The nature of human altruism

“Inequity aversion (IA) appears to have played a key role in the evolution of cooperation in humans (Fehr & Fischbacher 2003), yet little is known about how other species respond to unequal pay-offs.”

“The evolutionary payoff of an individual’s behavior in complex human societies, obviously, will depend strongly on the reaction of others to that behavior (Betzig 1993; Buss 1999; Ding et al. 2002; Harpending and Cochran 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003).”

“Thus, although chimpanzees may provide striking examples of cooperation, we see nothing in their behavior to challenge the idea that the extent of human cooperation is unique in the animal world (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003).”

“goods dilemmas [2–8], and it is effective indeed [9–11].”

“Despite its benefits for cooperative group-living, altruism as exhibited by humans has been claimed to be unique in the animal kingdom (Fehr & Fischbacher 2003).”

“…is a fascinating evolutionary problem, which has been explained in terms of the value of reputation to the individual (Nowak & Sigmund 2005), as well as the value of altruistic punishment in stabilizing social cohesion against environmental challenges (Fehr & Simon 2000, Fehr & Fischbacher 2003).”

“People cooperate if they expect others to cooperate as well (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003), and although they expect reciprocation from in-group members, they do not expect it frommembers of out-groups (e.g., Yamagishi & Kiyonari, 2000).”

“One of those issues is the evolution of altruism (Wilson 1985, 2005; Woodcock and Heath 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003; Cooper and Wallace 2004; Hamilton and Taborsky 2005; Okasha 2005) and the importance of kin selection to this process (Hamilton 1964; Michod 1982; Day and Taylor 1997; Griffin…”

“Althoughhu - mans are unusual in their altruistic cooperation (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003), human social cheating includes theft, sexual infidelity, and shirking group work.”

“Asking for more typically leads to a greater pass but with limits — subjects who requested more than an equal division were punished.”

“Coefficients of variation were (1) np g © 2 01 3 N at ur e A m er ic a, In c.”

“T strong cooperative attitude of humans defies the paradigm of Homo economicus and poses an evolutionary conundrum (1, 2).”

“Nevertheless, this type of altruistic punishment promotes the cooperation within the well-mixed population, which is also demonstrated to be plausible under other gaming scenarios including public goods game [84], ultimatum game [85] and trust game [86].”

“…how prosocial tendencies could have evolved in humans via cultural group selection (Boyd, Gintis, Bowles, & Richerson, 2003; Boyd & Richerson, 1982; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003, 2004; Fehr & Gaechter, 2002; Guererk, Irlenbusch, & Rockenback, 2006; Guzmán, RodríguezSickert, & Rowthorn, 2006; Henrich,…”

“And eventually too, so hyper-altruistic (e.g., Fehr and Fischbacher 2003)?”

“This ‘altruism’ [28] arises because ‘i has become context-sensitive, and depends on the other player’s payoff.”

“Such “altruistic punishment” could have evolved via some form of cultural group selection (Boyd et al. 2003; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003 ).”

“…by strategic considerations like reciprocity or cooperation (Dufwenberg and Kirchsteiger, 2004; Falk and Fischbacher, 2006; Nowak and Sigmund, 1998) but even in the absence of expectation for future benefit (e.g., fully anonymous, one-time generosity; Batson, 2011; Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003).”

“Altruism, which involves costly other-regarding behavior, is a complex phenomenon resulting from numerous mental processes (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003; Penner et al., 2005; Tankersley et al., 2007; Zaki and Mitchell, 2011; Hutcherson et al., 2015), such as fairness preferences (Fehr and Schmidt,…”

“The following items were included: (1) Do you ever get criticized unfairly (reverse scored)? (2) Do you get consistent information from line management (your superior)? (3) Do you get sufficient information from line management (your superior)? (4) How often is your superior willing to listen to your problems? and (5)…”

“Indeed, human survival and flourishing have depended on our species’ ability to work together to achieve feats that could not be achieved alone, such as hunting large prey and building shelter in inhospitable regions [1].”

“Although humans are sometimes considered unique in that they cooperate with unrelated individuals within large groups (15), a comparison of wild chimpanzee behavior with genetic relatedness data confirmed similar tendencies (16).”

“Current work stresses the potential role of cultural evolution in explaining this tendency to cooperate more than expected from reciprocity theory (Fehr & Fischbacher 2003).”

“This capacity is well documented and takes the form of costly behaviors such as voluntary participation in collective actions, helping strangers, reciprocating favors and punishing norm violators even though the actor receives no material benefits from these action”

“Indeed, cooperation and altruistic behaviors abound in human societie”

“Deviations from profit maximization as observed in economic game playing in general and the dictator game in particular underscore the paradox of human altruism ( Fehr & Fischbacher 2003 ).”

“; (4) Some fraction of people altruistically punish defectors for the good of the group (Fehr and Gächter 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003), and this trait is propagated by group selection (however, this requires that humans are genuinely altruistic, a claim that is problematic for a number of…”

“Yet, we have little understanding of the patterns of large-scale cooperation in contemporary societies (15).”

“1 Blast furnaces in Britain’s Cleveland district (second half of the 19 century) Allen (1983) was the first to analyze what he called “collective invention”.”

“It is to state the obvious that humans can cooperate readily in extraordinary numbers (Smirnov et al. 2007) and that this cooperation often provides public goods, despite the risk of free riding (Andreoni 1988; Fehr & Fischbacher 2003).”

“Because they similarly require parting from the normative path, sexual permissiveness, hedonism, and detachment also indirectly suggest autonomy.”

“We argue that mobilizing local backers is easier in areas where residents have altruistic tendencies, namely, in-clinations to undertake costly actions that confer economic benefits on other individuals to help them (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003).”

“The least deterioration is realized if persons who are not prepared to punish others can themselves be punished; see Fehr and Fischbacher (2003).”

“Second, the authors sought to investigate a potential relation between fairness and altruism, as both have been hypothesized to rely on a more general regard or concern for others (Boehm, 1999; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003).”

“15 In 395 fact, the only regressor with any significant explanatory power is C(group total) −i,t−1, which 396 implies that increases in contributions in this experiment can be attributed to inertia, confor397 mity (Carpenter, 2004) , or conditional cooperation(Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003) .”

“…which often attributes non-human primate altruism and cooperation to kin selection, thus calling human cooperation with non-relatives a 'huge anomaly' in the animal kingdom (Fehr & Fischbacher 2003; Gintis et al. 2003; Boyd 2006; see Melis & Semmann 2010, for further discussion of this topic).”

“H routinely help others, even in situations in which they derive no direct benefit themselves (1, 2).”

“We used the priming procedure and the common resource dilemma described above, taking advantage of the fact that dilemmas of this sort put people in a conflict between the dominant goal of being selfish and the nondominant goal of being cooperative (Brewer & Kramer, 1986; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003).”

“…reciprocity over repeated interactions (Axelrod 1984); group selection (Boyd, Gintis et al. 2003) and so-called " strong reciprocity " (Bowles, Fehr et al. 2003; Bowles and Gintis 2004); altruism as an observable signal of (unobservable) fitness (Gintis, Smith et al. 2001); reinforcement via…”

“Results from numerous experiments with the ‘‘ultimatum game’’ show that agents are prepared to personally sacrifice to punish non-cooperative, ‘‘unfair’’ behavior (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003). proposed by Etzioni (1986), and apply it to the systematic analysis of conservation decision-making.”

“For example, the recent surge in theories on equity, fairness and reciprocity (e.g., Charness and Rabin 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003) is highly motivated by experimental results documenting non-selfish behavior.”

“…Trade may have on their social status (Hollaender, 1990; Freeman, 1997; Cialdini, 2003; Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008), their self-image (Batson, 1998; Benabou & Tirole, 2006), or their reputation (Glazer & Konrad, 1996; Harbaugh, 1998; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Benabou & Tirole, 2006).”

“Cooperation, defined as interactions with others that increase shared performance, is one of the most important human social behaviors [Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003].”

“Such vicarious reward could motivate social interactions as well as underlie observational learning and mutualistic behaviors such as alliance formation, social grooming, and group cohesion (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003; Takahashi et al., 2009).”

“Prosocial behavior, or altruism, is then defined as costly acts that increase another person’s benefits (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003).”

“Economic altruism and spite occur even under anonymous experimental conditions in which subjects cannot be rewarded for their acts in future interactions (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003).”

“…altruism theory have been proposed—indirect reciprocity (Alexander, 1987; Nowak & Sigmund, 1998), strong reciprocity (Fehr & Gächter, 2002; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Gintis, 2000; Gintis, Bowles, Boyd, & Fehr, 2003), and costly signaling (Dessalles, 1999; Gintis, Smith, & Bowles, 2001;…”

“thinking or feeling without a necessary affective response [1].”

“behavioral outcomes that are not only motivated by the maximization of own beneWts but also increases beneWts to others (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003).”

“Indeed, experimental and simulation studies have shown that cooperation can be maintained even in larger groups and in one-shot interactions, if there is the possibility to punish defectors (Fehr and Gächter, 2002; Boyd et al., 2003; Fehr and Fischbacher, 2004; see, however, Ohtsuki et al., 2009).”

“For example, a CP-strategist cooperates in the first stage and punishes defectors in the second stage (therefore deemed as a 'strong reciprocator' (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003; Bowles and Gintis, 2004)).”

“The idea that people who interact with each other are likely to be obliged to interact with each other in the future resembles work by economists on what is called co-operation and altruism (some of this work is reviewed and put in an evolutionary frame in Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003).”

“For example, in a third-party punishment experiment (8), a dictator makes an unfair allocation to another person who is not the participant.”

“…participation in these tasks, we characterize responses as generalized cooperative intentions (i.e., cooperative intentions that are not related specifically to kinship, reciprocity, reputation, or threat of punishment; for reviews, see Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Jordan, Peysakhovich, & Rand, 2014).”

“…to manifest a distaste for exploitation or unfairness by others to oneself, as well as by others to family members, to a friend or ally, to an ingroup member, or (through putting a group into the agent slot) to personally valued groups (see, Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003, for a different view).”

“, biological systems [73], human society [74] and engineering [75].”