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The nature of human altruism
Abstract
Some of the most fundamental questions concerning our evolutionary origins, our social relations, and the organization of society are centred around issues of altruism and selfishness. Experimental evidence indicates that human altruism is a powerful force and is unique in the animal world. However, there is much individual heterogeneity and the interaction between altruists and selfish individuals is vital to human cooperation. Depending on the environment, a minority of altruists can force a majority of selfish individuals to cooperate or, conversely, a few egoists can induce a large number of altruists to defect. Current gene-based evolutionary theories cannot explain important patterns of human altruism, pointing towards the importance of both theories of cultural evolution as well as gene-culture co-evolution.
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“Yet, when the PGG is repeated over multiple rounds, contributions tend to decline with the number of rounds; this is due to a few individuals who free ride in the first round, thereby triggering further free riding in subsequent rounds11,14,27.”
From Cooperation without punishment (2023) · cites this paper as [11]
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In the citing paper
“The fact that costly punishment plays an undisputed role in other contexts, such as public goods games, ultimatum games and trust games 43-46 , shows that this form of discrimination is highly plausible.”
From Evolution of indirect reciprocity (2005) · cites this paper as [46]
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“which theory and experimentation shows is a more effective means of preserving cooperation than individual-level punishment (Fehr & Gachter, 2002; Fehr & Fischbacher 2003)”
From The origins of language in teaching (2017) · cites this paper as Fehr & Fischbacher 2003
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“Free riding poses a major challenge to self-governance, and a prominent solution to this challenge has been altruistic punishment.”
From Cooperation without punishment (2023) · cites this paper as [11]
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“Free riding poses a major challenge to self-governance, and a prominent solution to this challenge has been altruistic punishment.”
From Cooperation without punishment (2023) · cites this paper as [11]
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In the citing paper
“Yet, when the PGG is repeated over multiple rounds, contributions tend to decline with the number of rounds; this is due to a few individuals who free ride in the first round, thereby triggering further free riding in subsequent rounds11,14,27.”
From Cooperation without punishment (2023) · cites this paper as [11]
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“Parametric regressors were not orthogonalized in the design matrix, ensuring that parameter estimates were not confounded by spurious correlations due to signals related to other regressors 59 .”
From Oxytocin modulates social value representations in the amygdala (2019) · cites this paper as [59]
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“It has been shown that people reward others for cooperative behaviour but punish violations of social fairness even at a personal cost15,16, an effect likely to be mediated by neural mechanisms that provide intrinsic motivation (that is, satisfaction) from punishing violators21.”
From Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others (2006) · cites this paper as [16]
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“Many theories explaining various types of cooperation have been proposed in biology and economics (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Gurven, 2004) but a theoretical explanation of unconditional altruism (de W ned as bene W ting others at a cost to oneself, Wilson, 1976) has remained elusive to date.”
From Altruistic behavior as a costly signal of general intelligence (2007) · cites this paper as Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003
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Stevens, J. R., & HAUSER, M. D. (2003) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2003.12.003 · Cited by 582
Spontaneous Altruism by Chimpanzees and Young Children
Warneken, F., Hare, B. A., Melis, A. P., Hanus, D., & Tomasello, M. (2007) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050184 · Cited by 567
“]. Humans, in contrast, occasionally help other individuals, even strangers, without immediate benefit for themselves, encompassing situations that make reciprocation unlikely [”
BackgroundSixteen common misconceptions about the evolution of cooperation in humans
West, S. A., Mouden, C. E., & Gardner, A. (2010) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.08.001 · Cited by 568
“…models in many ways, including: (a) a decrease in fitness over the short term, so that reciprocity is " reciprocal altruism " (Becker, 1974; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Trivers, 1971); (b) a decrease in the fitness of the focal individual, relative to the other members of its group…”
BackgroundInfluentialKeller, M. C., & Miller, G. F. (2006) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x06009095 · Cited by 553
The evolution of costly displays, cooperation and religion
Henrich, J. (2009) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005 · Cited by 693
Human Motivation and Social Cooperation: Experimental and Analytical Foundations
Fehr, E., & Gintis, H. M. (2007) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131812 · Cited by 545
“Ample evidence from different types of experiments (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003; Gintis et al. 2003) indicates that a substantial share of the subjects exhibits strong reciprocity.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationReciprocity: Weak or strong? What punishment experiments do (and do not) demonstrate
Guala, F. (2012) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x11000069 · Cited by 526
“Strong reciprocity has been called, for example, a " predisposition to reward others for cooperative, norm-abiding behaviours " and " a propensity to impose sanctions on others for norm violations " (Fehr & Fischbacher 2003, p. 785).”
InfluentialThe mechanics of trust: A framework for research and design
Riegelsberger, J., Sasse, M. A., & McCarthy, J. D. (2005) · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies · doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2005.01.001 · Cited by 508
Partner choice creates competitive altruism in humans
Barclay, P., & Willer, R. (2007) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2006.0209 · Cited by 485
“2003), and may have potential implications for theories of ‘strong reciprocity’ which claim that (some) people have a preference for being altruistic and derive pleasure from the well-being of others (e.g. Fehr & Fischbacher 2003; Gintis et al .”
“I had so much it didn’t seem fair”: Eight-year-olds reject two forms of inequity
Blake, P. R., & McAuliffe, K. (2011) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.04.006 · Cited by 532
“…both when they are offered less than a social partner – disadvantageous inequity – and when they are offered more – advantageous inequity (Camerer, 2003; Dawes, Fowler, Johnson, McElreath, & Smirnov, 2007; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Fehr & Schmidt, 1999; Guth, Schmittberger, & Schwarze, 1982).”
BackgroundThe efficient interaction of indirect reciprocity and costly punishment
Rockenbach, B., & Milinski, M. (2006) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature05229 · Cited by 501
Beyond the Self: Social Identity, Altruism, and Political Participation
Fowler, J. H., & Kam, C. D. (2007) · The Journal of Politics · doi:10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00577.x · Cited by 498
“We scale all variables from 0 to 1 for ease of comparison across coefficients, and we report the residual deviance of the model and compare it to the null deviance of a model with a constant. zation, donating to a political organization, attending a local board meeting, volunteering for a local…”
BackgroundDo you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice.
Gervais, W. M., Shariff, A. F., & Norenzayan, A. (2011) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0025882 · Cited by 495
“Henrich et al. (2010) found that across 14 societies, people from cultures that believe in the omniscient, moralizing gods of the major world faiths (e.”
BackgroundReciprocity, culture and human cooperation: previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment
Gächter, S., & Herrmann, B. (2008) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0275 · Cited by 484
Bai, Y., Maruskin, L. A., Chen, S., Gordon, A. M., Stellar, J. E., McNeil, G. D., Peng, K., & Keltner, D. (2017) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspa0000087 · Cited by 476
Coordinated Punishment of Defectors Sustains Cooperation and Can Proliferate When Rare
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., & Bowles, S. (2010) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1183665 · Cited by 613
McKay, R. T., & Dennett, D. C. (2009) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x09990975 · Cited by 474
Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences
Tricomi, E., Rangel, A., Camerer, C. F., & O’Doherty, J. P. (2010) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature08785 · Cited by 462
Normative foundations of human cooperation
Fehr, E., & Schurtenberger, I. (2018) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0385-5 · Cited by 434
Self-citationSocial Preferences and Supply Chain Performance: An Experimental Study
Loch, C. H., & Wu, Y. (2008) · Management Science · doi:10.1287/mnsc.1080.0910 · Cited by 460
“Loch and Wu: Social Preferences and Supply Chain Performance: An Experimental Study 1 Social Preferences and Supply Chain Performance:”
BackgroundAtran, S., & Henrich, J. (2010) · Biological Theory · doi:10.1162/biot_a_00018 · Cited by 459
“Send to: Dan Bouchard The MIT Press Journals 238 Main Street, Suite 500 Cambridge, MA 02142 Fax: 617-258-5028 Email: bouchard@mit.edu If you notice the letters “FPO” on your figure art, this indicates that the figure is either in color or will be shot as a halftone by the printer to capture shades…”
BackgroundRationality and Psychology in International Politics
Mercer, J. (2005) · International Organization · doi:10.1017/s0020818305050058 · Cited by 469
“…Colman 2003+ 94+ For the neuroscience of cooperation, see Rilling et al+ 2002+ For a review of evolutionary models of cooperation and reputation, see Fehr and Fischbacher 2003+ For neuroscience and political psychology, see Cacioppo and Visser 2003+ For the use of neuroscience to examine…”
BackgroundThe economics of altruistic punishment and the maintenance of cooperation
Egas, M., & Riedl, A. M. (2008) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.1558 · Cited by 468
“Our results (below) show that in the standard treatment the behaviour of our participants does not differ qualitatively from the behaviour of student participants in similar experiments (Fehr & Gächter 2000, 2002; Fehr & Fischbacher 2003).”
BackgroundResultSelective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex
Ciaramelli, E., Muccioli, M., Làdavas, E., & di Pellegrino, G. (2007) · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · doi:10.1093/scan/nsm001 · Cited by 436
“Similar mechanisms might be at work when individuals punish violations of social fairness at a personal cost (Fehr and Gachter, 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003).”
BackgroundChimpanzees Are Rational Maximizers in an Ultimatum Game
Jensen, K., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1145850 · Cited by 446
Conditional Cooperation and Costly Monitoring Explain Success in Forest Commons Management
Rustagi, D., Engel, S., & Kosfeld, M. (2010) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1193649 · Cited by 575
Evolutionary Theory and the Ultimate–Proximate Distinction in the Human Behavioral Sciences
Scott‐Phillips, T. C., Dickins, T. E., & West, S. A. (2011) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691610393528 · Cited by 459
“Strong reciprocity is defined as a combination of ‘‘a predisposition to reward others for cooperative, norm-abiding behaviors . . . [and] a propensity to impose sanctions on others for norm violations’’ (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003, p. 785)—this defines it as a proximate mechanism.”
BackgroundKurzban, R., & Houser, D. E. (2005) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0408759102 · Cited by 438
Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour
Eisenegger, C., Naef, M., Snozzi, R., Heinrichs, M., & Fehr, E. (2009) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature08711 · Cited by 430
Self-citationMartela, F., & Ryan, R. M. (2016) · Journal of Personality · doi:10.1111/jopy.12215 · Cited by 422
“Recent evolutionary arguments have also emphasized the adaptive benefits of pro-social acts (at least toward those close to us; e.g., Brown & Brown, 2006; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003).”
BackgroundHow should we define goodness?—reputation dynamics in indirect reciprocity
Ohtsuki, H., & Iwasa, Y. (2004) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2004.06.005 · Cited by 497
“Indirect reciprocity (Alexander, 1987; Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003, Nowak and Sigmund, 1998b) gives one clear-cut explanation of how this preference for e front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd.”
BackgroundDishonesty in everyday life and its policy implicationsPreprint
Dan Ariely, C., & Mažar, N. (2006) · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · Cited by 422
The leading eight: Social norms that can maintain cooperation by indirect reciprocity
Ohtsuki, H., & Iwasa, Y. (2006) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2005.08.008 · Cited by 491
“Indirect reciprocity is one of the major driving forces of the evolution of cooperation in humans (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003).”
BackgroundNeural correlates of social cooperation and non-cooperation as a function of psychopathy
Rilling, J. K., Glenn, A. L., Jairam, M. R., Pagnoni, G., Goldsmith, D. R., Elfenbein, H. A., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2007) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.07.021 · Cited by 408
“…results also are consistent with the observation that in contrast to other primates, many human beings are predisposed toward cooperation with nonrelatives, but observed patterns of human cooperation depend upon the interaction of both altruistic and selfish individuals (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003).”
Result
Metadata
- Authors
- Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U.
- Affiliations
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Fehr, Ernst
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2003-10
- Volume
- 425
- Issue
- 6960
- Pages
- 785-791
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W1481402319
- Cited by
- 3,475
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 142 · 2025: 177 · 2024: 166 · 2023: 161 · 2022: 189 · 2021: 232 · 2020: 144 · 2019: 162 · 2018: 186 · 2017: 136 · 2016: 179 · 2015: 202 · 2014: 159 · 2013: 173 · 2012: 157
- FWCI
- 38.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Keywords
- selfishness, cooperation, individual heterogeneity, cultural evolution, gene-culture coevolution, social evolution
- MeSH terms
- Altruism, Cooperative Behavior, Culture, Biological Evolution, Humans, Punishment, Reward
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