Guinea. Current Anthropology 44(3):432–38.Google Scholar
Trivers, R. (1971) Evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46:35–57.Google Scholar
Verplaetse, J., Vanneste, S. & Braeckman, J. (2007) You can judge a book by its cover: The sequel – A kernel of truth in predictive cheating detection. Evolution and Human Behavior 28(4):260–71.Google Scholar
von Fürer-Haimendorf, C. (1967) Morals and merit: A study of values and social controls in South Asian societies. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Warneken, F., Lohse, K., Melis, A. P. & Tomasello, M. (2011) Young children share the spoils after collaboration. Psychological Science 22(2):267–73.Google Scholar
West-Eberhard, M. (1979) Sexual selection, social competition, and evolution. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 123(4):222–34.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. (1996) Leveling the hunter: Constraints on the status quest in foraging societies. In: Food and the status quest: An interdisciplinary perspective, ed. Wiessner, P. & Schiefenhövel, W., pp. 171–91. Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. (2005) Norm enforcement among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen: A case of strong reciprocity? Human Nature 16(2):115–45.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. (2009) Experimental games and games of life among the Ju/'hoan Bushmen. Current Anthropology 50(1):133–38.Google Scholar
Willinger, M., Keser, C., Lohmann, C. & Usunier, J. (2003) A comparison of trust and reciprocity between France and Germany: Experimental investigation based on the investment game. Journal of Economic Psychology 24(4):447–66.Google Scholar
Woodburn, J. (1982) Egalitarian societies. Man 17(3):431–51.Google Scholar
Yamagishi, T. (1986) The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51(1):110–16.Google Scholar