TY - JOUR
T1 - The evolution of altruistic punishment
AU - Boyd, Robert
AU - Gintis, Herbert
AU - Bowles, Samuel
AU - Richerson, Peter J.
PY - 2003/3/18
Y1 - 2003/3/18
N2 - Both laboratory and field data suggest that people punish noncooperators even in one-shot interactions. Although such "altruistic punishment" may explain the high levels of cooperation in human societies, it creates an evolutionary puzzle: existing models suggest that altruistic cooperation among nonrelatives is evolutionarily stable only in small groups. Thus, applying such models to the evolution of altruistic punishment leads to the prediction that people will not incur costs to punish others to provide benefits to large groups of nonrelatives. However, here we show that an important asymmetry between altruistic cooperation and altruistic punishment allows altruistic punishment to evolve in populations engaged in one-time, anonymous interactions. This process allows both altruistic punishment and altruistic cooperation to be maintained even when groups are large and other parameter values approximate conditions that characterize cultural evolution in the small-scale societies in which humans lived for most of our prehistory.
AB - Both laboratory and field data suggest that people punish noncooperators even in one-shot interactions. Although such "altruistic punishment" may explain the high levels of cooperation in human societies, it creates an evolutionary puzzle: existing models suggest that altruistic cooperation among nonrelatives is evolutionarily stable only in small groups. Thus, applying such models to the evolution of altruistic punishment leads to the prediction that people will not incur costs to punish others to provide benefits to large groups of nonrelatives. However, here we show that an important asymmetry between altruistic cooperation and altruistic punishment allows altruistic punishment to evolve in populations engaged in one-time, anonymous interactions. This process allows both altruistic punishment and altruistic cooperation to be maintained even when groups are large and other parameter values approximate conditions that characterize cultural evolution in the small-scale societies in which humans lived for most of our prehistory.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0037452939&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0037452939&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.0630443100
DO - 10.1073/pnas.0630443100
M3 - Article
C2 - 12631700
AN - SCOPUS:0037452939
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 100
SP - 3531
EP - 3535
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 6
ER -