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Social semantics: altruism, cooperation, mutualism, strong reciprocity and group selection.
Abstract
From an evolutionary perspective, social behaviours are those which have fitness consequences for both the individual that performs the behaviour, and another individual. Over the last 43 years, a huge theoretical and empirical literature has developed on this topic. However, progress is often hindered by poor communication between scientists, with different people using the same term to mean different things, or different terms to mean the same thing. This can obscure what is biologically important, and what is not. The potential for such semantic confusion is greatest with interdisciplinary research. Our aim here is to address issues of semantic confusion that have arisen with research on the problem of cooperation. In particular, we: (i) discuss confusion over the terms kin selection, mutualism, mutual benefit, cooperation, altruism, reciprocal altruism, weak altruism, altruistic punishment, strong reciprocity, group selection and direct fitness; (ii) emphasize the need to distinguish between proximate (mechanism) and ultimate (survival value) explanations of behaviours. We draw examples from all areas, but especially recent work on humans and microbes.
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“Those facts are incompatible with the idea that selection pressures against individually selfish behavior would be significant (West et al., 2007).”
From Hypotheses for the Evolution of Reduced Reactive Aggression in the Context of Human Self-Domestication (2019) · cites this paper as West et al., 2007
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Metadata
- Authors
- WEST, S. A., GRIFFIN, A. S., & GARDNER, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- Queen's University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- WEST, S. A.
- Venue
- Journal of Evolutionary Biology
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2006-10-16
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 415-432
- ISSN
- 1010-061X (ISSN-L)
- 1420-9101
- OpenAlex
- W2124337033
- Cited by
- 1,889
- References
- 187
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 66 · 2024: 82 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 69 · 2021: 114 · 2020: 72 · 2019: 102 · 2018: 105 · 2017: 75 · 2016: 97 · 2015: 103 · 2014: 104 · 2013: 95 · 2012: 106
- FWCI
- 29.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Evolutionary Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Korea Institute of Energy Research
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- social semantics, cooperation, altruism, mutualism, strong reciprocity, group selection, kin selection, reciprocal altruism, altruistic punishment, direct fitness, proximate and ultimate explanations, social behavior, human evolution, microbial evolution, terminology confusion
- MeSH terms
- Altruism, Animals, Cooperative Behavior, Biological Evolution, Humans, Terminology as Topic, Social Behavior
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