What happens if there is no

contact at all
Social emotions
• Monkeys in solitary confinement
• Humans in harsh orphanages Altruism towards non-kin

Animals are nice to non-kin

• Grooming
• Warning cries
• Shared child care
• Food sharing
-- e.g., vampire bats

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 How could this evolve? The problem of cheaters
• Individuals benefit more by working • Cooperation is unstable
together than working alone -- the • Advantage to genes that lead animals to
reap the benefits without paying the costs
benefits outweigh the costs --
• Gene A: Accept blood from others; share
reciprocal altruism blood
• Gene B: Accept blood from others; don’t
• But … share blood
• Gene B will out-reproduce Gene A
• So how can altruism evolve?

Cheater detection
• Reciprocal altruism can only evolve if
animals punish cheaters
• This requires a lot of mental apparatus:
-- recognizing cheaters
-- remembering those individuals
-- motivation to punish

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A case-study of cooperation:
What all PDs share
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
• The best case is to defect while the
other person cooperates
• The worse case is to cooperate while
the other person defects
• Best for both is if each cooperate
• Worse for both is if each defect

MY SPOUSE
The puzzle NO YES

• Regardless of what your opponent

ME
does, it pays to defect
NO
• But if both people defect, both are
worse off!

YES

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 MY SPOUSE MY SPOUSE
NO YES NO YES

ME ME
We both do ok We both do ok
NO NO

I get everything
YES YES
Spouse loses
everything

MY SPOUSE MY SPOUSE
NO YES NO YES

ME ME
We both do ok I lose everything We both do ok I lose everything
NO NO
Spouse gets Spouse gets
everything everything

I get everything I get everything We both do pretty

YES YES
Spouse loses Spouse loses badly
everything everything

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 COUNTRY B COUNTRY B
NO YES NO YES

COUNTRY A COUNTRY A
Both do ok
NO NO

YES YES

COUNTRY B COUNTRY B
NO YES NO YES

COUNTRY A COUNTRY A
Both do ok Both do ok B gets everything
NO NO
A loses everything

A gets everything A gets everything

YES YES
B loses everything B loses everything

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 COUNTRY B
NO YES

COUNTRY A
Both do ok B gets everything
NO
A loses everything

A gets everything Both do pretty

YES
B loses everything badly

The competition TFT

63 computer programs • NICE - starts friendly
• NOT A SUCKER -- If you defect, it will
The winner defect back
Tit-for-Tat (TFT) (by Anatol Rapaport) • FORGIVING -- Once you’re nice, it’ll be
nice right back
(1) The first time you meet a new program,
• TRANSPARENT - Easy to figure out
cooperate
how to work together for mutual gain
(2) After that, do on each trial what the other
program did on the previous trial.

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 Social emotions and the
prisoners dilemma
• We feel GRATITUDE and LIKING for people
who cooperate with us. This motivates us to
be nice to them in the future
• We feel ANGER and DISTRUST toward
those who betray us. This motivates us to
betray or avoid them in the future
• We feel GULT when we betray someone
who cooperates with us. This motivates us to
behave better in the future

The moral of the Ultimatum

The Ultimatum Game
Game
• A has $10 • $1 is better than
nothing
• A can give B any amount he or she
• Therefore a rational
chooses (from $1 - $10).
person should
• B can either accept it, or reject it (if accept $1
reject -- then nobody gets anything) • Therefore A should
offer $1

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 But people are not purely
rational
• They won’t accept
unfair distributions
• They’ll reject them
just out of spite
• Therefore A has to
offer more

The usefulness of irrationality -- major cause of murder

is insult, curse, petty
• A rational person is easily exploited infraction
• Response to provocations and assault will -- “In chronically feuding
always be measured and appropriate and warring societies,
• A person with a temper has an advantage an essential manly
-- “Mess with me and I’ll kill you.” virtue is the capacity
• If this is convincing, the person won’t be for violence. To turn
messed with the other cheek is not
saintly, but stupid. Or
contemptibly weak.”

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 The importance of reputation
depends on the culture

Cultures of Honor Cultures of Honor

-- can’t rely on the law Scottish Highlanders, Masai warriors,
-- resources that are easily taken Bedouin tribesman, Western cowboys
(e.g., herders)
A reputation for excessive violent American South
retaliation is essential to keep your -- settled by Scottish and Irish herdsman
resources -- less centralized legal control

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 Honor as a psychological
What difference does it make?
phenomenon
-- Gun laws • Nisbett and Wilson
-- Corporal punishment • University of Michigan undergraduates
and capital punishment
-- attitudes toward the
• White males, non-Hispanic, non-Jewish
military • Provocation
-- more forgiving towards • Differences in testosterone, cortisol
crimes of honor
• Differences in later behavior
-- higher rate of violence,
but in certain • Not overall more violent
circumstances

Overall summary
• Fear, love towards kin, anger, “Everything is the way it is
gratitude, etc. are not aberrations or because it got that way.”
“noise” in the system
• Rather they are complex motivational
systems exquisitely crafted to deal with -- D’Arcy Thompson
the natural and social environment

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 Response #5

It is often said that people are intrinsically

selfish. Everything we do -- including acts that
appear to be generous or kind -- are actually
done out of self interest.

Do you think this is true? In your answer be

sure to discuss kin selection, reciprocal
altruism, “selfish genes’ and the difference
between ultimate and proximate explanations..

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