Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:34:17.137Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Staying alive includes adaptations for catalyzing cooperation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2022

Alessandra Cassar Open the ORCID record for Alessandra Cassar [Opens in a new window]
Alessandra Cassar*
Affiliation:
University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA acassar@usfca.eduhttp://www.alessandracassar.net Economic Science Institute, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The target article interprets women's lower competitiveness than men's as evidence of adaptation to help women avoid physical conflicts and stay alive. This commentary advances the additional hypothesis that strategically suppressing competitiveness, thus signaling egalitarian intentions, could be an adaptation to catalyze cooperative behavior from males and females, turning natural competitors (other women) into allies and men into supportive partners.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 45 , 2022 , e133
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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

Andreoni, J., Harbaugh, W., & Vesterlund, L. (2003). The carrot or the stick: Rewards, punishments, and cooperation. American Economic Review, 93(3), 893–902.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andreoni, J., & Vesterlund, L. (2001). Which is the fair sex? Gender differences in altruism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(1), 293–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartling, B., Fehr, E., Maréchal, M. A., & Schunk, D. (2009). Egalitarianism and competitiveness. American Economic Review, 99(2), 93–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benenson, J. F. (2013). The development of human female competition: Allies and adversaries. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 368, 20130079.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benenson, J. F., & Markovitz, H. (2014). Warriors and worriers: The survival of the sexes. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Benenson, J. F., Webb, C., & Wrangham, R. (2022). Self-protection as an adaptive female strategy. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1–86. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X21002417Google Scholar
Bertrand, M., Kamenica, E., & Pan, J. (2015). Gender identity and relative income within households. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(2), 571–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boehm, C. (1999). Hierarchy in the forest. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowles, S. (2006). Group competition, reproductive leveling, and the evolution of human altruism. Science, 314(5805), 1569–1572.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Campbell, A. (1999). Staying alive: Evolution, culture, and women's intrasexual aggression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(2), 203–252.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cassar, A., & Rigdon, M. L. (2021a). The option to cooperate increases women's competitiveness and closes the gender gap. Evolution and Human Behavior, 42(6), 556–572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassar, A., & Rigdon, M. L. (2021b). Prosocial option increases women's entry into competition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(45).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassar, A., Wordofa, F., & Zhang, Y. J. (2016). Competing for the benefit of offspring eliminates the gender gap in competitiveness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(19), 5201–5205. doi:10.1073/pnas.1520235113CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cassar, A., & Zhang, Y. J. (2021). The competitive woman – Evolutionary insights and cross-cultural evidence into finding the Femina Economica. Working Paper.Google Scholar
Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., Foulsham, T., Kingstone, A., & Henrich, J. (2013). Two ways to the top: Evidence that dominance and prestige are distinct yet viable avenues to social rank and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(1), 103–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croson, R., & Gneezy, U. (2009). Gender differences in preferences. Journal of Economic Literature, 47(2), 448–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawes, C. T., Fowler, J. H., Johnson, T., McElreath, R., & Smirnov, O. (2007). Egalitarian motives in humans. Nature, 446(7137), 794–796.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dufwenberg, M., & Muren, A. (2006). Gender composition in teams. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 61(1), 50–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckel, C. C., & Grossman, P. J. (1998). Are women less selfish than men?: Evidence from dictator experiments. The Economic Journal, 108(448), 726–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E., Fischbacher, U., & Gächter, S. (2002). Strong reciprocity, human cooperation, and the enforcement of social norms. Human Nature, 13(1), 1–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fehr, E., Glätzle-Rützler, D., & Sutter, M. (2013). The development of egalitarianism, altruism, spite and parochialism in childhood and adolescence. European Economic Review, 64, 369–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, M. L. (2013). Women's intrasexual competition for mates. In Fisher, M. L., Garcia, J. R. & Chang, R. S. (Eds.), Evolution's empress: Darwinian perspectives on the nature of women (pp. 19–42). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisman, R., Iyengar, S. S., Kamenica, E., & Simonson, I. (2006). Gender differences in mate selection: Evidence from a speed dating experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(2), 673–697.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folke, O., & Rickne, J. (2016). The glass ceiling in politics: Formalization and empirical tests. Comparative Political Studies, 49(1), 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geary, D. C. (2000). Evolution and proximate expression of human paternal investment. Psychological Bulletin, 126(1), 55–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geraldes, D. (2020). Women dislike competing against men. Working Paper SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3741649, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3741649CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooper, P. L., Kaplan, H. S., & Jaeggi, A. V. (2021). Gains to cooperation drive the evolution of egalitarianism. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(7), 847–856.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hrdy, S. B. (2009). Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H., Hill, K., Lancaster, J., & Hurtado, A. M. (2000). A theory of human life history evolution: Diet, intelligence, and longevity. Evolutionary Anthropology, 9(4), 156–185.3.0.CO;2-7>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klege, R. A., Visser, M., Barron, M., & Clarke, R. P. (2021). Competition and gender in the lab vs field: Experiments from off-grid renewable energy entrepreneurs in rural Rwanda. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 91, 101662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niederle, M., & Vesterlund, L. (2011). Gender and competition. Annual Review of Economics, 3(1), 601–630. doi: 10.1146/annurev-economics-111809-125122CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rucas, S. L. (2017). Cooperation drives competition among Tsimane women in the Bolivian Amazon. In Fisher, M. L. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of women and competition (pp. 107–132). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Seielstad, M. T., Minch, E., & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (1998). Genetic evidence for a higher female migration rate in humans. Nature Genetics, 20(3), 278–280.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Selten, R., & Ockenfels, A. (1998). An experimental solidarity game. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 34(4), 517–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutter, M., Zoller, C., & Glatzle-Rutzler, D. (2019). Economic behavior of children and adolescents – A first survey of experimental economics results. European Economic Review, 111, 98–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Von Hippel, W., & Trivers, R. (2011). The evolution and psychology of self-deception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(1), 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed