The Evolution of Cooperation

Axelrod, Robert; Hamilton, W. D.

doi:10.1126/science.7466396

Cited by 10,906 publications

(6,518 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The passage of symbionts from parent to offspring (vertical transmission), genotypic uniformity of symbionts within individual hosts, spatial structure of populations leading to repeated interactions between would-be mutualists, and restricted options outside the relationship for both partners are thought to align interests and promote long-term stability. Conversely, movement of symbionts between unrelated hosts (horizontal transmission), multiple symbiont genotypes and varied options are thought to unravel them [5][6][7][8][21][22][23] . This framework is logically appealing, and many cases appear to conform well with its predictions 24,25 .…”

Section: Current Theory Of Conflict Cooperation and Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of mutualisms: exploring the paths between conflict and cooperation

Herre

Knowlton

Mueller

et al. 1999

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

675

702

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Section: Current Theory Of Conflict Cooperation and Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of mutualisms: exploring the paths between conflict and cooperation

Herre

Knowlton

Mueller

et al. 1999

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

675

702

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“…These methods originated in mathematics and engineering (e.g., Fishman, 1996) and were pioneered in the behavioral sciences by Axelrod (Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981); Payne, Bettman, and Johnson (1993);Fiedler (1996); and Gigerenzer (Gigerenzer, Todd, & the ABC Research Group, 1999) in applications to test the adaptive success of individual decision strategies.…”

Section: Group Decision Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Robust Beauty of Majority Rules in Group Decisions.

Hastie¹,

Kameda²

2005

Psychological Review

377

349

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How should groups make decisions? The authors provide an original evaluation of 9 group decision rules based on their adaptive success in a simulated test bed environment. When the adaptive success standard is applied, the majority and plurality rules fare quite well, performing at levels comparable to much more resource-demanding rules such as an individual judgment averaging rule. The plurality rule matches the computationally demanding Condorcet majority winner that is standard in evaluations of preferential choice. The authors also test the results from their theoretical analysis in a behavioral study of nominal human group decisions, and the essential findings are confirmed empirically. The conclusions of the present analysis support the popularity of majority and plurality rules in truth-seeking group decisions.Human societies rely on groups to make many important decisions. There is a deep-seated belief that groups are more accurate and more just than individuals. This belief is based on the commonsense notion that a group has more problem-solving resources than any individual member because "several heads are better than one." The belief also depends on the assumption that the group process is effective at eliciting and integrating its members' beliefs and preferences. The most popular decision rule in groups of all types is the majority rule. The majority rule has many virtues: It is "transparent" and the easiest of all social decision rules to execute; it is based on a simple principle of equal participation and equal power; it encourages the expression of sincere personal beliefs, rather than conformity; and it yields more effective problem solutions than typical (and sometimes even most accurate) members could achieve. The present article is an exploration of the capacity of the majority rule and the closely related plurality rule to produce accurate judgments.The majority rule is popular across the full spectrum of human groups from hunter-gatherer tribal societies (Boehm, 1996;Boyd & Richerson, 1985;Wilson, 1994) to modern industrial democracies (Mueller, 1989). Certainly, in ad hoc Western groups, it seems to be the decision rule most frequently adopted to make formal social choices in popular elections, legislatures, and committees. The second most popular explicit procedure in committees is an autocratic "leader decides" rule (e.g., Smith & Bliege-Bird, 2000). However, when no explicit decision rule is adopted by a group or when a designated leader appears to make the group's decision, the implicit decision rule is usually still essentially a majority rule (cf. Davis, 1973Davis, , 1982Kerr, Stasser, & Davis, 1979;Stasser, Kerr, & Davis, 1980). Even when a small group has an explicit rule other than a majority rule, the largest initial faction, that is, the plurality, is usually the ultimate winner (cf. There are several versions of majoritarian rules used in human societies. The most popular version in America is a majority-plurality rule in which the candidate that receives the most votes wins ...

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“…Cheating the partner yields a higher benefit than co-operation irrespective of what the partner does, but if both partners co-operate they receive a higher benefit than if both cheat, hence the dilemma. Milinski (1987) and Dugatkin (1988) proposed that the fish solve the prisoner's dilemma by playing a 'tit-for-tat'-like strategy, which states that a player starts co-operatively and does in all further rounds what the partner did in the previous round (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981). This interpretation is not yet entirely resolved (see review in Dugatkin 1997) but discussions about the interpretation led to a few experiments with very interesting additional results.…”

Section: Co-operationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fish cognition: a primate's eye view

Bshary

Wickler²,

Fricke³

2001

Anim.Cogn.

240

166

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We provide selected examples from the fish literature of phenomena found in fish that are currently being examined in discussions of cognitive abilities and evolution of neocortex size in primates. In the context of social intelligence, we looked at living in individualised groups and corresponding social strategies, social learning and tradition, and co-operative hunting. Regarding environmental intelligence, we searched for examples concerning special foraging skills, tool use, cognitive maps, memory, anti-predator behaviour, and the manipulation of the environment. Most phenomena of interest for primatologists are found in fish as well. We therefore conclude that more detailed studies on decision rules and mechanisms are necessary to test for differences between the cognitive abilities of primates and other taxa. Cognitive research can benefit from future fish studies in three ways: first, as fish are highly variable in their ecology, they can be used to determine the specific ecological factors that select for the evolution of specific cognitive abilities. Second, for the same reason they can be used to investigate the link between cognitive abilities and the enlargement of specific brain areas. Third, decision rules used by fish could be used as 'null-hypotheses' for primatologists looking at how monkeys might make their decisions. Finally, we propose a variety of fish species that we think are most promising as study objects.

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The Evolution of Cooperation

Cited by 10,906 publications

References 33 publications

The evolution of mutualisms: exploring the paths between conflict and cooperation

The evolution of mutualisms: exploring the paths between conflict and cooperation

The Robust Beauty of Majority Rules in Group Decisions.

Fish cognition: a primate's eye view

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