On the evolutionary stability of altruistic and spiteful preferences

Possajennikov, Alex

doi:10.1016/s0167-2681(00)00078-0

Cited by 76 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Robson (1990), to believe that inefficient outcomes may fail to be evolutionarily stable. 46 Güth (1995a), Güth and Yaari (1992), Joel M. Guttman (2000), and Alex Possajennikov (2000) all provide results with the same general flavor, with an emphasis on social preferences broadly consistent with those introduced to describe experimental outcomes.…”

Section: Green Beardsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Interdependent Preferences and Reciprocity

Sobel

2005

Journal of Economic Literature

739

418

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Experiments, ethnography, and introspection provide evidence economic agents do not act to maximize their narrowly defined self interest. Expanding the domain of preferences to include the utility of others provides a coherent way to extend rational choice theory. There are two approaches for including extended or social preferences in strategic models. One posits that agents have extended preferences, but maintains the conventional assumption that these preferences are stable. Prominent examples of this approach permit agents to exhibit concern for status, inequality, and social welfare. The other approach permits the strategic context to determine the nature of individual preferences. Context-dependent preferences can capture the possibility that agents are motivated in part by reciprocity. They may sacrifice personal consumption in order to lower the utility of unkind agents or to raise the utility of kind agents. This paper surveys the evidence in favor of social preferences and describes the implications of the leading theoretical models of extended preferences. It presents behavioral assumptions that characterize different types of social preferences. It investigates the extent to which social preferences may arise as the limit of evolutionary processes. It discusses the relationship between norms of reciprocity and social preferences in repeated interactions.

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Section: Green Beardsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Interdependent Preferences and Reciprocity

Sobel

2005

Journal of Economic Literature

739

418

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“…Far from validating informal evolutionary arguments for payoff-maximizing behavior, this work shows that many different systematic departures from payoff maximization may survive evolutionary pressures in various models. Individuals in these models may have preferences that differ from their true material payoffs due, for example, to concerns about fairness Yaari 1992, Huck andOechssler 1998), social status Weiss 1997, 1998), altruism (Bester and Güth 1998), spite (Possajennikov 2000, Bolle 2000, envy (Bergman and Bergman, 2000), relative rather than absolute success (Koçkesen, Ok, andSethi 2000a, 2000b), or overconfidence (Kyle andWang 1997, Benos 1998). The main results in these papers show that such biases or dispositions may be evolutionarily stable in particular models, and thus immune to the appearance of rational "mutants" who maximize their actual material payoffs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dynamic Evolution of Preferences

2006

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This paper develops a general methodology for characterizing the dynamic evolution of preferences in a wide class of strategic interactions. We give simple conditions characterizing the limiting distribution of preferences in general games, and apply our results to study the evolutionary emergence of overconfidence and interdependent preferences. We also show that this methodology can be adapted to cases where preferences are only imperfectly observed.

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“…Non-random or non-uniform matching might however increase the chance that structure is introduced into the population. 6 The indirect evolutionary approach has also been applied in different strategic settings (ultimatum game, Huck and Oechssler 1999) or to analyze the evolutionary stability of altruistic preferences (Bester and Güth 1998) or of altruistic and spiteful preferences (Possajennikov 2000). 7 Assuming m α > is necessary, since otherwise defection would still be the dominant strategy for norm-adopters.…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: Signaling Internalized Norms

Müller

Wangenheim

2014

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Economists have a long tradition in identifying the evolution of cooperation in large, unstructured societies as a puzzle. We suggest a new explanation for cooperation which avoids restrictions of most previous attempts. Our explanation deals with the role of internalized norms for cooperation in large unstructured populations. Even internalized norms, i.e. norms which alter the perceived utility from acting in a cooperative or in an uncooperative way, will not help to overcome a dilemma in an unstructured society, unless -and this is the thrust of the current paper -individuals are able to signal their property of being a norm bearer. Only when internalization of the norm may be communicated in a reliable way, the picture may change. We derive necessary and sufficient condition for cooperation to be part of an evolutionary stable equilibrium. These conditions relate signaling cost of norm-adopters and non-adopters, the strength of the social norm and parameter measuring the cost of cooperation. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may

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On the evolutionary stability of altruistic and spiteful preferences

Abstract: This note demonstrates that a result on evolutionary stability, presented by Bester and Güth (1998), applies under more general preference and payoff functions.JEL Classification: C72; A13

Cited by 76 publications

References 4 publications

Interdependent Preferences and Reciprocity

Interdependent Preferences and Reciprocity

The Dynamic Evolution of Preferences

Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: Signaling Internalized Norms

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