Kinship and altruism: A cross-cultural experimental study (original) (raw)
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Altruism among kin vs. nonkin: Effects of cost of help and reciprocal exchange
Evolutionary principles suggest that there will be differences in the nature of altruism directed toward kin vs. nonkin. The present study sought to explore these differences. Participants were 295 undergraduate students who each completed a questionnaire about help exchanged with siblings, cousins, acquaintances or friends. For siblings, cousins and acquaintances, greater relatedness was associated with higher levels of helping. Friends were an exception, however, receiving as much or more help than kin. Consistent with an evolutionary analysis, as the cost of helping increased, kin received a larger share of the help given, whereas nonkin received a smaller share. For low-cost help, people helped friends more than siblings; for medium-cost help, they helped siblings and friends equally; and for high-cost help, they expressed a greater willingness to help siblings than friends. As expected, the level of reciprocal exchange was higher among acquaintances than among friends; however, there was also an unexpectedly high level of reciprocal exchange among kin. D
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2007
Recent research on kin investment shows a matrilateral bias as a function of paternity uncertainty. Kin investment, however, is a special case of kin altruism. We thus hypothesize that psychological adaptations have evolved to regulate cousin-directed altruism according to predictably variable levels of paternity uncertainty in different categories of cousins. We develop a formal mathematical model that predicts that individuals should be most willing to act altruistically towards their mother's sister's (MoSis) children and least willing to act altruistically towards their father's brother's (FaBro) children. Altruism towards father's sister's (FaSis) and mother's brother's (MoBro) children are predicted to fall in between. An empirical study (N=195), assessing expressed altruistic proclivities, confirmed the predictions from the model. Participants expressed willingness-to-help following the descending order: (i) MoSis children, (ii) MoBro children,...
Smith and Smith claimed that altruistic action "is intended to benefit others beyond simple sociability or duties associated with role." This definition will need to be carefully applied to behavior in communal cultures as they have extended obligation networks, the basis of which are expected helping behaviors offered to others in the network. Therefore, behaviors that would be captured by the coding scheme in an individualistic culture would not necessarily be seen as altruistic in a communal culture as they may be non-voluntary and role-related. Six components of altruistic behavior are addressed here, and two of these are predicted to differ according to the culture in which they are enacted. These are determining whether the act was motivated by a primary concern for the other and whether the actor would be likely to engage in self blame if he or she did not engage in the action. The other three components of altruistic behavior are postulated to operate pan-culturally. They are actual benefit to the recipient, empathy, cost to the initiator, and ease of escape from social censure.
Revisiting Psychological Mechanisms in the Anthropology of Altruism
Human Nature, 2016
Anthropologists have long been interested in the reasons humans choose to help some individuals and not others. Early research considered psychological mediators, such as feelings of cohesion or closeness, but more recent work, largely in the tradition of human behavioral ecology, shifted attention away from psychological measures to clearer observables, such as past behavior, genetic relatedness, affinal ties, and geographic proximity. In this paper, we assess the value of reintegrating psychological measures-perceived social closeness-into the anthropological study of altruism. Specifically, analyzing social network data from four communities in rural Bangladesh (N = 516), we show that perceived closeness has a strong independent effect on helping, which cannot be accounted for by other factors. These results illustrate the potential value of reintegrating proximate psychological measures into anthropological studies of human cooperation. Keywords Emotional closeness. Social closeness. Social networks. Helping. Friendship. Altruism Early anthropological efforts to understand patterns of human cooperation placed an emphasis on psychological measures, such as feelings of social cohesion (Sahlins 1972), shared identity (Myers 1988), and intimacy (Malinowski 2002), as fundamental determinants of cooperative social behaviors. By contrast, more recent work, especially in evolutionary anthropology, has switched to a focus on readily measured variables-most Hum Nat
A cue of kinship promotes cooperation for the public good
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2008
Relatedness is a cornerstone of the evolution of social behavior. In the human lineage, the existence of cooperative kin networks was likely a critical stepping stone in the evolution of modern social complexity. Here we report the results of the first experimental manipulation of a putative cue of human kinship (facial self-resemblance) among ostensible players in a variant of the "tragedy of the commons," the oneshot public goods game, in which group-level cooperation-via contributions made to the public good and the punishment of free riders-is supported at a personal cost. In accordance with theoretical predictions, contributions increased as a function of the "kin density" of the group. Moreover, the distribution of punishment was not contingent on kin density level. Our findings indicate that the presence of a subtle cue of genealogical relatedness facilitates group cooperation, supporting the hypothesis that the mechanisms fostering contemporary sociality took root in extended family networks.
The Effect of Kinship on Intergenerational Cooperation: A Lab Experiment with Three Generations
Game Theory & Bargaining Theory eJournal, 2016
In this paper, we analyze how kinship among family members affects intergenerational cooperation in a public good game. 165 individuals from 55 families, comprising three generations (youths, parents, and grandparents), play a public good game in three different treatments: one in which three members of the same family play each other (family), a second with the youth and two non-family members but preserving the previous generational structure (intergenerational), and a third in which three randomly-selected players play each other (random). We find that players contribute more to the public good when they play with other family members, than when they play with non-family members. This effect is present in all three generations, and is independent of the gender of the players. We also observe the significant result that older generations contribute more to the public good, relative to their children.
2011
Smith and Smith claimed that altruistic action "is intended to benefit others beyond simple sociability or duties associated with role." This definition will need to be carefully applied to behavior in communal cultures as they have extended obligation networks, the basis of which are expected helping behaviors offered to others in the network. Therefore, behaviors that would be captured by the coding scheme in an individualistic culture would not necessarily be seen as altruistic in a communal culture as they may be non-voluntary and role-related. Six components of altruistic behavior are addressed here, and two of these are predicted to differ according to the culture in which they are enacted. These are determining whether the act was motivated by a primary concern for the other and whether the actor would be likely to engage in self blame if he or she did not engage in the action. The other three components of altruistic behavior are postulated to operate pan-culturally. They are actual benefit to the recipient, empathy, cost to the initiator, and ease of escape from social censure.
Psychological aspects of adaptations for kin directed altruistic helping behaviors Daniel J. Kruger
www-personal.umich.edu
A questionnaire study sheds light on the psychological component of kin selecting tendencies predicted by inclusive fitness theory of discriminatory altruistic behavior based on genetic similarity. Participants rated donations of assistance aiding survival and material wealth as more rational and ethical when these actions were performed for closer relatives. Participants also felt a greater obligation to perform these acts for a close relation. A comparison condition where assistance was unlikely to affect survival or reproductive success did not exhibit these tendencies.
British Journal of Psychology, 2009
Human infants as young as 14 to 18 months of age help others attain their goals, for example, by helping them to fetch out-of-reach objects or opening cabinets for them. They do this irrespective of any reward from adults (indeed external rewards undermine the tendency), and very likely with no concern for such things as reciprocation and reputation, which serve to maintain altruism in older children and adults. Humans’ nearest primate relatives, chimpanzees, also help others instrumentally without concrete rewards. These results suggest that human infants are naturally altruistic, and as ontogeny proceeds and they must deal more independently with a wider range of social contexts, socialization and feedback from social interactions with others become important mediators of these initial altruistic tendencies.