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Is Strong Reciprocity a Maladaptation? On the Evolutionary Foundations of Human Altruism Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics Fehr, Ernst () (University of Zurich and IZA Bonn)
Henrich, Joseph (Emory University)
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In recent years a large number of experimental studies have documented the existence of strong reciprocity among humans. Strong reciprocity means that people willingly repay gifts and punish the violation of cooperation and fairness norms even in anonymous one-shot encounters with genetically unrelated strangers. We provide ethnographic and experimental evidence suggesting that ultimate theories of kin selection, reciprocal altruism, costly signalling and indirect reciprocity do not provide satisfactory evolutionary explanations of strong reciprocity. The problem of these theories is that they can rationalize strong reciprocity only if it is viewed as maladaptive behavior whereas the evidence suggests that it is an adaptive trait. Thus, we conclude that alternative evolutionary approaches are needed to provide ultimate accounts of strong reciprocity.
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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number
712.
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Length: 37 pages
Date of creation: Feb 2003Date of revision:
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Keywords: reciprocity maladaptation evolutionary foundations human altruism Other versions of this item:
Find related papers by JEL classification: A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
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Werner Güth & Kurt-Dieter Koschmieder & M. Vittoria Levati & Ev Martin, 2005.
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