Culture does account for variation in game behavior

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2014

Much evidence supports the idea that selection on cultural groups is an important factor in human history. Human groups operate according to culturally transmitted institutions that vary substantially from group to group. Groups compete for members and other resources, sometimes violently, sometimes peacefully, and the outcome of competition is often a function of differences in the institutions of the groups. Similar group functional institutions are often present in many phylogenetically related daughter societies. Human cultural groups have all the key attributes of a Darwinian evolutionary system. Alternative explanations do not yet account for the structuring of groups by institutions.

Synopsis: We analyze social dynamics in a continuous population where randomly matched individuals have to choose between two pure strategies only (`cooperate' (C) and`not cooperate' (NC)). Individual payoffs associated with the possible outcomes of each interaction may differ across groups, depending on the speci®c social and cultural context to which each agent belongs. In particular, it is assumed that three sub-populations are initially present, `framing' the game according to the prisoner's dilemma (PD), assurance game (AG) and other regarding (OR) payoff con®gurations, respectively. In other words, we assume that common knowledge about the payoffs of the game is`culturally-speci®c'. In this context, we examine both the adoption process of strategies C and NC within each sub-population and the diffusion process of`types' (PD, AG and OR) within the overall community. On the basis of an evolutionary game-theoretic approach, the paper focuses on the problem of coexistence of PD, AG and OR groups as well as of`nice' (C) and`mean' (NC) strategies. We show that coexistence between C and NC is possible in the heterogeneous community under examination, even if it is ruled out in homogeneous communities where only one of the three types is present.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1989

We consider an evolutionary game model in which strategies are transmitted culturally from parents to offspring rather than inherited biologically. Our analysis yields two noteworthy results. First, biocultural games show a greater diversity of dynamical behaviors than their purely biological counterparts, including multiple fully polymorphic equilibria. Second, biocultural games on average exhibit greater equilibrium strategy diversity because of the countervailing influences of cultural transmission and natural selection. Therefore, knowledge of a strategy's influence on Darwinian fitness is not sufficient to infer the evolutionary consequences of biocultural games. Further, our results suggest that cultural transmission in the presence of natural selection may be an important mechanism maintaining behavioral diversity in natural populations.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2010

Does the cultural background influence the success with which genetically unrelated individuals cooperate in social dilemma situations? In this paper, we provide an answer by analysing the data of Herrmann et al. (2008a), who studied cooperation and punishment in 16 subject pools from six different world cultures (as classified by Inglehart & Baker (2000)). We use analysis of variance to disentangle the importance of cultural background relative to individual heterogeneity and group-level differences in cooperation. We find that culture has a substantial influence on the extent of cooperation, in addition to individual heterogeneity and group-level differences identified by previous research. The significance of this result is that cultural background has a substantial influence on cooperation in otherwise identical environments. This is particularly true in the presence of punishment opportunities.

Journal of Bioeconomics, 2008

In group-structured populations, altruistic cooperation among unrelated group members may be sustainable even when the evolution of behavioral traits is governed by a payoff-based replicator dynamic. This paper explores the importance in this dynamic of two aspects of group structure: global or local interaction in a public goods game and global or local cultural transmission (learning) of behavioral traits. To clarify the underlying dynamic, I derive an extension of the Price equation for the decomposition of changes in the population frequency of a binary trait. I use this to analyze the effect of different structures of interaction and learning on within-and between-group variances of the frequency of cooperative behaviors and thereby on the evolution of cooperation. Of the four population structures given by global/local learning and global/local interaction, local interaction with global learning provides the most favorable environment for the evolution of cooperation. This combination of learning and interaction structures supports a high level of between-group variance in the frequency of cooperative types, so that most cooperators benefit from being in groups composed mostly of cooperators. However, while global learning is essential to the evolution of cooperation, cooperation is more robust when learning is not entirely global because local learning process, ironically, limits the extent to which defectors can free ride on cooperative group members.

Documentos de Trabajo, 2008

Why does an altruistically inclined player behave altruistically in some contexts and egoistically or spitefully in others? This article provides an economic explanation to this question. The basic argument is centered on the idea that social norms shape our preferences through a ...

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2004

In constructing improved models of human behavior, both experimental and behavioral economists have increasingly turned to evolutionary theory for insights into human psychology and preferences. Unfortunately, the existing genetic evolutionary approaches can explain neither the degree of prosociality (altruism and altruistic punishment) observed in humans, nor the patterns of variation in these behaviors across different behavioral domains and social groups. Ongoing misunderstandings about why certain models work, what they predict, and what the place is of "group selection" in evolutionary theory have hampered the use of insights from biology and anthropology. This paper clarifies some of these issues and proposes an approach to the evolution of prosociality rooted in the interaction between cultural and genetic transmission. I explain how, in contrast to non-cultural species, the details of our evolved cultural learning capacities (e.g., imitative abilities) create the conditions for the cultural evolution of prosociality. By producing multiple behavioral equilibria, including group-beneficial equilibria, cultural evolution endogenously generates a mechanism of equilibrium selection that can favor prosociality. Finally, in the novel social environments left in the wake of these cultural evolutionary processes, natural selection is likely to favor prosocial genes that would not be expected in a purely genetic approach.

In group-structured populations, altruistic cooperation among unrelated group members may be sustainable even when the evolution of behavioral traits is gov- erned by a payo-based replicator dynamic. This paper explores the importance in this dynamic of two aspects of group structure: interaction in a public goods game and the cultural transmission of behavioral traits. Agents are paired with others to play the game and (independently of this) to learn from a cultural model. Where pairing is global, one’s game partners and cultural model are drawn from the entire population. Or pairing may be local, in which case one’s game partners will be the same from period to period, and one’s cultural models will be drawn from one’s game partners. To clarify the underlying dynamic I derive an extension of the Price equation for the decomposition of changes in the population frequency of a binary trait and analyze the eect of dieren t structures of social interaction on within- and between-grou...

Analyse and Kritik, 2021

Evolutionarily-minded scholars working on the most puzzling aspects of human cooperation-one-shot, anonymous interactions among non-kin where reputational information is not available-can be roughly divided into two camps. In the first, researchers argue for the existence of evolved capacities for genuinely altruistic human cooperation, and in their models emphasize the role of intergroup competition and selection, as well as group norms and markers of membership that reduce intragroup variability. Researchers in the second camp explain cooperation in terms of individual-level decision-making facilitated by evolved cognitive mechanisms associated with well-established self- and kin-maximization models, as well as by ‘misfires’ that may result from these mechanisms interacting with novel environments. This essay argues that the manner in which culture provides information that de-anonymizes intragroup strangers suggests that neither evolved capacities for genuine altruism nor widespread misfires are necessary to account for anonymous, one-shot cooperation.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2005

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model -based on self-interest -fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life. .