Models of decision-making and the coevolution of social preferences

Abstract

We would like to thank the commentators for their generous comments, valuable insights and helpful suggestions. We begin this response by discussing the selfishness axiom and the importance of the preferences, beliefs, and constraints framework as a way of modeling some of the proximate influences on human behavior. Next, we broaden the discussion to ultimate-level (that is evolutionary) explanations, where we review and clarify gene-culture coevolutionary theory, and then tackle the possibility that evolutionary approaches that exclude culture might be sufficient to explain the data. Finally, we consider various methodological and epistemological concerns expressed by our commentators.

Other-regarding preferences in a non-human primate: Common marmosets provision food altruistically

“…H umans are a remarkably cooperative species (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). People frequently cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers, often in large groups, and with people they will never meet again (3,(6)(7)(8)(9).…”

The social logic of political choice: Picking a political party in the context of immediate social circles

“…The more elaborate presentations (Henrich et al 2005a(Henrich et al , 2005b; see also Henrich et al 2004) develop this point. They show that group level measures that describe the particular economic and social contexts account for between-group differences in the responses to the experiments.…”

“…Henrich et al (2001Henrich et al ( , 2004Henrich et al ( , 2005aHenrich et al ( , 2005b) 2 describe the research of a team of fifteen economists, anthropologists, psychologists, and complexity theorists on responses to a series of experimental games in twelve small-scale society across the world, with comparisons to previous work among Americans.…”

“…Challenging Weber's classic view of culture 2 Reflecting the importance of Henrich et al's (2005a) research, the editors of Behavioral and Brain Sciences published the peer reviews of twenty-one scholars from anthropology, economics, decision research, psychology, and political science. Henrich et al (2005b) is the authors' response to the reviewers' comments. 3 Within economics, this research resonates with Arrow's insistence that the possibility of rational behavior is endogenous to the structure of the macro-economy (Arrow 1986: 389).…”

Chimps don't just get mad, they get even

“…Humans have a pretty strong taste for revenge, even when it costs them dearly. In the ultimatum game, which has now been played by thousands of subjects in dozens of societies (13,14), one player is given a sum of money and can decide how much to keep and how much to allocate to a second player. The second player then decides whether to accept or reject the offer.…”