When in Rome, do as the Romans do: the coevolution of altruistic punishment, conformist learning, and cooperation

Guzmán, Ricardo Andrés and Rodríguez-Sickert, Carlos and Rowthorn, Robert (2006): When in Rome, do as the Romans do: the coevolution of altruistic punishment, conformist learning, and cooperation. Published in: Evolution and Human Behavior , Vol. 28, No. 2 (March 2007): pp. 112-117.

Abstract

We model the coevolution of behavioral strategies and social learning rules in the context of a cooperative dilemma, a situation in which individuals must decide whether or not to subordinate their own interests to those of the group. There are two learning rules in our model, conformism and payoff-dependent imitation, which evolve by natural selection, and three behavioral strategies, cooperate, defect, and cooperate plus punish defectors, which evolve under the influence of the prevailing learning rules. Group and individual level selective pressures drive evolution.

We also simulate our model for conditions that approximate those in which early hominids lived. We find that conformism can evolve when the only problem that individuals face is a cooperative dilemma, in which prosocial behavior is always costly to the individual. Furthermore, the presence of conformists dramatically increases the group size for which cooperation can be sustained. The results of our model are robust: they hold even when migration rates are high, and when conflict among groups is infrequent.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Institution: Universidad Católica
• Language: English
• Keywords: Evolution of behavior; Social learning; Cooperation; Conformism; Altruistic punishment; Public good games
• Subjects: Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification; H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H41 - Public Goods; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology

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