Cultural group selection, coevolutionary processes and large-scale cooperation

Abstract

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.

Towards a unified science of cultural evolution

“…It is necessary to consider social entities as well. Significantly, recent literature rehabilitates group selection in culture as a higher-level complement to individual-level selection (Henrich 2004a). Mesoudi et al mention the issue of group selection once, but fail to elaborate on its significance.…”

The Meaning of Social Capital and Its Link to Collective Action

“…Second-generation collective-action theories acknowledge the existence of multiple types of individuals as a core principle of modeling (E. Ostrom 2005). In addition to the standard noncooperative game theory that has been the key modeling tool of the firstgeneration collective-action theories, second-generation theories also use behavioral and evolutionary game theories (Gintis 2000;Henrich 2004). Many models of collective action based on behavioral or evolutionary game theories still use the solution concepts of the standard noncooperative game theory to address new kinds of questions that are particularly relevant to social capital research.…”

A mathematical analysis of the evolution of human mate choice traits: Implications for evolutionary psychologists

“…The Price Equation has over the years become one of the most widely used algebraic formulations in evolutionary theorizing addressing a range of phenomena, from the evolution of morphological traits in various animals to the evolution of behavioral traits in humans (FLETCHER and ZWICK 2007;FRANK 1995FRANK , 1997GRAFEN 2002GRAFEN , 2006HENRICH 2004;MCELREATH and BOYD 2007;PAGE and NOWAK 2002; VAN VEELEN 2005).…”