In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies

Henrich, Joseph; Boyd, Robert; Bowles, Samuel; Camerer, Colin F.; Fehr, Ernst; Gintis, Herbert; McElreath, Richard

doi:10.1257/aer.91.2.73

Cited by 2,030 publications

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“…Research on small-scale societies suggests that the nature of the production process may have helped to plant the seeds of preference variation among cultural groups, particularly with respect to propensities for pro-sociality [14,[21][22][23]. Henrich et al [14] studied cross-cultural differences in cooperation, finding that group-level differences in pro-social activities can be largely explained by differences in pay-offs to cooperation and market integration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation during cultural group formation promotes trust towards members of out-groups

Pan

Houser

2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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People often cooperate with members of their own group, and discriminate against members of other groups. Previous research establishes that cultural groups can form endogenously, and that these groups demonstrate ingroup favouritism. Given the presence of cultural groups, the previous literature argues that cultural evolution selects for groups that exhibit parochial altruism. The source of initial variation in these traits, however, remains uninformed. We show here that a group's economic production environment may substantially influence parochial tendencies, with groups formed around more cooperative production (CP) displaying less parochialism than groups formed around more independent production (IP) processes. Participants randomized into CP and IP production tasks formed cultural groups, and subsequently played hidden-action trust games with in-group and outgroup trustees. We found CP to be associated with significantly greater sharing and exchanging behaviours than IP. In trust games, significant parochial altruism (in-group favouritism combined with out-group discrimination) was displayed by members of IP groups. By contrast, members of CP groups did not engage in either in-group favouritism or out-group discrimination. Further, we found the absence of out-group discrimination in CP to persist even following 'betrayal'. Finally, belief data suggest that members of CP are not more intrinsically generous than IP members, but rather more likely to believe that out-group trustees will positively reciprocate. Our results have important implications for anyone interested in building cooperative teams, and shed new light on connections between culture and cooperation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation during cultural group formation promotes trust towards members of out-groups

Pan

Houser

2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…For instance, fairness plays a fundamentally different role in strategic settings versus market settings, in allocation problems with indivisible goods versus divisible goods, in situations with "strangers" versus "partners", etc. Secondly, fairness perceptions vary across individuals, depending, among other things, on gender (see, e.g., Andreoni and Vesterlund 2001), educational background (see, e.g., Marwell and Ames 1981), or cultural background (see, e.g., Henrich et al 2001). In this paper, we address the issue of fairness in a non-strategic context with indivisible goods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distributing Indivisible Goods Fairly: Evidence from a Questionnaire Study

Herreiner¹,

Puppe²

2007

Analyse &Amp; Kritik

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Abstract:We report the results of a questionnaire study on the fair distribution of indivisible goods. We collected data from three different subject pools, first-and second-year students majoring in economics, law students, and advanced economics students with some background knowledge of fairness theories. The purpose of this study is to assess the empirical relevance of various fairness criteria such as inequality aversion, the utilitarian principle of maximizing the sum of individual payoffs, the Rawlsian "maximin" principle of maximizing the payoff of the worst-off individual, and the criterion of envy-freeness (in the sense of Foley 1967).

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“…When Trivers [6] introduced the concept of reciprocal altruism, he outlined necessary prerequisites, such as: (i) a large benefit to the recipient and a small cost to the donor; (ii) repeated opportunities for cooperative interaction; and (iii) the ability to detect cheaters. Instances of human cooperation satisfy these requirements and demonstrate the prevalence of reciprocal altruism across different economic contexts [9,10] and cultures [11]. Some argue that reciprocity is so integral to human society that we have evolved specialized cognitive mechanisms to facilitate its stability, including the systematic detection and punishment of cheaters (see Box 1; [12,13]).…”

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confidence: 99%