Competitive altruism: from reciprocity to the handicap principle

Abstract

Current work on cooperation is focused on the theory of reciprocal altruism. However, reciprocity is just one way of getting a return on an investment in altruism and is di¤cult to apply to many examples. Reciprocity theory addresses how animals respond dynamically to others so as to cooperate without being exploited. I discuss how introducing di¡erences in individual generosity together with partner choice into models of reciprocity can lead to an escalation in altruistic behaviour. Individuals may compete for the most altruistic partners and non-altruists may become ostracized. I refer to this phenomenon as competitive altruism and propose that it can represent a move away from the dynamic responsiveness of reciprocity. Altruism may be rewarded in kind, but rewards may be indirectly accrued or may not involve the return of altruism at all, for example if altruists tend to be chosen as mates. This variety makes the idea of competitive altruism relevant to behaviours which cannot be explained by reciprocity. I consider whether altruism might act as a signal of quality, as proposed by the handicap principle. I suggest that altruistic acts could make particularly e¡ective signals because of the inherent bene¢ts to receivers. I consider how reciprocity and competitive altruism are related and how they may be distinguished.

Fish cognition: a primate's eye view

“…Cleaners profit from their altruism because clients that visit a cleaning station reproduce the behaviour of the previous client, that is, they invite for inspection if they witnessed a positive interaction and flee from the approaching cleaner if they saw the previous client flee as well. Cleaners thus have a short-term image or social prestige (Alexander 1987;Zahavi 1995;Nowak and Sigmund 1998;Roberts 1998) that determines the probability of getting access to new potential co-operation partners. Though all incoming clients copy the behaviour of the previous clients, cleaner fish behaviour is only influenced by the presence of clients with choice options, while the presence of clients without choice options does not alter their behaviour.…”

Sexual selection and the evolution of evolvability

“…In particular, it would be very interesting to model those forms of selection that have been developed to explain costly altruism (for example, group selection) which may also allow for an elevated mutation rate. Interestingly, Sexual selection and the evolution of evolvability M Petrie and G Roberts sexual selection has also been invoked to explain costly altruism (Roberts, 1998). Sexual selection is a widely recognized mechanism that operates counter to natural selection and can act to produce higher mutation rates, in an exactly analogous way to how sexual selection produces and maintains morphological traits (such as the peacock's train) that are costly under natural selection.…”

Second to fourth digit ratio and cooperative behavior

“…However, the cost incurred by such a type of behavior has been identified as a costly signal of some underlying quality (e.g. Glazer & Komad, 1996;Roberts, 1998;Zahavi & Zahavi, 1997). Consistent with the costly signaling perspective on altruism, altruistic behavior has been shown to be 2D:4D and cooperative behavior 5 competitive on some occasions (Barclay, 2004), and has been shown to increase status, both in fieid settings (Bliege-bird, Smith, & Bird, 2001) and in lab situations (Dewitte & De Cremer, 2004).…”