CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 175Evolutionary Game Theory and CooperationEvolutionary Psychology and Human BehaviorLanguage and cultural evolution

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 88 of the 88 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The evolutionary interplay of intergroup conflict and altruism in humans: a review of parochial altruism theory and prospects for its extension

Open access
Rusch, Hannes·2014·Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
DOI 10.1098/rspb.2014.1539PMC PMC4211448
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Drawing on an idea proposed by Darwin, it has recently been hypothesized that violent intergroup conflict might have played a substantial role in the evolution of human cooperativeness and altruism. The central notion of this argument, dubbed 'parochial altruism', is that the two genetic or cultural traits, aggressiveness against the out-groups and cooperativeness towards the in-group, including self-sacrificial altruistic behaviour, might have coevolved in humans. This review assesses the explanatory power of current theories of 'parochial altruism'. After a brief synopsis of the existing literature, two pitfalls in the interpretation of the most widely used models are discussed: potential direct benefits and high relatedness between group members implicitly induced by assumptions about conflict structure and frequency. Then, a number of simplifying assumptions made in the construction of these models are pointed out which currently limit their explanatory power. Next, relevant empirical evidence from several disciplines which could guide future theoretical extensions is reviewed. Finally, selected alternative accounts of evolutionary links between intergroup conflict and intragroup cooperation are briefly discussed which could be integrated with parochial altruism in the future.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1098/rspb.2014.1539

Cites

88 of 88 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 84 references

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 175

Related

Metadata

Authors
Rusch, H.
Affiliations
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (DE)
Corresponding author
Rusch, Hannes
ORCID
Rusch, Hannes
Venue
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
Publisher
The Royal Society
Published
2014-11-07
Volume
281
Issue
1794
Pages
20141539
ISSN
  • 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
  • 0962-8452
  • 1471-2954
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2014.1539
PMC
PMC4211448
OpenAlex
W2116385047
Cited by
175
References
84
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 1
FWCI
5.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Publications (Maastricht University) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
Keywords
parochial altruism, intergroup conflict, altruism, evolution of cooperation, in-group favoritism, coevolution, relatedness, conflict structure, Charles Darwin
MeSH terms
Aggression, Altruism, Animals, Conflict, Psychological, Cooperative Behavior, Culture, Biological Evolution, Female, Humans, Male, Models, Theoretical

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review