Reply to Henrich et al.: Behavioral variation needs to be quantified at multiple levels

Lamba, Shakti; Mace, Ruth

doi:10.1073/pnas.1118858109

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Variation in cooperative behaviour – frequently measured through economic games – across different cultures (Henrich et al 2005; 2006; 2010a) is put forward as evidence that cooperation is a stable, persistent, and group-level trait on which selection at the level of the group could act. However, as we and others have argued elsewhere, high levels of variation in cooperative behaviour are also found within ethnic groups (Lamba & Mace 2011; 2012; Nettle et al 2011), suggesting that variation attributed to different cultural norms could in fact reflect individual adaptations to different environments. The F st data presented in the article supports the idea that countries differ in some beliefs and values, so at least one of the assumptions of CGS is met.…”

supporting

confidence: 60%

The role of cultural group selection in explaining human cooperation is a hard case to prove

Mace

Silva

2016

Behav Brain Sci

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We believe cultural group selection is an elegant theoretical framework to study the evolution of complex human behaviours, including large-scale cooperation. However, the empirical evidence on key theoretical issues - such as levels of within- and between-group variation and effects of intergroup competition - is so far patchy, with no clear case where all the relevant assumptions and predictions of cultural group selection are met, to the exclusion of other explanations.

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supporting

confidence: 60%

The role of cultural group selection in explaining human cooperation is a hard case to prove

Mace

Silva

2016

Behav Brain Sci

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“…Cultural evolution provides a potential explanation, because if cooperative behaviours are learned socially from others (social learning), then cooperation can spread within groups, and cooperative groups can outcompete relatively uncooperative groups [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]16]. The extent to which cultural evolution favours higher levels of cooperation is controversial [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. First, theory suggests that the outcome of cultural evolution depends critically upon the mechanisms by which individuals obtain and use social information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social learning and the demise of costly cooperation in humans

2017

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Humans have a sophisticated ability to learn from others, termed social learning, which has allowed us to spread over the planet, construct complex societies, and travel to the moon. It has been hypothesized that social learning has played a pivotal role in making human societies cooperative, by favouring cooperation even when it is not favoured by genetical selection. However, this hypothesis lacks direct experimental testing, and the opposite prediction has also been made, that social learning disfavours cooperation. We experimentally tested how different aspects of social learning affect the level of cooperation in public-goods games. We found that: (i) social information never increased cooperation and usually led to decreased cooperation; (ii) cooperation was lowest when individuals could observe how successful individuals behaved; and (iii) cooperation declined because individuals preferred to copy successful individuals, who cooperated less, rather than copy common behaviours. Overall, these results suggest that individuals use social information to try and improve their own success, and that this can lead to lower levels of cooperation.

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“…Important differences also exist between neighboring communities with no obvious cultural differences: adjacent Tsimane villages (Gurven et al 2008), different neighborhoods of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Nettle et al 2011), communities of horticulturalist-foragers less than 100 km apart (Lamba and Mace 2011). Quantitatively speaking, those intra-cultural differences are quite comparable to inter-cultural differences (Lamba and Mace 2012).…”

Section: Economic Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Cooperation a Maladaptive By-product of Social Learning? The Docility Hypothesis Reconsidered

Morin

2014

Biol Theory

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The docility hypothesis holds that human social learning produces genuinely altruistic behaviors as a maladaptive by-product. This article examines five possible sources of such altruistic mistakes. The first two mechanisms, the smoke-detector principle and the cost-accuracy tradeoff, are not specifically linked to social learning. Both predict that it may be adaptive for cooperators to allow some altruistic mistakes to happen, as long as those mistakes are rare and cost little. The other three mechanisms are specific to social learning: Through culture, individuals may come to adopt altruistic norms selected at the group level. Culture may provide people with cheap, accessible, but occasionally mediocre information that they are too reliant upon-a kind of informational dumping. Lastly, people may copy sources good to follow in one domain (like technology) but not in another (cooperation), thus committing calibration errors. I argue that those sources of errors are unlikely to lead to important amounts of altruism toward non-kin. Experimental evidence shows humans to be sufficiently skeptical, discriminative, and conscious of their own interest to avoid such altruistic mistakes in most cases. Docile altruism is unlikely to be an important aspect of human cooperation.

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Reply to Henrich et al.: Behavioral variation needs to be quantified at multiple levels

Cited by 9 publications

References 6 publications

The role of cultural group selection in explaining human cooperation is a hard case to prove

The role of cultural group selection in explaining human cooperation is a hard case to prove

Social learning and the demise of costly cooperation in humans

Is Cooperation a Maladaptive By-product of Social Learning? The Docility Hypothesis Reconsidered

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