The Evolutionary Dynamics of Spite in Finite Populations

Abstract

Spite, the shady relative of altruism, involves paying a fitness cost to inflict a cost on some recipient. Here, we investigate a density dependent dynamic model for the evolution of spite in populations of changing size. We extend the model by introducing a dynamic carrying capacity. Our analysis shows that it is possible for unconditionally spiteful behavior to evolve without population structure in any finite population. In some circumstances spiteful behavior can contribute to its own stability by limiting population growth.We use the model to show that there are differences between spite and altruism, and to refine Hamilton's original argument about the insignificance of spite in the wild. We also discuss the importance of fixing the measure of fitness to classify behaviors as selfish or spiteful. Biological altruism is social behavior that incurs a fitness cost to confer a fitness benefit on other individuals. If altruism involves paying a cost to benefit another, spite involves paying a cost to inflict a cost on another. After Hamilton (1964a,b) showed that correlated interactions among kin can produce the evolution of altruistic behavior, he and Price (1970) came to realize that spiteful behavior could evolve by a similar process (Hamilton 1970(Hamilton , 1971. Often, spiteful behavior is unstable, but we show that it can evolve and be maintained under specific conditions. We present and analyze a variation on Hamilton's model that includes evolutionary dynamics in populations of changing size.We will use correlation and anticorrelation to describe nonrandom social interactions. Correlation increases the chance of interacting with an individual of the same type, whereas anticorrelation increases the chance of interacting with an individual of a different type. Many have shown that this kind of assortment plays an important role in the evolution of cooperation (Eshel and Cavelli-Sforza 1982, Queller 1985, Skyrms 1996, Fletcher and Doebeli 2009. In contrast, a standard approach for modeling the evolution of spite emphasizes the role of negative relatedness (Grafen 1985, Taylor 1996, Frank 1998, Lehmann et al. 2006, West and Gardner 2010. Our rationale for adopting the first approach is twofold. First, although much of our analysis can be reinterpreted in terms of negative relatedness, we wish to make clear that the formal conditions for the evolution of spite do not directly involve any assumptions about genetic relatedness and can be expressed without these notions. This is important because there are mechanisms that can generate anticorrelation (or negative assortment) that do not depend on genetic composition or recognition. Second, evolutionary dynamics in game theoretic settings often have multiple interpretations, some of which are cultural rather than biological (Hofbauer and Sigmund 1998). Although our model is clearly motivated by the biological interpretation, we suspect that it may be possible to extend some of our analysis to settings of cultural evolution. A more generic approach in terms ...

A Big Tent of Dark Personality Traits

“…Similarly, creditors who engage in “coercive collection” by paying more in fees to collection agencies and attorneys than the value of the debt may be engaging in spiteful behavior (Leff, ). Because spiteful acts may benefit the non‐recipients of the act (e.g., the bacteria that survive the toxin now have access to more resources, the coercively collecting creditor helps enforce the prosocial norm that people should pay their debts), Smead and Forber () have dubbed spite “the shady relative of altruism” (p. 698). However, spite has also been linked to a variety of destructive behaviors including contentious custody battles during divorces that can harm parents' relationships with their children (Scott, ); persistent litigants and petitioners whose escalating complaints can result in legal, financial, and interpersonal losses to the complainant (Mullen & Lester, ); self‐injury by patients with borderline personality disorder as a way to punish people who care about the patient (Critchfield, Levy, Clarkin, & Kernberg, ); and at the extreme, spiteful suicides in which the act is partly committed to traumatize another (Joiner, ).…”

Evolution and the classification of social behavior

“…Territory contests are cases where aggressive behavior will be classified as selfish in some interactions, and spiteful in others. Furthermore, recent work on the evolutionary dynamics of social interactions reveals both interesting connections and important distinctions between various social behaviors (Lehmann et al 2006;West and Gardner 2010;Smead and Forber 2013). These observations suggest that classifying social behaviors will be more accurate and relevant if it is done in a way that captures such strategic features.…”

Can natural selection favour indiscriminate spite?

“…We showed that misclassification of indiscriminate harming is due to an implicit 274 assumption that the focal actor is a secondary recipient of its own behaviour (Hamilton 1970(Hamilton , 1971Grafen 1985;Vickery et al 2003;Taylor 2010;Smead & Forber 2012). This means that 276 some of the actor's direct benefit of harming has been accounted for by a fraction of the fitness effects on recipients, giving the appearance of an indirect benefit (RB > 0).…”