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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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In the citing paper
“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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“I pick you”: the impact of fairness and race on infants’ selection of social partners
Burns, M. P., & Sommerville, J. A. (2014) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00093 · Cited by 185
“In the context of economic games, adults divide resources between oneself and an anonymous social partner equally (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003; Henrich et al., 2005) and punish individuals who do not do so and seek redistribute goods equally (Dawes et al.”
BackgroundExtended Family and Kinship Networks: Economic Insights and Evolutionary DirectionsPreprint
Cox, D., & Marcel Fafchamps, A. (2008) · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · Cited by 173
Robust Reconstruction of Complex Networks from Sparse Data
Han, X., Shen, Z., Wang, W.-X., & Di, Z. (2015) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.114.028701 · Cited by 175
Communication and collective action: language and the evolution of human cooperation
Smith, E. A. (2010) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.03.001 · Cited by 183
Altruism toward in-group members as a reputation mechanism
Mifune, N., Hashimoto, H., & Yamagishi, T. (2009) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.09.004 · Cited by 183
“According to the strong reciprocity model of human cooperation (Fehr & Gachter, 2002; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Gintis et al., 2003), humans have evolved an inclination toward punishing norm violators under group selection pressures.”
The neural correlates of the affective response to unreciprocated cooperation
Rilling, J. K., Goldsmith, D. R., Glenn, A. L., Jairam, M. R., Elfenbein, H. A., Dagenais, J. E., Murdock, C. D., & Pagnoni, G. (2008) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.11.033 · Cited by 175
“Despite our capacity for war and violence, humans are also an unusually prosocial species, especially in terms of our propensity to cooperate with non-relatives (Bowles & Gintis, 2003; Boyd & Richerson, 2006; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Nowak, 2006; Ridley, 1996).”
BackgroundInfluentialThe brain’s functional network architecture reveals human motives
Hein, G., Morishima, Y., Leiberg, S., Sul, S., & Fehr, E. (2016) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aac7992 · Cited by 165
Self-citationSocial intelligence, human intelligence and niche construction
Sterelny, K. (2007) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.2006 · Cited by 233
“Most humans are default rather than calculating reciprocators: they enter social relations with the intention of cooperating if they expect other agents to do the same (Fehr & Fischbacher 2003, 2004).”
BackgroundUnderstanding and managing compliance in the nature conservation context
Arias, A. (2015) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.02.013 · Cited by 186
“These thresholds can be difficult to locate because they depend on dynamic factors such as norms, punishment, and rewards (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Ostrom, 2000).”
BackgroundAltruism as a courtship display: Some effects of third‐party generosity on audience perceptions
Barclay, P. (2009) · British Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1348/000712609x435733 · Cited by 177
Bereczkei, T., Birkás, B., & Kerekes, Z. (2007) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.04.002 · Cited by 176
“In contrast, in real interpersonal interactions, individuals frequently have the ability to choose their cooperating partners (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003).”
Prosocial Goal Pursuit in Crowdfunding: Evidence from Kickstarter
Dai, H., & Zhang, D. (2019) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1177/0022243718821697 · Cited by 179
“…that people have social preferences and are willing to incur a financial cost to bring economic benefits to others (Bénabou and Tirole 2006; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003), we expect that, in addition to their financial motives of receiving rewards, backers also have prosocial motives and…”
Hu, X., Chu, T. H. S., Leung, V. C. M., Ngai, E. C. ‐., Kruchten, P. B., & Chan, H. C. B. (2014) · IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials · doi:10.1109/comst.2014.2371813 · Cited by 172
“…approaches have been proposed for optimizing resource management, the impact of user behavior and their social relation remain to be further explored in MSNs. Human altruism has been investigated deeply in [147], [148], where it was shown that human cooperation relies on rewards or punishments.”
BackgroundCooperation, Trust, and Antagonism
Parks, C. D., Joireman, J. A., & Lange, P. A. M. V. (2013) · Gothic.net · doi:10.1177/1529100612474436 · Cited by 179
Altruism among relatives and non-relatives
Rachlin, H. C., & Jones, B. A. (2008) · Behavioural Processes · doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2008.06.002 · Cited by 167
The evolution of punishment through reputation
dos Santos, M., Rankin, D. J., & Wedekind, C. (2010) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.1275 · Cited by 167
Unfair? It depends: Neural correlates of fairness in social context
Güroğlu, B., van den Bos, W., Rombouts, S. A. R. B., & Crone, E. A. (2010) · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · doi:10.1093/scan/nsq013 · Cited by 174
A cue of kinship promotes cooperation for the public good
Krupp, D. B., DeBruine, L. M., & Barclay, P. (2007) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.08.002 · Cited by 176
“Given social dilemmas in which free riders can stand to gain more than their altruistic counterparts, cooperative outcomes are nonetheless regularly achieved (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003).”
BackgroundBechtel, M. M., Genovese, F., & Scheve, K. F. (2017) · British Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1017/s0007123417000205 · Cited by 157
Testosterone causes both prosocial and antisocial status-enhancing behaviors in human males
Dreher, J., Dunne, S., Pazderska, A., Frodl, T., Nolan, J. J., & O’Doherty, J. P. (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1608085113 · Cited by 165
“Although human generosity often occurs without an expectation of material benefit (21), experimental research has shown that generosity to others can also have a social signaling function; for example, it is increased when donations will be made public (22– 24), and male generosity specifically is increased in the pre…”
BackgroundDistinguishing four fundamental approaches to the evolution of helping
Bshary, R., & Bergmüller, R. (2008) · Journal of Evolutionary Biology · doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2007.01482.x · Cited by 173
“Nevertheless, the fact that many humans are willing to reward cooperative third parties and to punish egoistic third parties in anonymous one-shot interactions (Fehr & Gächter, 2002; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003) is certainly intriguing.”
BackgroundFairness considerations: Increasing understanding of intentionality during adolescence
Güroğlu, B., van den Bos, W., & Crone, E. A. (2009) · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2009.07.002 · Cited by 169
“Reward is a strong socialization agent and plays an important role in social relationships; in particular, interactions with friends are perceived as rewarding experiences at the interpersonal level ( Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Gurog ˘lu, van den Bos, & Crone, 2009), all the more so throughout adolescence because there…”
BackgroundInteroception Drives Increased Rational Decision-Making in Meditators Playing the Ultimatum Game
Kirk, U., Downar, J. H., & Montague, P. R. (2011) · Frontiers in Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnins.2011.00049 · Cited by 178
“This sensitivity to fairness may be a uniquely human trait (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003).”
BackgroundConflict, sticks and carrots: war increases prosocial punishments and rewards
Gneezy, A., & Fessler, D. M. T. (2011) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.0805 · Cited by 158
A Survey of Self-Organization Mechanisms in Multiagent Systems
Ye, D., Zhang, M., & Vasilakos, A. V. (2016) · IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics Systems · doi:10.1109/tsmc.2015.2504350 · Cited by 173
“ber of disciplines, such as artificial intelligence [131], [132], physics [133], biology [134], sociology [135], and economics [136].”
BackgroundHuman prosociality from an evolutionary perspective: variation and correlations at a city-wide scale
Wilson, D. S., O'Brien, D. T., & Sesma, A. (2009) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.12.002 · Cited by 162
“Punishment takes the altruism out of first-order altruism by making it disadvantageous to cheat, but punishment itself counts as a form of altruism (what economists call a secondorder public goods problem) to the extent that it provides collective benefits at personal cost ( Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003, 2005 ).”
BackgroundKogan, A., Oveis, C., Carr, E. W., Gruber, J., Mauss, I. B., Shallcross, A. J., Impett, E. A., van der Löwe, I., Hui, B. P. H., Cheng, C., et al. (2014) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0037509 · Cited by 176
Alexithymia decreases altruism in real social decisions
FeldmanHall, O., Dalgleish, T., & Mobbs, D. (2012) · Cortex · doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2012.10.015 · Cited by 175
“Introduction extensive research cataloguing the putative relationship As a social species, humans are fundamentally motivated by the need for interindividual bonding and social attachment (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003).”
BackgroundSuicide as a derangement of the self-sacrificial aspect of eusociality.
Joiner, T. E., Hom, M. A., Hagan, C. R., & Silva, C. (2015) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/rev0000020 · Cited by 169
“This has been integral to our ability to succeed as a species on a grand scale (Gintis, 2000; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Wilson, 2012).”
BackgroundNeural mechanisms of social decision-making in the primate amygdala
Chang, S. W. C., Fagan, N. A., Toda, K., Utevsky, A. V., Pearson, J. M., & Platt, M. L. (2015) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1514761112 · Cited by 157
“In humans, these behaviors involve perspective-taking, empathy, and theory of mind (1, 2), and the rudiments of these capacities appear to mediate complex social behavior in animals (3).”
BackgroundRaihani, N., & Bshary, R. (2015) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.tree.2014.12.003 · Cited by 168
“, [32, 33]), findings from other studies are less straightforward to interpret.”
BackgroundMultiple gossip statements and their effect on reputation and trustworthiness
Sommerfeld, R. D., Krambeck, H.-J., & Milinski, M. (2008) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.0762 · Cited by 158
Prosocial preferences do not explain human cooperation in public-goods games
Burton-Chellew, M. N., & West, S. A. (2012) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1210960110 · Cited by 164
“In contrast to this prediction, most individuals do contribute something (typically around 40– 50%), and although contributions go down when play is repeated, groups continue to contribute 10–20% of their resources to the public good (4, 7).”
BackgroundEmpathy promotes altruistic behavior in economic interactions
Klimecki, O., Mayer, S. V., Jusyte, A., Scheeff, J., & Schönenberg, M. (2016) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/srep31961 · Cited by 174
“This was confirmed by Pearson’s chi-square tests that revealed no significant difference for gender (χ2(2) = 2, p = 0.”
Neural signatures of trust in reciprocity: A coordinate‐based meta‐analysis
Bellucci, G., Chernyak, S. V., Goodyear, K., Eickhoff, S. B., & Krueger, F. (2017) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.23451 · Cited by 160
“However, empirical studies have shown that trustors invest more than half of their initial endowment and trustees split the amount of money they received evenly [Camerer, 2003a; Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003; Johnson and Mislin, 2011].”
BackgroundIndirect reciprocity, image scoring, and moral hazard
Brandt, H., & Sigmund, K. (2005) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0407370102 · Cited by 178
Time-dependent changes in altruistic punishment following stress
Vinkers, C. H., Zorn, J. V., Cornelisse, S., Koot, S., Houtepen, L. C., Olivier, B., Verster, J. C., Kahn, R. S., Boks, M. P., Kalenscher, T., et al. (2013) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.12.012 · Cited by 159
“Human decisions are often made in the context of social interactions (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003).”
BackgroundMine or Yours? Development of Sharing in Toddlers in Relation to Ownership Understanding
Brownell, C. A., Iesue, S. S., Nichols, S. R., & Svetlova, M. (2012) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/cdev.12009 · Cited by 154
“This prosocial imperative creates and sustains human morality and the complex human social order (Bowles & Gintis, 2011; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Tomasello, 2009).”
Background
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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