Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP3860
Authors: Ernst Fehr; Joseph Henrich
Abstract: In recent years a large number of experimental studies have documented the existence of strong reciprocity among humans. Strong reciprocity means that people willingly repay gifts and punish the violation of cooperation and fairness norms even in anonymous one-shot encounters with genetically unrelated strangers. We provide ethnographic and experimental evidence suggesting that ultimate theories of kin selection, reciprocal altruism, costly signaling and indirect reciprocity do not provide satisfactory evolutionary explanations of strong reciprocity. The problem of these theories is that they can rationalize strong reciprocity only if it is viewed as maladaptive behaviour whereas the evidence suggests that it is an adaptive trait. Thus, we conclude that alternative evolutionary approaches are needed to provide ultimate accounts of strong reciprocity.
Keywords: evolutionary foundations; human altruism; maladaptation; reciprocity
JEL Codes: A13; C70; C91; C92
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| strong reciprocity (C71) | adaptive trait (D91) |
| strong reciprocity (C71) | cooperation in public goods situations (H41) |
| strong reciprocity (C71) | willingness to incur costs to reward fair behavior (D23) |
| strong reciprocity (C71) | willingness to punish unfair behavior (D63) |
| existing evolutionary theories (kin selection and reciprocal altruism) (D64) | inadequate explanation of strong reciprocity (D64) |