TY - JOUR
T1 - It's a wonderful life
T2 - Signaling generosity among the Ache of Paraguay
AU - Gurven, Michael
AU - Allen-Arave, Wesley
AU - Hill, Kim
AU - Hurtado, Magdalena
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by an L.S.B Leakey Foundation Grant, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to M. Gurven and NSF Grant 9617692 to K. Hill and A.M. Hurtado. We are grateful to Paul Andrews, Hillard Kaplan, and Astrid Kodric-Brown for many insightful comments during initial revision of this manuscript, and to Martin Daly and Margo Wilson for all their assistance during the final revision. A special thanks to Kate Smith for coercing M. Gurven to watch It's a Wonderful Life shortly before he left for the field.
PY - 2000/7
Y1 - 2000/7
N2 - Intensive food sharing among foragers and horticulturists is commonly explained as a means of reducing the risk of daily shortfalls, ensuring adequate daily consumption for all group members who actively pool resources. Consistently high food producers who give more than they receive, however, gain the least risk-reduction benefit from this daily pooling because they are the least likely to go without food on any given day. Why then do some high producers consistently share food, and why do some average producers share proportionally more food than others? We propose that although these individuals may not receive the same amounts they give (i.e., strict Tit-for-Tat), one explanation for their generosity is that they receive additional food during hard times. These include brief episodes of sickness, disease, injury, or accidents - fairly common events in traditional societies that can render individuals incapable of producing food, thereby having long-term effects on morbidity and fecundity and ultimately on lifetime reproductive success. Data collected among the Ache, a group of South American forager-horticulturists, indicate that those who shared and produced more than average (signaling cooperative intent and/or ability to produce) were rewarded with more food from more people when injured or sick than those who shared and produced below average. These results, framed within the context of tradeoffs between short-term and long-term fitness, may provide insight into motivations behind costly expenditures for establishing and reinforcing status and reputation.
AB - Intensive food sharing among foragers and horticulturists is commonly explained as a means of reducing the risk of daily shortfalls, ensuring adequate daily consumption for all group members who actively pool resources. Consistently high food producers who give more than they receive, however, gain the least risk-reduction benefit from this daily pooling because they are the least likely to go without food on any given day. Why then do some high producers consistently share food, and why do some average producers share proportionally more food than others? We propose that although these individuals may not receive the same amounts they give (i.e., strict Tit-for-Tat), one explanation for their generosity is that they receive additional food during hard times. These include brief episodes of sickness, disease, injury, or accidents - fairly common events in traditional societies that can render individuals incapable of producing food, thereby having long-term effects on morbidity and fecundity and ultimately on lifetime reproductive success. Data collected among the Ache, a group of South American forager-horticulturists, indicate that those who shared and produced more than average (signaling cooperative intent and/or ability to produce) were rewarded with more food from more people when injured or sick than those who shared and produced below average. These results, framed within the context of tradeoffs between short-term and long-term fitness, may provide insight into motivations behind costly expenditures for establishing and reinforcing status and reputation.
KW - Altruism
KW - Food sharing
KW - Generosity
KW - Hunter-gatherers
KW - Reputation
KW - Status quest
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U2 - 10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00032-5
DO - 10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00032-5
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0034215531
SN - 1090-5138
VL - 21
SP - 263
EP - 282
JO - Evolution and Human Behavior
JF - Evolution and Human Behavior
IS - 4
ER -