Preference Evolution and Reciprocity

Sethi, Rajiv; Somanathan, E.

doi:10.1006/jeth.2000.2683

Cited by 189 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…This function must allow spite toward nonaltruistic ''materialists,'' and hence focus on differences in altruism. This paper extends their line of argument, confirming their conjecture: ''while a wide range of parameter values is consistent with survival against materialists, a much narrower range may be expected to survive when several members of this class of preferences are in competition with each other'' (9).…”

Section: Previous Worksupporting

confidence: 76%

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Competition among cooperators: Altruism and reciprocity

Danielson

2002

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Levine argues that neither self-interest nor altruism explains experimental results in bargaining and public goods games. Subjects' preferences appear also to be sensitive to their opponents' perceived altruism. Sethi and Somanathan provide a general account of reciprocal preferences that survive under evolutionary pressure. Although a wide variety of reciprocal strategies pass this evolutionary test, Sethi and Somanthan conjecture that fewer are likely to survive when reciprocal strategies compete with each other. This paper develops evolutionary agent-based models to test their conjecture in cases where reciprocal preferences can differ in a variety of games. We confirm that reciprocity is necessary but not sufficient for optimal cooperation. We explore the theme of competition among reciprocal cooperators and display three interesting emergent organizations: racing to the ''moral high ground,'' unstable cycles of preference change, and, when we implement reciprocal mechanisms, hierarchies resulting from exploiting fellow cooperators. If reciprocity is a basic mechanism facilitating cooperation, we can expect interaction that evolves around it to be complex, non-optimal, and resistant to change.

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Section: Previous Worksupporting

confidence: 76%

“…Following Sethi and Somanathan (9), where is the material payoff function of a n-player game x, player i's utility function u i has the direct component and ␤ weight for the opponents' material payoff shown in Eq. 1.…”

Section: Modeling Altruism and Reciprocitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Competition among cooperators: Altruism and reciprocity

Danielson

2002

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Koçkesen, Ok, and Sethi (2000a) and Koçkesen, Ok, and Sethi (2000b) analyze interdependent preferences in symmetric aggregative games and certain classes of symmetric supermodular and submodular games, respectively. Sethi and Somanathan (2001) consider reciprocal preferences in aggregative games. Berninghaus, Güth, and Kliemt (2003) study the trust game and Poulsen and Poulsen (2003) investigate reciprocity, altruism, and materialism in prisoner's dilemma games.…”

Section: Indirect Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reciprocity—An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis

Berninghaus

Korth²,

Napel

2009

Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems

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This paper investigates strategic interaction between rational agents whose preferences evolve over time. Players face a pecuniary 'game of life' comprising the ultimatum game and the dictator game. Utility may but need not be attached to the reciprocation of fair and unfair play by the opponent and equitable payoff distributions as proposed by Falk and Fischbacher (2001). Evolutionary fitness is determined solely by material successregardless of the motives for its achievement. Agents cannot explicitly condition the social component of their preferences on whether they face the ultimatum or dictator game.Under these conditions, agents develop a strong preference for reciprocation but little interest in an equitable distribution as such. This corresponds to equitable ultimatum offers but full surplus appropriation by dictators. Adding an exogenous constraint on the possible divergence between preference for reciprocation and for an equitable distribution either makes ultimatum divisions asymmetric or dictators become generous depending on the relative frequency of ultimatum and dictator interaction.

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“…For example, altruism toward physical neighbors can be favored when neighbors are naturally likely to be related [31]. Similarly, selection can favor altruists over selfish agents when the altruists vary between acting nicely or spitefully depending the fraction of altruists among those with which they interact [87]. Humans even seem to have special cognitive modules for detecting "cheaters" [9].…”

Section: Contingent Altruismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The idea that people care about the outcomes of others is widely considered plausible, and has inspired researchers to look at both how such altruism might have evolved [87,31,10] and how it might in general lead to counter-intuitive outcomes [11,62]. Researchers have also considered the implications of altruism for many aspects of family behavior, such as bequests and fertility.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Showing that you care: The evolution of health altruism

Hanson¹

2008

Medical Hypotheses

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Human behavior regarding medicine seems strange; assumptions and models that seem workable in other areas seem less so in medicine. Perhaps we need to rethink the basics. Toward this end, I have collected many puzzling stylized facts about behavior regarding medicine, and have sought a small number of simple assumptions which might together account for as many puzzles as possible.The puzzles I consider include a willingness to provide more medical than other assistance to associates, a desire to be seen as so providing, support for nation, firm, or family provided medical care, placebo benefits of medicine, a small average health value of additional medical spending relative to other health influences, more interest in public that private signals of medical quality, medical spending as an individual necessity but national luxury, a strong stress-mediated health status correlation, and support for regulating health behaviors of the low status. These phenomena seem widespread across time and cultures. I can explain these puzzles moderately well by assuming that humans evolved deep medical habits long ago in an environment where people gained higher status by having more allies, honestly cared about those who remained allies, were unsure who would remain allies, wanted to seem reliable allies, inferred such reliability in part based on who helped who with health crises, tended to suffer more crises requiring non-health investments when having fewer allies, and invested more in cementing allies in good times in order to rely more on them in hard times.These ancient habits would induce modern humans to treat medical care as a way to show that you care. Medical care provided by our allies would reassure us of their concern, and allies would want you and other allies to see that they had pay enough to distinguish themselves from posers who didnt care as much as they. Private information about medical quality is mostly irrelevant to this signaling process.If people with fewer allies are less likely to remain our allies, and if we care about them mainly assuming they remain our allies, then we want them to invest more in health than they would choose for themselves. This tempts us to regulate their health behaviors. This analysis suggests that the future will continue to see robust desires for health behavior regulation and for communal medical care and spending increases as a fraction of income, all regardless of the health effects of these choices.2

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Preference Evolution and Reciprocity

Cited by 189 publications

References 27 publications

Competition among cooperators: Altruism and reciprocity

Competition among cooperators: Altruism and reciprocity

Reciprocity—An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis

Showing that you care: The evolution of health altruism

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