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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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In the citing paper
“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]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
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]
In the citing paper
“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]
In the citing paper
“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]
In the citing paper
“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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BackgroundMurphy, R. O., & Ackermann, K. A. (2019) · Games · doi:10.3390/g10010015 · Cited by 66
When and Why Do Third Parties Punish Outside of the Lab? A Cross-Cultural Recall Study
Pedersen, E. J., McAuliffe, W. H. B., Shah, Y. J., Tanaka, H., Ohtsubo, Y., & McCullough, M. E. (2019) · Social Psychological and Personality Science · doi:10.1177/1948550619884565 · Cited by 40
Gao, J., & Chen, W. (2019) · Cities · doi:10.1016/j.cities.2019.102460 · Cited by 41
Cognitive control and dishonesty
Speer, S. P. H., Smidts, A., & Boksem, M. A. S. (2022) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2022.06.005 · Cited by 45
“Honesty is a strong social norm [72] that is fundamental to making social exchanges possible [73], and participants in empirical studies on dishonesty tend to assume that interaction partners are generally truthful [74].”
BackgroundCapuchins’ (Cebus apella) sensitivity to others’ goal-directed actions in a helping context
Drayton, L. A., & Santos, L. R. (2013) · Animal Cognition · doi:10.1007/s10071-013-0700-5 · Cited by 40
“These kinds of uniquely human cognitive abilities likely interact with species-specific motivational mechanisms, such as the desire to adhere to social norms or sensitivity to reputation formation (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003), to produce a range of altruistic behaviors not seen in the greater animal kingdom.”
BackgroundCourtiol, A., Michel Raymond, A., & Faurie, C. (2009) · Animal Behaviour · doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.09.016 · Cited by 42
Strength determines coalitional strategies in humans
Benenson, J. F., Markovits, H., Thompson, M. E., & Wrangham, R. W. (2009) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0314 · Cited by 40
“Explanations for such bounded rationality range from cultural group selection, where the strategies of a few influence those of a majority (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003), to natural selection for “fast and frugal” heuristics that outperform other strategies in the long-term (Trivers, 2006; Gigerenzer,…”
BackgroundMothes, H., Enge, S., & Strobel, A. (2015) · Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience · doi:10.3758/s13415-015-0388-x · Cited by 38
“Various studies have demonstrated that the pattern of human altruism is highly specific to our species as well as observable across diverse human societies (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Henrich et al., 2006).”
BackgroundSpeed or Greed? High Wages and Corruption Among Public Servants
Navot, D., Reingewertz, Y., & Cohen, N. (2016) · Administration & Society · doi:10.1177/0095399715623313 · Cited by 39
“…words, our findings are consistent with the idea that public officials may be motivated to serve the public to the extent that doing so accords with the norms of reciprocity and conditional obligations to others (Bowles & Gintis, 2000; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Henrich et al., 2001; Ostrom, 2005).”
ResultIs Fair Treatment Enough? Augmenting the Fairness-Based Perspective on Stakeholder Behaviour
Hayibor, S. (2015) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2665-6 · Cited by 38
“…that the development of reciprocity in an exchange relationship may be related to the frequency of interaction between the parties (Trivers 1971; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003), which suggests that a stakeholder’s exchange ideology in its relationship with a given firm may similarly be affected by…”
BackgroundGenetics and developmental biology of cooperation
Kasper, C., Vierbuchen, M., Ernst, U., Fischer, S., Radersma, R., Raulo, A., Cunha‐Saraiva, F., Wu, M. H., Mobley, K. B., & Taborsky, B. (2017) · Molecular Ecology · doi:10.1111/mec.14208 · Cited by 41
Uncertainty about social interactions leads to the evolution of social heuristics
van den Berg, P., & Wenseleers, T. (2018) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04493-1 · Cited by 44
Norms and the Flexibility of Moral Action
FeldmanHall, O., Son, J.-Y., & Heffner, J. (2018) · Personality Neuroscience · doi:10.1017/pen.2018.13 · Cited by 39
The role of prosocial behaviors in mate choice: A critical review of the literature
Bhogal, M. S., Farrelly, D., & Galbraith, N. D. (2019) · Current Psychology · doi:10.1007/s12144-019-00308-8 · Cited by 45
“Furthermore, natural field data investigating altruistic behavior has found that games such as the dictator game have ecological validity as they can be modified to resemble real-life scenarios (Falk & Fehr, 2003).”
BackgroundSelf-reliance crowds out group cooperation and increases wealth inequality
Gross, J., Veistola, S., Dreu, C. K. W. D., & van Dijk, E. (2020) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18896-6 · Cited by 42
Dagar, C., Pandey, A., & Navare, A. V. (2020) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-020-04654-7 · Cited by 42
Will being an angel bring more harm than good? Altruistic newsvendors with different risk attitudes
Choi, T., & Zhang, T. (2022) · European Journal of Operational Research · doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2022.06.043 · Cited by 39
Influence of Reciprocal Links in Social Networks
Zhu, Y.-X., Zhang, X., Sun, G., Tang, M., Zhou, T., & Zhang, Z. (2014) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0103007 · Cited by 42
Genetic and environmental influences on prosocial behavior.
Knafo‐Noam, A., & Israel, S. (2010) · American Psychological Association eBooks · doi:10.1037/12061-008 · Cited by 42
“empathy, helping, cooperation, and altruism (e.g., Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003; Graziano et”
Beauty Matters: Social Preferences in a Three-Person Ultimatum Game
Ma, Q., & Hu, Y. (2015) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0125806 · Cited by 44
“Our data demonstrated that the facial attractiveness of the third player provoked altruistic behavior in responders [62] and indicated that nearly half of the smaller shares (47.”
The Economics of Altruistic Punishment and the Demise of CooperationPreprint
Egas, M., & Riedl, A. M. (2005) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.745205 · Cited by 39
“Recently, the puzzle of human cooperation experiences a revival of interest (1-9).”
BackgroundExposure to the Covid-19 pandemic and generosityPreprint
Brañas‐Garza, P., Jorrat, D., Alfonso, A., Espín, A. M., García‐Muñoz, T., & Kovářík, J. (2020) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/6ktuz · Cited by 39
“…since we cannot effectively track the behavior of most people and reputation is often at stake due to the public nature of many actions (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003; Rand and Nowak, 2013), one cannot make precise inferences about the impact of the pandemic on “pure” prosociality within…”
BackgroundDi Lascio, F., Nyffeler, F., Bshary, R., & Bugnyar, T. (2013) · Animal Cognition · doi:10.1007/s10071-012-0548-0 · Cited by 38
“It has been argued that human cooperation differs from cooperation in other species because it is often based on psychological mechanisms like a sense of fairness, the willingness to punish cheaters and to reward co-operators at one’s own expenses (Fehr and Gächter 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003).”
BackgroundPfattheicher, S., Landhäußer, A., & Keller, J. (2013) · Journal of Behavioral Decision Making · doi:10.1002/bdm.1811 · Cited by 38
Two and a half-year-old children are prosocial even when their partners are not
Sebastián‐Enesco, C., Hernández‐Lloreda, M. V., & Colmenares, F. (2013) · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2013.05.007 · Cited by 38
A history of resistance to privatization in Russia
Dower, P. C., & Markevich, A. (2014) · Journal of Comparative Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jce.2014.05.004 · Cited by 38
EAGER FOR FAIRNESS OR FOR REVENGE? PSYCHOLOGICAL ALTRUISM IN ECONOMICS
Clavien, C., & Klein, R. A. (2010) · Economics and Philosophy · doi:10.1017/s0266267110000374 · Cited by 41
“It consists of a disposition to punish unfair agents even if costly and when the punishment provides neither present nor future material rewards (Fehr and Gächter 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003, 2005b).”
BackgroundPatterns of cooperation: fairness and coordination in networks of interacting agents
Do, A.-L., Rudolf, L., & Groß, T. (2010) · New Journal of Physics · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/12/6/063023 · Cited by 38
Takezawa, M., & Price, M. E. (2010) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2010.01.028 · Cited by 36
Sommerville, J. A. (2018) · Child Development Perspectives · doi:10.1111/cdep.12283 · Cited by 37
“Rather, these findings are consistent with the claim that fairness and altruism are linked theoretically (23).”
An evolutionary perspective on Kohlberg’s theory of moral development
Mathes, E. W. (2019) · Current Psychology · doi:10.1007/s12144-019-00348-0 · Cited by 65
Altruistic food sharing behavior by human infants after a hunger manipulation
Barragan, R. C., Rechele Brooks, A., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2020) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-020-58645-9 · Cited by 43
The emerging neuroscience of social punishment: Meta-analytic evidence
Bellucci, G., Camilleri, J. A., Iyengar, V., Eickhoff, S. B., & Krüeger, F. (2020) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.04.011 · Cited by 40
“SOP takes two essential forms: second-party punishment (SPP) and third-party punishment (TPP) (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003; Fehr and Gächter, 2002).”
BackgroundYu, J., Jiang, Z. J., & Chan, H. C. (2011) · IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication · doi:10.1109/tpc.2011.2121830 · Cited by 38
“An individual's image desire is a powerful force for encouraging cooperation in good public situations [25].”
Valuation of uncertain and delayed rewards in primate prefrontal cortex
Kim, S., Hwang, J., Seo, H., & Lee, D. (2009) · Neural Networks · doi:10.1016/j.neunet.2009.03.010 · Cited by 37
“This might result because human decision makers are sometimes altruistic and therefore choose actions that can increase the well-beings of others at the expense of their own (Fehr & Camerer, 2007; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003).”
Brosnan, S. F., Beran, M. J., Parrish, A. E., Price, S. A., & Wilson, B. J. (2013) · Evolutionary Psychology · doi:10.1177/147470491301100309 · Cited by 37
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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